The life and times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodists. Vol. 3 (of 3) (part 1 of 4)

Opening

THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF THE

REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.,

Founder of the Methodists.

BY THE

REV. L. TYERMAN,

AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE AND TIMES OF REV. S. WESLEY, M.A.,” (Father of the Revds. J. and C. Wesley).

WITH AN APPENDIX BY ABEL STEVENS, LL.D.,

AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF METHODISM.”

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE.

1872.

GENERAL CONTENTS.

VOL. III.

1768.

PAGE

Whitefield--Berridge--Countess of Buchan--Conversation--Original Letter by Fletcher--Yearly Collection--Wesley’s first Visit to Chatham--Methodist Jottings--Methodism in Congleton, etc.-- Wesley’s Credulity--Christian Perfection--Skirmishes before the Battle--Wesley’s Will--Rev. Thomas Adam--Fletcher of Madeley-- Singing--Illness of Wesley’s Wife--Preaching and Trading--How to revive Religion--Witness of the Spirit--Spitalfields Chapel-- Laurence Coughlan--Methodism at Taunton, Frome, and Oxford--Chapel Debts--Remarks on Books--Expulsion of Oxford Students--College at Trevecca--Wesley’s Publications--John Wilkes 1-38

1769.

Political Excitement--Whitefield--Female Preaching--Wesley in Ireland--Hugh Saunderson--Conference of 1769--Methodism in America--Scheme to perpetuate Methodism--Anniversary of Trevecca College--“Shepherd of Salisbury Plain”--Calvinian Controversy-- Wesley’s Publications 39-57

1770.

Remarks on Books--Christian Perfection--Whitefield’s College in Georgia--Riding on Horseback--Lady Glenorchy--Methodism in Sweden--Methodism at Yeadon and Loughborough--Conference of 1770--Doctrinal Minutes--Calvinian Controversy--Death of Whitefield--Original Letters--Wesley’s Publications--Toplady 58-83

1771.

Rev. Richard De Courcy--Sounds of coming Battle--Wesley and the Gospel Magazine--Letter to Lady Huntingdon--Shirley’s Circular-- Original Letter by Fletcher--Calvinian Controversy--Methodist Discipline--Female Preaching--Wesley’s Publications 84-113

1772.

Slavery--Methodism at Poplar--Correspondence with Mr. Sparrow-- Methodism at Leek and Nantwich--David Hume--Ministerial Responsibility--Medical Examination--Revivals in Everton and Weardale--Conference of 1772--Cornelius Winter--Ceaseless Labours--National Distress and its Remedies--The Christian Community--Calvinian Controversy--Wesley’s Publications 114-146

1773.

American Rebellion--Wesley’s proposed Successor--Methodism in America and Antigua--Itinerancy--Chapel Debts--Wesley and his Carriage--Wesley’s Book Property--Conference of 1773--Feast and Fast Days--Communion of Saints--Calvinian Controversy-- Wesley’s Publications 147-162

1774.

Wesley’s Health--Rev. David Simpson--Methodism at Bury--Wesley in Scotland--A Marvellous Escape--Ghosts and Witches--“The Fool of Quality”--Wesley and an Artist--Methodism in America and Newfoundland--Conference of 1774--Norwich Methodism--An Adventure--Calvinian Controversy--Wesley’s Publications-- Slavery 163-184

1775.

National Excitement--American War of Independence--Death of Peter Bohler--Wesley dangerously Ill in Ireland--Congratulations-- Giving Advice--Conference of 1775--Calvinian Controversy-- William Pine--Wesley’s Publications 185-211

1776.

Fletcher travelling with Wesley--Dr. Coke--Enforcing Discipline-- Methodism in London--City Road Chapel--Plan of London Circuit in 1792--London Circuit Book--Methodism at Chesterfield-- Conference of 1776--Cantankerous Methodists--Methodism in the Isle of Man--Quarrelling Schoolboys--Wesley’s Wife-- Wesley’s Publications--Wesley’s Loyalty 212-235

1777.

American Rebellion--Dr. Dodd--City Road Chapel--Rev. Edward Smyth--Catastrophe at Colne--“A Snug Circuit”--“Are the Methodists a fallen People?”--John Hilton--Fletcher at the Conference of 1777--Methodism in America--Francis Asbury--_Arminian Magazine_--Bishop Lowth--“Strangers’ Friend Society”--Rowland Hill attacks Wesley--Gospel Magazine--Calvinian Controversy-- Wesley’s Publications 236-260

1778.

Thomas Maxfield--Infamous Publications--Death of Toplady-- National Alarm--Separation from the Church--Conference of 1778--Stationing Preachers--Mission to Africa proposed--Duncan McAllum--John Baxter embarks for Antigua--Opening of City Road Chapel--Rev. James Creighton--Discipline--Dissenters-- Silas Told--Proposals for Arminian Magazine--Errata 261-285

1779.

National Alarm--Prayer and Fasting--Death of Voltaire--William Shent in trouble--Methodism at Oldham and Padiham--The Angel at Halifax--Methodism at Inverness--James Boswell--Methodism at Hinckley and Coventry--Thomas Maxfield--Jealousies--Charles Wesley and the London Preachers--Conference of 1779--Alexander McNab and Rev. Edward Smyth at Bath--Wesley’s right to Rule-- Charles Wesley and McNab--Calvinian Controversy--“Naval and Military Bible Society”--Wesley’s Publications--Popery 286-317

1780.

The Protestant Association--Wesley’s Letters on Popery--Rev. Arthur O’Leary--Wesley visits Lord George Gordon--Methodism at Delph--Wesley asks a Favour--Methodism at Pateley, Ripon, Newark, etc.--Conference of 1780--Separation from the Church-- Methodism in America--Letter to Bishop Lowth--Heresy of Dr. Watts--Rev. Brian Bury Collins--Original Letters--Oldham Street Chapel, Manchester--Sir Harry Trelawney--Jacob Behmen--“The Fool of Quality”--Wesley’s Publications 318-344

1781.

Wesley’s Nephews, Charles and Samuel--Wesley writing Sermons-- Samuel Bardsley and Sheffield Chapel--Methodism at Manchester and Bolton--Molly Charlton--Methodism at Preston--Fair weather Preachers--Rev. William Dodwell--Sleep--Letters to Wesley’s Niece--Wesley’s Nephews--Conference of 1781--William Hey-- Death of Wesley’s Wife--Letter to a Statesman--Wesley’s Publications 345-368

1782.

Methodist Tract Society--Lovefeast at Macclesfield--Sir Walter Scott--Conference of 1782--Birstal Chapel Case--Rev. Thomas Davenport--Rev. Mr. Thompson--John Trembath--Adam Clarke--“The Dairyman’s Daughter”--Wesley’s Publications--Jacob Behmen 369-389

1783.

Preachers forbidden to be Classleaders--Wesley ill--Trip to Holland--Kingswood School--William Black and Nova Scotia--A Rejected Candidate--Methodism at Stafford--Wesley and the Poor--Wesley’s Publications 390-407

1784.

A Seven Months’ Journey--Morning Preaching--Itinerancy--Children at Stockton--Methodism at Burnley--Sunday Schools--Conference of 1784--Deed of Declaration--Ordination of Preachers for America--Two Clergymen become Dissenters--Ordination of Preachers for Scotland, etc.--Letters on Wesley’s Ordinations-- Wesley a Dissenter--Methodism at Shrewsbury--Dancing--Letter to Hon. William Pitt--Wesley’s Publications--First Race of Methodist Preachers 408-457

1785.

William Moore--Wesley in Ireland--Spread of Methodism--Death of Perronet and Fletcher--Conference of 1785--The oldest Methodist now living--Thomas Wride and his Colleagues at Norwich--Separation from the Church--Wesley’s Publications-- Dress 458-470

1786.

Wesley on the Wing--Scotch Methodists a distinct Church--Methodism at Barnsley--Wesley at Sheffield and Wentworth House--Methodism at Ilkestone--Conference of 1786--Separation from the Church-- First Methodist Missionary Report--Proposed Missions to India--Wesley’s “Studying Hours”--Dr. Leifchild--Wesley’s Publications 471-489

1787.

Separation from the Church--Begging for the Poor--Revival at Burslem--Wesley in Ireland--A Methodist Shoemaker--Howard, the Philanthropist--Conference of 1787--Separation from the Church--Sir Robert Peel--Sunday Schools--Singing--A Coachload of Methodist Preachers--Visit to the Channel Islands--Jonathan Crowther--Antislavery Society--Joseph Entwisle and Richard Reece--Simeon catechizing Wesley--Licensing Chapels and Preachers--Separation from the Church--Wesley’s Popularity-- Wesley’s Publications--Dress--Diversions--Riches 490-520

1788.

Wesley on his Style--Sunday Schools--Prayer Meetings--Death of Charles Wesley--Consecration of Burial Grounds--Incidents at Bristol--Chapel at Dumfries--Methodist Membership--A Northern Fanatic--An Early Breakfast--Demoniacs--A Young Poetess--Separation from the Church--End of the World--Conference of 1788--Methodist Prayer Book--Preachers stripped of their Gown and Bands--Dewsbury Chapel Case--John Atlay and William Eels--Itinerancy--Wesley without a Sermon--Wesley’s Publications 521-564

1789.

Romney’s Portrait of Wesley--Anecdotes of Wesley--Commotion at Dublin--Separation from the Church--Rebellions--Thomas Hanby--An Irish Dinner Party--Walter Churchey--A Session of Methodist “Elders”--Conference of 1789--A Conference Sermon-- Gwennap Pit--“The lovely Family at Balham”--Mount Pleasant Chapel, Liverpool--Methodism at Bideford--Wesley’s Publications-- Wesley warning rich Methodists 565-596

1790.

French Revolution--A Five Months’ Journey--Rev. Joseph Easterbrook-- A Three Months’ Preaching Plan--Methodism at Stourport--Sunday Schools--Death of a Mocker--A Backslider Healed--Adam Clarke--A Yorkshire Cavalcade--Separation from the Church--Wesley’s Benefactions--Wesley’s Last Will--Conference of 1790--Progress of Methodism--Ruffled Shirts--A Dublin Revival--Christian Perfection--Wesley’s last Out-door Sermon--A Shoemaker and a Sheep Stealer--Henry Crabb Robinson--Crabbe, the Poet--A Large Circuit--Wesley’s Publications--Separation from the Church-- Rich Methodists Warned--Wesley’s last Words to the Methodists 597-642

1791.

Letters--Female Preaching--Wesley’s last Letters--Wesley’s last Week of Public Labour--Wesley’s last Letter--Wesley’s last Song on Earth--Wesley’s Death--The Funeral--Proposed Monument in Westminster Abbey--Wesley’s Personal Appearance, Scholarship, Knowledge, Writings, Preaching, Companionship, Piety, and Industry 643-660

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.

1768. Age 65

During the year 1768, Charles Wesley, with his brother’s full concurrence, removed his family from Bristol to London, which henceforth was his place of residence.[1] Whitefield spent the first half of the year in the metropolis. In July, he set out for Scotland; but, about a month after, returned to London to inter his wife, who died on August 9. His health was somewhat feeble; but he continued to itinerate and preach to the utmost of his power. His orphan house in America, and Lady Huntingdon’s college at Trevecca, demanded his attention, and had it. He and Wesley were still warm hearted friends; and yet there seems to have been a shade of coldness come over them. Hence the following, written when the year was closing.

“TABERNACLE, December 28, 1768.

“REVEREND AND VERY DEAR SIR,--Pray have you or I committed the unpardonable sin, because we differ in particular cases, and act according to our consciences? I imagine the common salvation is not promoted by keeping at such a distance. Enemies rejoice. Halfway friends especially are pleased.

“You will be glad to hear, that the time for completing the orphan house affair seems to be come. Do you know of a good, judicious, spiritual tutor? Will you, without delay, make the first present of your works to the library? I hope we shall have a nursery for true Christian ministers. I know you will say Amen. Yesterday I was fifty-four years old. God be merciful to me a sinner! Though you are older, I trust you will not get the start of me, by going to heaven, before, reverend and very dear sir, less than the least of all,

“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[2]

Another letter, of the same kind, was addressed to Wesley, on New Year’s day, by his old friend at Everton.

“EVERTON, January 1, 1768.

“DEAR SIR,--I see no reason why we should keep at a distance, whilst we continue servants of the same Master, and especially when Lot’s herdsmen are so ready to lay their staves on our shoulders. Though my hand has been mute, my heart is kindly affected towards you. I trust we agree in essentials; and, therefore, should leave each other at rest with his circumstantials. I am weary of all disputes, and desire to know nothing but Jesus; to love Him, trust Him, and serve Him; to choose and find Him my only portion. I would have Him my meat, my drink, my clothing, my sun, my shield, my Lord, my God, my all. Amen.

“When I saw you in town, I gave you an invitation to Everton; and I now repeat it, offering you very kindly the use of my house and church. The Lord accompany you in all your journeys! Kind love to your brother. Adieu!

“JOHN BERRIDGE.”[3]

At the close of the year 1767, the Earl of Buchan died triumphing in the faith of Christ. He had been in the habit of hearing Whitefield, the Wesleys, and others, at Bath, and had felt their ministry a blessing. His last words were, “Happy, happy, happy!” The inscription upon his coffin run thus: “His life was honourable, his death blessed; he sought earnestly peace with God,--he found it with unspeakable joy, alone in the merits of Christ Jesus, witnessed by the Holy Spirit to his soul.”[4] His countess dowager was a woman of deep piety, of elegant taste, and of great genius. She was the mother of a numerous family, and appointed Venn, Berridge, and Wesley her domestic chaplains. This was done through the intervention of Lady Huntingdon,[5] to whom Wesley addressed the following letter.

“LONDON, January 4, 1768.

“MY DEAR LADY,--I am obliged to your ladyship, and to Lady Buchan, for such a mark of your regard as I did not at all expect. I purpose to return her ladyship thanks by this post.

“That remark is very striking, as well as just;--If it is the Holy Spirit that bears witness, then all speaking against that Witness is one species of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. And when this is done by those who profess to honour Him, it must in a peculiar manner grieve that blessed Spirit. Yet, I have been surprised to observe how many, who affirm salvation by faith, have lately run into this; running full into Mr. Sandeman’s notion, that faith is merely an assent to the Bible; and not only undervaluing, but even ridiculing, the whole experience of the children of God. I rejoice, that your ladyship is still preserved from that spreading contagion, and also enabled plainly and openly to avow the plain, old, simple, unfashionable gospel.

“Wishing your ladyship many happy years, I remain, my dear lady, your very affectionate servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[6]

A few months after this, Wesley went to Scotland, where the Countess of Buchan resided, and there wrote, and probably preached, his remarkable sermon, “The Good Steward,” in which, with great emphasis, he lays down the doctrine, that we hold in trust our souls, our bodies, our goods, and all our other talents; and, for the use of them, must render an account at the judgment seat of Christ. This was dealing faithfully with his noble patroness, as well as with others; for the sermon was immediately published in 12mo, 24 pages, with the title, “The Good Steward. A Sermon, by John Wesley, Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Countess Dowager of Buchan.”

Wesley was not the man to be elated by being noticed by the rich, the noble, and the great. He was thankful for their help; but far from being proud of their approbation. Many of his most trusted friends were poor and mean in reference to this world’s goods; but, at the same time, were possessed of riches incomparably superior to all the gold existing. The following letter, addressed to Fletcher of Madeley, though a month or two out of its chronological order, refers to these and to other matters.

“BIRMINGHAM, March 20, 1768.

“DEAR SIR,--Mr. Eastbrook told me yesterday, that you are sick of the conversation even of them who profess religion,--that you find it quite unprofitable, if not hurtful, to converse with them, three or four hours together, and are sometimes almost determined to shut yourself up, as the less evil of the two.

“I do not wonder at it at all, especially considering with whom you have chiefly conversed for some time past, namely, the hearers of Mr. Madan, or Mr. Bourian, perhaps I might add, of Mr. Whitefield. The conversing with these I have rarely found to be profitable to my soul. Rather it has damped my desires; it has cooled my resolutions, and I have commonly left them with a dry, dissipated spirit.

“And how can you expect it to be otherwise? For do we not naturally catch their spirit with whom we converse? And what spirit can we expect them to be of, considering the preaching they sit under? Some happy exceptions I allow; but, in general, do men gather grapes of thorns? Do they gather constant, universal self denial, the patience of hope, the labour of love, inward and outward self devotion, from the doctrine of absolute decrees, of irresistible grace, of infallible perseverance? Do they gather these fruits from antinomian doctrine? Or from any that borders upon it? Do they gather them from that amorous way of praying to Christ? or that luscious way of preaching His righteousness? I never found it so. On the contrary, I have found, that even the precious doctrine of salvation by faith has need to be guarded with the utmost care, or those who hear it will slight both inward and outward holiness.

“I will go a step farther: I seldom find it profitable for me to converse with any who are not athirst for perfection, and who are not big with earnest expectation of receiving it every moment. Now you find none of these among those we are speaking of; but many, on the contrary, who are in various ways, directly and indirectly, opposing the whole work of God,--that work, I mean, which God is carrying on, throughout this kingdom, by unlearned and plain men; in consequence of which His influence must, in some measure, be withdrawn from them. Again: you have, for some time, conversed a good deal with the genteel Methodists. Now it matters not a straw what doctrine they hear,--whether they frequent the Lock or West Street. They are, almost all, salt which has lost its savour, if ever they had any. They are thoroughly conformed to the maxims, the spirit, the fashions, and customs of the world. Certainly then, ‘Nunquam ad eos homines ibis quin minor homo redibis.’

“But were these or those of ever so excellent a spirit, you conversed with them too long. One had need to be an angel, not a man, to converse three or four hours at once, to any purpose. In the latter part of such conversation, we shall doubtless lose all the profit we had gained before.

“But have you not a remedy for all this in your hands? In order to have truly profitable conversation, may you not select persons clear both of Calvinism and antinomianism? not fond of that luscious way of talking, but standing in awe of Him they love; who are vigorously working out their salvation, and are athirst for full redemption, and every moment expecting it, if not already enjoying it? It is true, these will generally be poor and mean, seldom possessed of either riches or learning, unless there be now and then a rara avis in terris: a Miss March, or Betty Johnson. If you converse with these, humbly and simply, an hour at a time, with prayer before and prayer after, you will not complain of the unprofitableness of conversation, or find any need of turning hermit.

“As to the conference, at Worcester, on lay preaching, do not you observe almost all the lay preachers--(1) Are connected with me? and--(2) Are maintainers of universal redemption? Hinc illæ lacrymæ! These gentlemen do not love me, and do love particular redemption. If these laymen were connected with them, or if they were Calvinists, all would be well. Therefore, I should apprehend you will have two things to do:--1. Urge the argument, the strength of which I believe is in the Second Appeal, and, above all, in the Letter to a Clergyman. 2. Apply to the conscience, ‘You do not love Mr. Wesley enough: you love your opinions too much; otherwise this debate would never have arisen: for it is undeniable, these quacks cure whom we cannot cure, they save sinners all over the nation. God is with them, and works by them, and has done so for near these thirty years. Therefore, the opposing them is neither better nor worse than fighting against God.’

“I am your ever affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[7]

One more letter may be introduced, before we turn to Wesley’s journal. At the beginning of 1768, a third son was born to Charles Wesley, and it was naturally the wish of such a father, that one of his three sons might become a minister of Christ,--a wish, however, that was not realised. Wesley alludes to this, and to the yearly collections and other things, in the following to his brother, showing that Charles either seldom attended conference, or, if he did attend, took little interest in its financial matters.

“LONDON, January 15, 1768.

“DEAR BROTHER,--Six or seven hundred pounds is brought to a conference: of which five hundred at least pays the debt.[8] Then extraordinary demands are answered. How much remains for law? I am now near £300 out of pocket, which I borrowed to pay Mr. Pardon. When I receive some more from Newcastle, I will send it to Bristol; probably very soon.

“It is highly probable, one of the three will stand before the Lord. But, so far as I can learn, such a thing has scarce been for these thousand years, as a son, father, grandfather, atavus, tritavus, preaching the gospel, nay, and the genuine gospel, in a line. You know, Mr. White, sometime chairman of the Assembly of Divines, was my grandmother’s father.

“Look upon our little ones at Kingswood as often as you can. A word from you will be a quickening to them. Oh how many talents are we entrusted with. We have need to gird up the loins of our mind, and run faster the small remainder of our race. ‘One thing!’--let us mind one thing only; and nothing great or small, but as it ministers to it! Peace be with you and yours! Adieu!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[9]

Wesley’s first journey from London, in 1768, was on the 18th of February, to Chatham. Methodism of some sort had existed here for a considerable time. As early as 1751, the Gentleman’s Magazine relates, that a man and his wife at Chatham, both of them being Methodists, had hanged themselves; and that, in order to prove the man a lunatic, his friends produced, to the coroner’s jury, the New Testament, on a roll of paper, which the man had written with his blood.[10]

Wesley writes: “Thursday, February 18--Having been importunately pressed thereto, I rode through a keen east wind to Chatham. About six in the evening, I preached at the barracks, in what they call the church. It is a large room, in which the chaplain reads prayers, and preaches now and then. It was soon as hot as an oven, through the multitude of people; some hundreds of whom were soldiers; and they were ‘all ear,’ as Mr. Boston says, scarcely allowing themselves to breathe. Even between five and six the next morning, the room was warm enough. I suppose upwards of two hundred soldiers were a part of the audience. Many of these are already warring a good warfare.”

This was Wesley’s first visit to Chatham; but not his last. From the beginning, he had loved soldiers, and, to the end, it was always a pleasure to preach to them.

On March 6, he set out on his long northern journey, which occupied the next five months. A few jottings respecting it may be acceptable.

At Gloucester, a “noisy and mischievous mob” had been “taken in hand and tamed by an honest magistrate.” Cheltenham was “a quiet, comfortable place,” despite the “rector and the anabaptist minister.” At Worcester, the difficulty was, where to preach, no room being large enough to contain the people, and it being too cold for them to stand in the open air. At length, a friend offered the use of his barn, which “was larger than many churches.” “Nothing,” says Wesley, “is wanting here but a commodious house.” Such a house was built four years afterwards,[11] and lasted till 1812, when good old James M‘Kee Byron and the Worcester Methodists were mad enough to build another costing upwards of £8000, the great bulk of which was left to be paid by their successors.[12]

At Evesham, Wesley preached in the parish church; and was announced, by the vicar, to do the same at Pebworth; but “the squire of the parish” interposed an interdict, and therefore he preached in the open air.

At Birmingham, the tumults, of so many years’ continuance, were “now wholly suppressed by a resolute magistrate.” Here Wesley met “with a venerable monument of antiquity, George Bridgins, in the one hundred and seventh year of his age, still able to walk to preaching, and retaining his senses and understanding tolerably well.”

On Sunday, March 20, Wesley preached at West Bromwich, where a small society of about twenty persons had been kept together by Francis Asbury, a native of a neighbouring parish, but afterwards the Methodist bishop of the United States.

Five years before, at Wolverhampton, the mob had levelled the Methodist meeting-house to the ground, and four young fellows concerned in the outrage had been sent to prison;[13] but now, says Wesley “all was quiet: only those who could not get into the house made a little noise for a time; and some hundreds attended me to my lodging; but it was with no other intent than to stare.”

Wesley pronounces Newcastle under Lyme “one of the prettiest towns in England.” Though it was extremely cold, the largeness of the congregation constrained him to preach in the open air; “a more attentive or better behaved congregation” he “scarce ever saw.” Sixteen years later, Newcastle had a society of one hundred and nine members, the leaders of whom were John Glynn, William Bayley, Robert Keeling, and Thomas Bamfield.[14]

At Burslem, on March 25, he opened the new chapel; and, at Congleton, had “an elegant, yet earnestly attentive congregation,” the behaviour of the society having won the approbation of all the people in the town, except “the curate, who still refused to give the sacrament to any who would not promise to hear the Methodist preachers no more.”

For nine years past, the Methodists had been wont to meet in a room provided by Dr. Troutbeck, behind his own residence; and here they had been subjected to the same sort of outrages that most towns in the kingdom thought it their duty to commit upon the Methodists. Drums were beaten to disturb their services; dogs were let loose in their congregations; and rotten eggs and filth were often hurled at them in plentiful profusion; but, by their godly behaviour, they had outlived all this, and now had a galleried chapel, capable of containing about four hundred persons.

Wesley spent Sunday, March 27, at Macclesfield, where he preached to “thousands upon thousands.” A few years before, George Pearson and Elizabeth Clulow had opened a preaching house, which would hold forty people, and which, to prevent ejectment, they secured to themselves for forty years. “Ah, George!” said Mrs. Clulow, when they first went into it, “we shall never be able to fill the place; why, it will hold forty folk;” to which Mr. Pearson replied, “I’ll warrant you; hold up your heart.” The result was as George predicted. In a month the room was crammed, and a hole was cut through the chamber floor, so that the preacher might, at the same time, address those above as well as those below. Soon after this, Mr. Ryles gave ground and materials for a chapel, on condition that Mrs. Clulow would pay the workmen their wages for building it. This was done in 1764, and now, in 1768, Methodism in Macclesfield was fairly started.[15]

From Macclesfield, Wesley proceeded to Stockport, Manchester, and New Mills. He writes: “Wednesday, March 30--I rode to a little town called New Mills, and preached in their large new chapel, which has a casement in every window, three inches square! That is the custom of the country!” This well ventilated chapel was built principally by Mr. and Mrs. Beard, the parents of the wife of the late T. Holy, Esq., of Sheffield.[16]

Coming to Liverpool, on April 6, Wesley says: “We had a huge congregation at Liverpool; but some pretty, gay, fluttering things did not behave with so much good manners as the mob at Wigan. The congregations in general were quite well behaved, as well as large, both morning and evening; and I found the society both more numerous and more lively than ever it was before.”

One of these “huge congregations,” after a sermon by Wesley, on Sunday, April 10, were munificent enough to make a collection amounting to £1 4_s._ 9_d._; and the society, which was more numerous and lively than ever, aided by the general congregations, managed to contribute, in their classes and at public collections, from September 1, 1768, to January 16, 1769, the sum of £10 17_s._ 5_d._ for the support of the work of God among them.[17] Such was Liverpool Methodism a hundred years ago!

On April 19, Wesley arrived in Glasgow, and says: “We have few societies in Scotland like this. The greater part of the members not only have found peace with God, but continue to walk in the light of His countenance. That wise and good man, Mr. Gillies, has been of great service to them, encouraging them to abide in the grace of God.” Three years before this, Thomas Taylor had been sent to Glasgow, and, after travelling several hundreds of miles to his appointment, had, as his first congregation, two bakers’ boys and two old women, which congregation, however, kept increasing till it reached about two hundred. Taylor tells us, that for want of means he never kept so many fast days as he did in Glasgow; and, though he ultimately obtained a preaching room, and formed a society, and engaged to pay a precentor fourpence for each service at which he led off the psalms, he found it so difficult to raise the money that he dismissed the psalms and the psalm singer all together. He left behind him, however, a society of seventy members.

One of these was Robert Mackie, who, for thirty years, acted as a faithful classleader; and another was a poor old woman, concerning whom John Pawson, in an unpublished letter, tells the following story. Meeting in the street the minister of the kirk she had been accustomed to attend, she was thus accosted: “Oh, Janet, where have ye been, woman? I have no seen ye at the kirk for long.” “I go,” said Janet, “among the Methodists.” “Among the Methodists!” quoth the minister; “why what gude get ye there, woman?” “Glory to God!” replied Janet, “I do get gude; for God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven me aw my sins!” “Ah, Janet,” said the minister, “be not highminded, but fear; the devil is a cunning adversary.” “I dunna care a button for the deevil,” answered Janet, “I’ve gotten him under my feet. I ken the deevil can do muckle deal, but there is ane thing he canna do.” “What is that, Janet?” “He canna shed abroad the love of God in my heart; and I am sure I’ve got it there!” “Weel, weel!” replied the good tempered man, “if ye have got there, Janet, hold it fast, and never let it go!”

Wesley’s information was sometimes incorrect. From what he had heard, he expected to find a numerous and lively society at Perth; but, instead of that, he “found not above two believers, and scarce five awakened persons in it.”

At Aberdeen, the society was knit together in peace and love, and the congregations large and deeply attentive; but, among them, were “many rude, stupid creatures, who knew as little of reason as of religion,” and one of whom threw a potato at Wesley.

Having spent a month in Scotland, Wesley reached Berwick on the 18th of May, and proceeded to Newcastle, in the neighbourhood of which he employed the next ten days.

At Sunderland, he had an interview with Elizabeth Hobson, a young woman of twenty-four years of age; and took down, from her own lips, what he properly designates “one of the strangest accounts that he ever read.” The substance of it is to illustrate her assertion, that, from her childhood, when any of her neighbours died, she used to see them, either just at the time of their decease, or a little previous. He says: “The well known character of Elizabeth Hobson excludes all suspicion of fraud, and the nature of the circumstances themselves excludes the possibility of delusion. The reader may believe the narrative if he pleases; or may disbelieve it, without any offence to me. Meantime, let him not be offended if I believe it, till I see better reason to the contrary.” After this follow Elizabeth Hobson’s bewildering statements.

Wesley has been censured and ridiculed for this credulity. Southey says, “he invalidated his own authority by listening to the most absurd tales and recording them as authenticated facts.” Did Wesley deserve this? The reader must not forget the undeniable, though mysterious, supernatural noises in the Epworth rectory. He must also bear in mind, that one of the most striking features in Wesley’s religious character was his deep rooted, intense, powerful, and impelling conviction of the dread realities of an unseen world. This great conviction took possession of the man; he loved it, cherished it, tried to instil it into all his helpers and all his people; and, without it, he would never have undertaken the Herculean labour, and endured the almost unparalleled opprobrium, that he did. Besides, his own justification of himself is more easily sneered at than answered. He writes:--

“With my latest breath, will I bear my testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible world; I mean, that of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the testimony of all ages. The English, in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions, as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment, which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge, these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it, or not) that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible; and they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air--deism, atheism, materialism--falls to the ground. I know no reason, therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be wrested out of our hands. Indeed, there are numerous arguments besides this, which abundantly confute their vain imaginations. But we need not be hooted out of one; neither reason nor religion requires this. One of the capital objections to all these accounts is, ‘Did you ever see an apparition yourself?’ No, nor did I ever see a murder; yet I believe there is such a thing. The testimony of unexceptionable witnesses fully convinces me both of the one and the other.”[18]

At the same time, it is only fair to add that, though Wesley was a firm believer in witches and apparitions, he was not the fanatic which some had been before him; hence, in 1769, he writes: “I read Mr. Glanvill’s ‘Sadducismus Triumphatus;’ but some of his relations I cannot receive, and much less his way of accounting for them. All his talk of ‘aerial and astral spirits,’ I take to be stark nonsense. Indeed, supposing the facts true, I wonder a man of sense should attempt to account for them at all. For who can explain the things of the invisible world, but the inhabitants of it?”

Before proceeding further in Wesley’s history, extracts from two or three of his letters, belonging to this period, may be inserted here.

Separation from the Church, and the doctrine of Christian perfection, were points still far from being settled. Hence the following to his brother.

“EDINBURGH, May 14, 1768.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I am at my wits’ end with regard to two things--the Church, and Christian perfection. Unless both you and I stand in the gap in good earnest, the Methodists will drop them both. Talking will not avail. We must do, or be borne away. Will you set shoulder to shoulder? If so, think deeply upon the matter, and tell me what can be done. ‘Age, vir esto! nervos intendas tuos.’ Peace be with you and yours! Adieu!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[19]

A month later, Wesley recurs to the same subject, and congratulates his brother on the results of his removing to London.

“June 14, 1768.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I rejoice to hear, from various persons, so good an account of the work of God in London. You did not come thither without the Lord, and you find your labour is not in vain. I doubt not but you will see more and more fruit, while you converse chiefly with them that are athirst for God. I find a wonderful difference in myself when I am among these, and when I am among fashionable Methodists. On this account, the north of England suits me best, where so many are groaning after full redemption.

“But what shall we do? I think it is high time, that you and I, at least, should come to a point. Shall we go on in asserting perfection against all the world? Or shall we quietly let it drop? We really must do one or the other; and, I apprehend, the sooner the better. What shall we jointly and explicitly maintain, and recommend to all our preachers, concerning the nature, the time (now or by-and-by), and the manner of it? instantaneous or not? I am weary of intestine war; of preachers quoting one of us against the other. At length, let us fix something for good and all, either the same as formerly, or different from it.--Ερρωσο.

“JOHN WESLEY.”[20]

Dr. Erskine’s attack on Wesley has been already mentioned (see Vol. II., p. 530). During Wesley’s visit to Scotland, he sought an interview with his opponent, and refers to their points of difference in the following interesting letter to the Rev. Mr. Plendelieth, of Edinburgh.

“May 23, 1768.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--Some years ago, it was reported that I recommended the use of a crucifix, to a man under sentence of death. I traced this up to its author, Dr. Stennett, an anabaptist teacher. He was charged with it. He answered, ‘Why I saw a crucifix in his cell (a picture of Christ on the cross), and I knew Mr. Wesley used to visit him, so I supposed he had brought it.’ This is the whole of the matter. Dr. Stennett himself I never saw; nor did I ever see such a picture in the cell; and I believe the whole tale is pure invention.

“I had, for some time, given up the thought of an interview with Mr. Erskine, when I fell into the company of Dr. Oswald. He said, ‘Sir, you do not know Mr. Erskine. I know him perfectly well. Send and desire an hour’s conversation with him, and I am sure he will understand you better.’ I am glad I did send. I have done my part, and am now entirely satisfied. I am likewise glad, that Mr. Erskine has spoken his mind. I will answer with all simplicity, in full confidence of satisfying you, and all impartial men.

“He objects, (1) That I attack predestination as subversive of all religion, and yet suffer my followers, in Scotland, to remain in that opinion.

“Much of this is true. I did attack predestination eight-and-twenty years ago; and I do not believe now any predestination which implies irrespective reprobation. But I do not believe, it is necessarily subversive of all religion. I think hot disputes are much more so. Therefore, I never willingly dispute with any one about it; and I advise all my friends, not in Scotland only, but all over England and Ireland, to avoid all contention on the head, and let every man remain in his own opinion. Can any man of candour blame me for this? Is there anything unfair or disingenuous about it?

“He objects, (2) That I ‘assert the attainment of sinless perfection by all that are born of God.’ I am sorry, that Mr. Erskine should affirm this again. I need give no other answer than I gave before, in the seventh page of the little tract I sent him two years ago. I do not maintain this. I do not believe it. I believe Christian perfection is not attained by any of the children of God, till they are what the apostle John terms fathers; and this I expressly declare in that sermon which Mr. Erskine so largely quotes.

“He objects, (3) That I ‘deny the imputation of Christ’s active obedience.’ Since I believed justification by faith, which I have done upwards of thirty years, I have constantly maintained, that we are pardoned and accepted wholly for the sake of what Christ hath both done and suffered for us. Two or three years ago, Mr. Madan’s sister showed him what she had wrote down of a sermon which I had preached on this subject. He entreated me to write down the whole and print it, saying, it would satisfy all my opponents. I was not so sanguine as to expect this: I understood mankind too well. However, I complied with his request; a few were satisfied; the rest continued just as they were before.

“As long as Mr. Erskine continues in the mind expressed in his Theological Essays, there is no danger, that he and I should agree, any more than light and darkness. I love and reverence him; but not his doctrine. I dread every approach to antinomianism. I have seen the fruit of it, over the three kingdoms. I never said, that Mr. Erskine and I were agreed. I will make our disagreement as public as ever he pleases: only I must withal specify the particulars. If he will fight with me, it must be on this ground; and then let him do what he will, and what he can.

“Retaining a due sense of your friendly offices, and praying for a blessing on all your labours, I remain, reverend and dear sir, your affectionate brother and servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[21]

These were mutterings before the storm,--skirmishes before the battle,--a prelude to the great Calvinian controversy of 1770 and onwards.

We abruptly turn to another matter. Wesley was a man who believed in the importance of making preparations for dying, in more respects than one. He writes on the last day of the year 1786: “From these words, ‘Set thy house in order,’ I strongly exhorted all who had not done it already, to settle their temporal affairs without delay. It is a strange madness which still possesses many, that are in other respects men of understanding, who put this off from day to day, till death comes in an hour when they looked not for it.”

Wesley acted upon his own advice. He was without money; but he had books, etc.: and to prevent quarrels after he was dead, he made more wills than one respecting their disposal. One executed in 1768 was, of course, different from his last, executed in 1789; and, as something more than a curiosity, we subjoin a verbatim copy, made from the original in Wesley’s own handwriting.

“In the name of God. Amen! I, John Wesley, Clerk, revoking all other, appoint this to be my last Will and Testament.

“I bequeath to my brother Charles Wesley, (but in case of his demise to the School in Kingswood,) my Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and German books (except those, in any language, in the study at Kingswood School, which I bequeath to the said School; and those in my studies at Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Dublin, which I desire may remain there for the use of the Travelling Preachers); and all my gowns, cassocks, and bands. To James Morgan, I bequeath my watch; to my faithful Housekeeper, Ann Smith, Mrs. Lefevre’s ring; to Mr. Peter Jaco, my bureau at London; to him, to the Rev. William Ley, and to each Travelling Preacher, who has them not already, a set of my Sermons, Appeals, Journals, the Notes on the New Testament, and the book on Original Sin; to the Rev. Mr. James Roquet, all my manuscripts; to my dear friend, Mary Bosanquet, the set of my Works; to my dear daughter, Jane Smith, the ‘Christian Library,’ now in my study at London.

“I bequeath all my Books, which are for sale, with the sole right of reprinting them, (after paying my brother’s Rent Charge upon them,) to Mr. Melchias Teulon, Hatter, Mr. John Horton, Silkdyer, and Mr. John Collinson, Hatter, in Trust, the one moiety for the keeping the Children of Travelling Preachers at the School (to be chosen by the Assistants at the Yearly Conference), the other moiety for the continual relief of the Poor of the United Society in London. Only I bequeath to Christiana Simpson, at Aberdeen, the Books which shall remain with her, at the time of my decease.

“Lastly, I bequeath the residue of my Books and Goods to my wife, Mary Wesley. And I appoint the said Melchias Teulon, John Horton, and John Collinson, Executors of this my last Will and Testament.

“Witness my hand and seal,[22] this 27th day of April, 1768,

“JOHN WESLEY. “Witnesses: “WILLIAM SMITH. “THOMAS SIMPSON.”

A man’s will is a document in which he generally makes mention of his best beloved friends. On this ground, a few notes appended to Wesley’s will of 1768 may be useful.

1. Wesley’s principal bequest, in 1768, was to Kingswood school, and to the poor of the society in London. In 1789, this bequest was made to “the general fund of the Methodist conference, in carrying on the work of God by itinerant preachers.”

2. James Roquet was made the trustee of Wesley’s manuscripts in 1768; but, having died during the interim, Dr. Coke, Dr. Whitehead, and Henry Moore were appointed in 1789 to take his place.

3. In 1768, he bequeathed all his gowns, cassocks, and bands to his brother; in 1789, to the clergymen preaching in City Road chapel, London.

4. In 1768, James Morgan was to have his watch; but, in 1789, James Morgan was dead, and Joseph Bradford got it.

5. In 1768, Mrs. Martha Hall had no bequest, for her bad husband was then living; in 1789, he was dead, and hence her legacy of £40.

6. In 1768, there was a legacy for his wife; in 1789, his wife was in her grave.

7. Wesley makes mention of his “dear daughter, Jane Smith.” This lady was really his wife’s daughter, who was now married to Mr. William Smith, of Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the witnesses.

8. James Roquet, to whom Wesley bequeathed his manuscripts, was the son of a French Protestant refugee, was educated in the Merchant Taylors’ school in London, was converted under Whitefield’s ministry, graduated at St. John’s college, Oxford, became master in Wesley’s school at Kingswood, obtained episcopal ordination, and was now curate of St. Werburgh, Bristol.

9. The Rev. William Ley, to whom Wesley bequeathed a set of his publications, was, from the year 1760 to 1763, an itinerant preacher. He was then episcopally ordained, and was now the curate of Lakenheath, but likely to be dismissed by the vicar, to whom his Methodistic preaching and procedure were offensive.[23]

10. Of one of the executors of Wesley’s will, John Collinson, we can give no particulars.

11. The second, Mr. Teulon, was born at Bromley, in 1734; and was sent to school at Nottingham. At fourteen, he was put apprentice to his uncle, Mr. Wagner, of Pall Mall, hatter to King George II. He was converted under the ministry of Romaine, joined the Methodists, and, in 1761, married Miss Mecham, the daughter of one of the earliest Methodists in London. For four years, he was Wesley’s London steward, and was leader of a class. He was a man of some literary taste, and had read most of the best English authors. He died in 1806, respected and beloved by all who knew him.[24]

12. The third executor, John Horton, was a member of the common council of London, sensible, well read, serious without gloom, cheerful without levity, and polite without ceremony. The unhappy differences after Wesley’s death induced him to leave the Methodists, and he went to reside at Bristol.[25] He retained his warm attachment, however, to “the old ship,” as he was accustomed to designate Wesley’s system; again attended the Methodist preaching, and, only a few months before his death, when his son was preparing for the university, declared to Henry Moore, that he would “rather see his son a Methodist preacher, than archbishop of Canterbury.” He died in peace about the year 1802.[26]

We left Wesley at Newcastle. On the 31st of May, he set out for Weardale, Teesdale, and Swaledale, where he spent the next four days. At Richmond, he preached in the market place, the Yorkshire militia forming a considerable part of his congregation,--“a rude rabble rout, without sense, decency, or good manners.” At Barnardcastle, the Durham militia was a perfect contrast, officers and soldiers all behaving well. Wesley’s visit to the “dales” circuit was a pleasant one. He writes: “I have not found so deep and lively a work in any other part of the kingdom as runs through the whole circuit, particularly in the vales that wind between these horrid mountains.”

Returning to Newcastle, Wesley visited South Shields, and preached to more than could hear him. Here the poor Methodists were often beaten, rolled in the mud and in the snow, and sometimes narrowly escaped with life: but, continuing faithful, God honoured them; a cockpit was turned into a Methodist chapel,[27] and Methodism was firmly anchored.

On the 13th of June, Wesley left Newcastle for the south, and spent the next six weeks in visiting his societies in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

The Rev. Thomas Adam, rector of Wintringham, one of the evangelical clergymen of the period, has been already mentioned. Like some others, this unquestionably pious man had become a determined opponent of the Methodists, and hence the following letter, addressed to him by Wesley.

“SWINFLEET, July 19, 1768.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--One of Wintringham informed me yesterday, that you said no sensible and well meaning man could hear, and much less join, the Methodists; because they all acted under a lie, professing themselves members of the Church of England, while they licensed themselves as Dissenters. You are a little misinformed. The greater part of the Methodist preachers are not licensed at all; and several of them that are, are not licensed as Dissenters.

“We are, in truth, so far from being enemies to the Church, rather bigots to it. I dare not, like Mr. Venn, leave the parish church where I am, to go to an Independent meeting. I dare not advise others to go thither, rather than to church. I advise all, over whom I have any influence, steadily to keep to the Church. Meantime, I advise them to see, that the kingdom of God is within them; that their hearts be full of love to God and man; and to look upon all, of whatever opinion, who are like minded, as their ‘brother, and sister, and mother.’ O sir! what art of men or devils is this, which makes you so studiously stand aloof from those who are thus minded? I cannot but say to you, as I did to Mr. Walker, ‘The Methodists do not want you; but you want them.’ You want the life, the spirit, the power, which they have; not of themselves, but by the free grace of God; else how could it be, that so good a man, and so good a preacher, should have so little fruit of his labour, his unwearied labour, for so many years? Have your parishioners the life of religion in their souls? Have they so much as the form of it? Are the people of Wintringham, in general, any better than those of Winterton, or Horton? Alas! sir, what is it that hinders your reaping the fruit of so much pains and so many prayers?

“Is it not possible this may be the very thing, your setting yourself against those whom God owns, by the continual conviction and conversion of sinners? I fear, as long as you in anywise oppose these, your rod will not blossom, neither will you see the desire of your soul, in the prosperity of the souls committed to your charge.

“I am, dear sir, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[28]

In his journey southwards, Wesley visited, for the second time, his friend Fletcher, at Madeley,--a man, in many respects, the opposite of Mr. Adam of Wintringham, and especially in his feelings towards the Methodists. So far from shunning them, or being ashamed of them, he, as far as possible, identified himself with them; and, at the very last conference before he died, entreated Wesley to make Madeley a circuit town, and to put John Fletcher down as a supernumerary preacher there. He made his kitchen a Methodist chapel, in which Wesley’s itinerants and his own curate regularly preached; while his study was the place in which were penned the ablest defences of Wesley’s doctrines that were ever committed to the public press.

From Madeley, Wesley went to Shrewsbury, where, as early as 1744, there was a poor woman, who had been converted in London under the preaching of the Methodists, and who now obtained a living, by mending her neighbours’ stockings. While thus employed, at their respective houses, she would relate to them her religious experience, read to them a sermon, and then engage in prayer. By this means, she had already formed a society of sixteen or eighteen persons; and the Rev. Job Orton, the well known author, a native of Shrewsbury, and at this time its presbyterian minister, declared that this poor stocking-mending Methodist was not only of “an excellent and serious spirit,” but had had more success in converting sinners than he had had by all his preaching.[29]

Leaving Shrewsbury, Wesley rode right through Wales to Pembroke, where he “read prayers, preached, and administered the sacrament to a serious congregation at St. Daniels;” and so tried to remove some misunderstandings among the Methodists, that he “left the people full of good desires, and in tolerable good humour with each other.” Here Methodism had been begun seven years before, when Thomas Taylor traversed mountains, forded rivers, and plunged through bogs, with an empty purse and an empty stomach, seeking to save sinners with a zeal and a spirit of self denial worthy of the noblest missionary that ever lived.[30]

At Neath, where the minister of the parish was just dead, the churchwardens announced, that Wesley would preach in the parish church. He did so, but says: “I was greatly disgusted at the manner of singing. 1. Twelve or fourteen persons kept it to themselves, and quite shut out the congregation. 2. These repeated the same words, contrary to all sense and reason, six, or eight, or ten times over. 3. According to the shocking custom of modern music, different persons sung different words at one and the same moment; an intolerable insult on common sense, and utterly incompatible with any devotion.”

After more than five months of laborious travelling, Wesley came to Bristol on Saturday the 13th of August, between eleven and twelve o’clock at night. His conference had to open two days afterwards; but the first news he heard was, that his wife was dangerously ill in London. He had about forty-eight hours before he must meet his preachers, twenty-four of which were sabbatical. The distance to London and back again was two hundred and twenty-eight miles; the roads not the best; and the mode of travelling a perfect contrast to what exists at present. Wesley was an aged man, of more than sixty-five; for nearly six months he had been travelling and preaching incessantly, and might now fairly wish for a few hours’ rest. But no sooner did he hear of his wife’s affliction, than, notwithstanding her unloving heart and life, he started off to London, which, by travelling most of the sabbath day, he reached at one o’clock on Monday morning; when, finding that the fever was abated and the danger gone, he set out again within an hour, and, by hard driving, arrived in Bristol on Monday afternoon. Next morning he opened his annual conference, and closed it the following Friday, exclaiming, “Oh! what can we do for more labourers? We can only cry to the Lord of the harvest.”

One of the chief points discussed at the present conference was, whether the itinerant preachers should be allowed to engage in trade. This was a question at once delicate and difficult. In the first place, many of them had wives and children, the provision for whose maintenance was of the most slender kind. Secondly, the men were not ordained, and had no clerical status whatever. So far there seemed to be no difficulty. But, in the third place, though not ordained, the preachers were regarded by Wesley as occupying, to all practical intents and purposes, the same position as the regular ministers of the Church of England; and, hence, he considered it as unseemly and as improper for his itinerants to be engaged in trade as it would be for the clergy of the Established Church. “God,” says he, “has called us to supply their lack of service to the sheep that are without shepherds, and to spend and be spent therein. Every travelling preacher solemnly professes to have nothing else to do; and receives his little allowance for this very end, that he may not need to do anything else,--that he may not be entangled in the things of this life, but may give himself wholly to these things.”

The result was, the few preachers who had resorted to some kind of trade, for the purpose of eking out the insufficient maintenance for their families were advised to give up their business as soon as possible, and especially hawking drops (which their wives might sell at home), for it had “a bad appearance, and did not suit the dignity of their calling.”

The increase of members during the year was 430. Wesley was not satisfied with this. Hence the question:

“In many places the work of God seems to stand still. What can be done to revive and enlarge it?”

“Answer--1. Much good has been done by the books which have been published; and more would be, if they were spread more effectually.

“2. Let there be more field preaching; without this, the work of God will hardly increase in any place.

“3. Let the preaching at five in the morning be constantly kept up, wherever you can have twenty hearers. This is the glory of the Methodists! Whenever this is dropped, they will dwindle away into nothing. Rising early is equally good for soul and body. It helps the nerves better than a thousand medicines; and, in particular, preserves the sight, and prevents lowness of spirits, more than can be well imagined.

“4. As soon as there are four men or women believers in any place, put them into a band. In every place where there are bands, meet them constantly, and encourage them to speak without reserve.

“5. Be conscientiously exact in the whole Methodist discipline. One part of our discipline has been generally neglected, namely, the changing of the stewards. This has been attended with many ill consequences; many stewards have been ready to ride over the preachers head. Let every assistant, at the next quarterly meeting, change one steward at least, in every society, if there be therein any other man that can keep an account.

“6. Beware of formality in singing, or it will creep in upon us unawares. Is it not creeping in already, by those complex tunes which it is scarce possible to sing with devotion? Such is, ‘Praise the Lord, ye blessed ones!’ Such the long quavering Hallelujah, annexed to the Morning Song tune, which I defy any man living to sing devoutly. The repeating the same word so often, especially while another repeats different words, shocks all common sense, brings in dead formality, and has no more of religion in it than a Lancashire hornpipe. Do not suffer the people to sing too slow. This naturally tends to formality, and is brought in by those who have very strong or very weak voices. Why should not the assistant see, that they be taught to sing in every large society?

“7. Let a quarterly fast be observed in all our societies.

“8. Which of us ‘fasts every Friday in the year’? Which of us fasts at all? Does not this show the present temper of our minds soft and unnerved? How then can we advance the work of God, though we may preach loud and long enough? Here is the root of the evil. Hence, the work of God droops; few are convinced, few justified, few of our brethren sanctified! Hence, more and more doubt if we are to be sanctified at all till death. That we may all speak the same thing, I ask once for all, ‘Shall we defend this perfection or give it up’? You all agree to defend it, meaning thereby, as we did from the beginning, salvation from all sin, by the love of God and our neighbour filling our heart. You are all agreed, we may be saved from all sin before death. The substance then is settled. But as to the circumstance, is the change instantaneous or gradual? It is both one and the other. But should we in preaching insist upon both one and the other? Certainly. But how far from entire sanctification are we still! The religion of the Methodists, in general, is not internal: at least, not deep, universal, uniform: but superficial, partial, uneven. And what pains do we take to make it otherwise? Do we visit from house to house, according to the plan laid down in the minutes? Only spend half the time in this visiting, which you spend in talking uselessly, and you will have time enough. Do this, particularly in confirming and building up believers. Then, and not till then, the work of the Lord will prosper in your hands. Unless, also, we can take care of the rising generation, the present revival of religion will be res unius ætatis, it will last only the age of a man. Spend an hour a week with the children, in every large town, whether you like it or not. Talk with them every time you see any at home. Pray in earnest for them. Diligently instruct and vehemently exhort all parents at their own houses. Read carefully the life of Mr. Brainerd. Let us be followers of him, as he was of Christ; in absolute self devotion, in total deadness to the world, and in fervent love to God and man. We want nothing but this. Then the world and the devil must fall under our feet. Lastly, let us keep to the Church. They that leave the Church leave the Methodists. The clergy cannot separate us from our brethren; the Dissenting ministers can and do. Therefore, carefully avoid whatever has a tendency to separate men from the Church. In particular, preaching at any hour which hinders them from going to it. Let every assistant look to this. Let all the servants in our preaching houses go to church on Sunday morning at least. Let every preacher likewise go always on Sunday morning, and, when he can, in the afternoon. God will bless those who go on week days too, as often as they have opportunity.”

Wesley’s means, then, to promote a revival of the work of God, were a diffusion of Methodist literature, field and morning preaching, the enforcement of Methodist discipline, good singing, quarterly fasts, the preaching of the doctrine of Christian perfection, house to house visitation, attention to the young, continued union with the Established Church, and, above all and more than all, more inward and outward religion among the preachers.

Before leaving the conference of 1768, we insert a letter, which, so far as we are aware, has not before been published, except in the “Methodist Pocket Book” for 1799. It was addressed to James Morgan, one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers, well read, and popular, but who had sunk into a state of nervousness, and had settled down in the city of Dublin.

“ST. JUST, NEAR THE LAND’S END, September 3, 1768.

“DEAR JEMMY,--I have been thinking much of you; and why should I not tell you all I think, and all I fear, concerning you?

“I think all that you said at the conference upon the subject of the late debates was right. And it amounted to no more than this: ‘the general rule is, they who are in the favour of God know they are so. But there may be some exceptions. Some may fear and love God, and yet not be clearly conscious of His favour; at least, they may not dare to affirm that their sins are forgiven.’ If you put the case thus, I think no man in his senses will be tempted to contradict you; for none can doubt, but whoever loves God is in the favour of God. But is not this a little misstating the case? I do not conceive the question turned here; but you said, or was imagined to say, ‘all penitents are in God’s favour’; or, ‘all who mourn after God are in the favour of God.’ And this was what many disliked; because they thought it was unscriptural and unsafe, as well as contrary to what we had always taught. That this is contrary to what we had always taught, is certain; as all our hymns, as well as other writings, testify: so that (whether it be true or not), it is, without any question, a new doctrine among the Methodists. We have always taught, that a penitent mourned, or was pained, on this very account, because he felt he was not in the favour of God, but had the wrath of God abiding on him. Hence we supposed the language of his heart to be, ‘Lost and undone for aid I cry’; and we believed he was really ‘lost and undone,’ till God did

‘Peace, righteousness, and joy impart, And speak Himself into his heart.’

“And I still apprehend this to be the scriptural doctrine, confirmed, not by a few detached texts, but by the whole tenor of Scripture, and, more particularly, of the Epistle to the Romans. But if so, the contrary to it must be unsafe, for that general reason, because it is unscriptural; to which one may add the particular reason, that it naturally tends to lull mourners to sleep; to make them say, ‘Peace, peace’ to their souls, when there is no peace.

“But it may be asked, ‘Will not this discourage mourners?’ Yes, it will discourage them from stopping where they are; it will discourage them from resting, before they have the witness in themselves, before Christ is revealed in them. But it will encourage them to seek in the gospel way; to ask till they receive pardon and peace. And we are to encourage them, not by telling them they are in the favour of God, though they do not know it; (such a word as this we would never utter in a congregation, at the peril of our souls;) but by assuring them, ‘Every one that seeketh findeth, every one that asketh receiveth.’

“I am afraid you have not been sufficiently wary in this; but have given occasion to them that sought occasion. But this is not all. I doubt you did not ‘see God’s hand in Shimei’s tongue.’ ‘Unto you it was given to suffer’ a little of what you extremely wanted,--obloquy and evil report. But you did not acknowledge either the gift or the Giver. You saw only T. Olivers, not God. O Jemmy, you do not know yourself. You cannot bear to be continually steeped in the esteem and praise of men. Therefore, I tremble at your stay at Dublin; it is the most dangerous place for you under heaven! All I can say is, God can preserve you in the fiery furnace, and I hope He will.

“I am, dear Jemmy, yours affectionately,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

A letter has been already inserted in which Wesley congratulates his brother on the reports he had received respecting the success of his ministry in London. This was somewhat premature, for, in reality, instead of there being an increase in the London circuit, there was a decrease of seventy members; and there was a serious intention to abandon the chapel in Spitalfields. Hence the following letter “to the stewards of the Foundery.”

“PEMBROKE, August 6, 1768.

“MY DEAR BRETHREN,--The thing you mention is of no small concern, and ought not to be determined hastily. Indeed, it would be easy to answer, if we considered only how to save money; but we are to consider also how to save souls. Now, I doubt whether we should act wisely in this respect were we to give up the chapel in Spitalfields. We have no other preaching place in or near that populous quarter of the town; and a quarter which, upon one account, I prefer before almost any other; namely, that the people in general are more simple, and less confused by any other preachers. I think, therefore, it would not be well to give up this, if we could gain a thousand pounds thereby. I should look upon it as selling the souls of men for money; which God will give us in due time without this. That many who live near the Foundery would be glad of it I allow, because it would save them trouble. But neither can I put the saving of trouble in competition with the saving of souls.

“I am, my dear brethren, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[31]

Poor Spitalfields! Noble Wesley! Let the fashionable Methodists of the present generation ponder such sentiments as these, and hesitate before they abandon their old chapels, because surrounded by none but the abject and the poor, and because keeping them open involves expense and trouble.

It is a remarkable fact, that almost in the very year in which Methodism was founded in America, it was instituted in Newfoundland. For nine years, Laurence Coughlan was one of Wesley’s itinerants. In 1764, he was ordained by Erasmus, the Greek bishop, and was put away from the Methodist connexion. In 1766,[32] he was reordained by the Bishop of London, and was sent to Newfoundland by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. It is true, he went as a clergyman of the Church of England, but he took his Methodism with him, and established classes, in which the present Methodism of Newfoundland had its origin. In a letter to Wesley, he writes:

“I am, and do confess myself, a Methodist. The name I love, and hope I ever shall. The plan which you first taught me, as to doctrine and discipline, I have followed. We have the sacrament once a month, and have about two hundred communicants. This is more than all the other missionaries in the land have: nor do I know of any who attend our sacrament, who have not the fear of God; and some are happy in His love. There are some also whose mouths the Lord hath opened to give a word of exhortation; and I hope He will raise up many more.”

It would be a pleasant task to trace the steps of Mr. Coughlan in Newfoundland; but suffice it to remark that he returned to England, and shortly after, while conversing with Wesley in his study, was seized with paralysis, and suddenly removed to his rest in heaven.[33]

Coughlan was one of those in London, who professed to receive the blessing of Christian perfection; but, like many others, imbibed fantastic notions respecting it. Soon after the conference of 1768, Wesley wrote to him as follows.

“DEAR LAURENCE,--By a various train of providences you have been led to the very place where God intended you should be; and you have reason to praise Him, that He has not suffered your labour there to be in vain. In a short time, how little will it signify, whether we had lived in the Summer Islands, or beneath

‘The rage of Arctos and eternal frost!’

“How soon will this dream of life be at an end! And when we are once landed in eternity, it will be all one, whether we spent our time on earth in a palace, or had not where to lay our head.

“You never learned, either from my conversation, or preaching, or writings, that ‘holiness consisted in a glow of joy.’ I constantly told you quite the contrary: I told you it was the love of God and our neighbour; the image of God stamped on the heart; the life of God in the soul of man; the mind that was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ also walked. If Mr. Maxfield, or you, took it to be anything else, it was your own fault, not mine; and, whenever you waked out of that dream, you ought not to have laid the blame of it upon me. Perhaps you thought you had received what you had not. But pray do not measure all men by yourself; do not imagine you are the universal standard. If you deceived yourself, you should not infer that all others do. Many think they are justified, and are not; but we cannot infer, that none are justified. So neither, if many think they are ‘perfected in love,’ and are not, will it follow that none are so. Blessed be God, though we set a hundred enthusiasts aside, we are still ‘encompassed with a cloud of witnesses,’ who have testified, and do testify, in life and in death, that perfection which I have taught these forty years! This perfection cannot be a delusion, unless the Bible be a delusion too; I mean, loving God with all our hearts, and our neighbour as ourselves. I pin down all its opposers to this definition of it. No evasion! No shifting the question! Where is the delusion of this? Either you received this love, or you did not. If you did, dare you call it a delusion? If you received anything else, it does not at all affect the question. O Laurence, if sister Coughlan and you ever did enjoy this, humble yourselves before God for casting it away; if you did not, God grant you may!

“Yours, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[34]

Wesley had been incessantly travelling for nearly the last six months; but no sooner were the sessions of the Bristol conference ended, than he started off to Cornwall, where he spent the interval between August 26 and September 18. On his way, he preached to a serious congregation at Taunton, and asks, “Shall we have fruit here also?” Wesley might well ask this. For many a long year, he had been accustomed to preach at Taunton, and had been received either with stupid indifference or active contempt. As early as 1744, he attempted to preach in the yard of the Three Cups inn; but had no sooner named his text, than the mayor came, in all his full blown dignity, and ordered the proclamation to be read, and silenced the preacher.[35] Almost a quarter of a century had elapsed since then; and now there was a small society, of which one of the members was Thomas Dingle, who for sixty-three years was a chief supporter of the Taunton society, and one of its brightest ornaments.

Wesley’s labours in Cornwall were Herculean. Though now in the sixty-sixth year of his age, for eight days together he preached, “mostly in the open air, three or four times a day,” and says, “I hardly felt any weariness, first or last.” He was also not without adventures. At Polperro, his bedroom was filled with pilchards and conger eels, which made him glad to accept the offer of another. At Plymouth, on his return, a “silly man talked without ceasing” during the sermon, till Wesley desired the people “to open to the right and left, and let him look his garrulous disturber fairly in the face,” upon which the noisy prater “pulled off his hat, and quietly went away.” Between Charlton and Lympsham, the rivers were so swollen, that Wesley’s horse had to swim, and Wesley himself had to be taken to his lodgings on an “honest man’s shoulders.”

Reaching Bristol on September 24, Wesley spent the next few days in visiting the neighbouring towns and villages. At Frome, he found the liveliest society that there was in the Wiltshire circuit: a fact which greatly surprised him, because the town was made up of a strange medley “of men of all opinions,--anabaptists, quakers, presbyterians, Arians, antinomians, Moravians, and what not.” He adds: “if any hold to the truth, in the midst of all these, surely the power must be of God.”

The Frome Methodists, however, were not untrained recruits, but veteran soldiers, who had stood the brunt of many a furious and fiery fight. Twenty-two years before this, Methodism had been started in their town, by a poor Bristol pedlar, who dealt in rags and small ware, singing to the people Wesley’s hymns. Since then, a vagabond barber--a tool in the hands of the parish priest--had dragged two Methodist women to prison. Mrs. Seagram had been fined £20 for permitting her house to be used as a preaching place; and, not being able to pay the fine, had had all her stock in trade and her household goods sold by public auction, while she and her two fatherless children were turned penniless out of doors. In one instance, the mob rushed into the preaching room, seized the benches, and made a bonfire of them. Methodism in Frome had outlived all this; and, despite the sectarianism of the town, it was destined still to live and prosper.

On October 24, Wesley set out for London, and employed the first week in November in a preaching tour through the three counties of Hertford, Bedford, and Northampton. At Hertford, a chapel had been built by Mr. Andrews, who afterwards, in 1777, gave to Wesley’s new chapel in City Road the pulpit which has been used in Methodism’s cathedral from that time to this.[36]

The second week in November was spent in a similar visitation of the societies in Oxfordshire. He writes: “I was desired to preach at Oxford. The room was throughly filled, and not with curious, but deeply serious hearers. Many of these desired, that our travelling preachers would take them in their turn; with which I willingly complied.” Oxford had been Methodism’s cradle, but the infant had long been absent. Henceforth, Methodism was one of Oxford’s institutions; though, for long, long years, it was a thing of feebleness and of small dimensions. The “Oxfordshire” circuit extended over the greater part of Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Buckinghamshire; and, even as late as 1787, there were throughout the circuit only four Methodist chapels, namely, at Oxford, Wycombe, Wallingford, and Witney. At Aylesbury, the Methodists preached in the baptists’ chapel; at Newbury, in an ironfounder’s shop; and at all the other places, in private houses. The small chapel in Oxford was in New-Inn-Hall Lane;[37] and the Oxford home of the two unmarried preachers, Joseph Entwisle and Richard Reece, was a garret in the house of a journeyman shoemaker, for which the society paid sixpence a week as rent; and which had to serve them as dining room, sitting room, bedroom, and study,[38] all in one.

The third week in November was occupied in meeting the London classes; and the fourth in a tour in Kent. The rest of the year was chiefly spent in town.

Wesley was fervent, but not fanatical; he loved earnestness in religious worship, but not disorder. Hence the following letter to Mr. Merryweather, of Yarm.

“LEWISHAM, December 10, 1768.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--The matter is short: all things in Divine worship must ‘be done decently and in order.’ Two must never pray at the same time, nor one interrupt another. Either Alice Brammah must take advice, or the society must be warned to keep away from her. These are the very things which were the beginning of poor George Bell’s fall.

“I am, your affectionate brother,

JOHN WESLEY.”[39]

We have already seen that, by an enormous effort, in the month of August, Wesley hurried from Bristol to London to visit his afflicted wife. On his return he wrote her as follows.

“MY LOVE,--I can make allowance for faintness, and weakness, and pain. I remember when it was my own case, at this very place, and when you spared no pains in nursing and waiting upon me, till it pleased God to make you the chief instrument in restoring my strength. I am glad you have the advice of a skilful physician; but you must not be surprised or discouraged if you do not recover your strength so soon as one might wish, especially at this time of the year. What is chiefly to be desired is, that God may sanctify all His dispensations to you, and that all may be the means of your being more entirely devoted to Him, whose favour is better than strength, or health, or life itself.

“I am, dear Molly, your ever affectionate husband,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

No sooner was Wesley’s wife convalescent, than, instead of waiting to welcome him to his home in London, she, in one of her insane piques, took her departure to Newcastle. The following letter to his brother refers to this, and also to his preparing an edition of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” and to other matters.

“LONDON, December 17, 1768.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I thank you for your reproof. There is reason in what you say. If there was not evil, there was the appearance of evil.

“Matters have not been well carried on at Liverpool; but ‘what cannot be cured must be endured.’

“Why, you simpleton, you are cutting me out a month’s work. Nay, but I have no leisure nor inclination to write a book. I intend only: (1) to leave out what I most dislike; (2) to mark what I most approve of; (3) to prefix a short preface. And I shall run the hazard of printing it at Bristol. There you yourself can read the proof sheets.

“You do well with regard to my sister Emily. What farther is wanting I will supply. I hear nothing from our friend at Newcastle. I am now a mere fellow of a college again. Adieu!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[40]

Wesley was still troubled on account of the chapel debts. Nearly £6000 had been contributed; but there was still a debt of £7728 upon the chapels in the United Kingdom undefrayed.[41] This gave rise to the following letter.

“LONDON, December, 1768.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Last year, Mr. H---- was much persuaded that, by means of the yearly subscription, our whole debt of above £11,000 would be paid within two years. Many of our brethren were more sanguine still. They were persuaded that, by generously exerting themselves, and giving a large sum at once, it would be paid in one year. I did not expect this; but I would not contradict, because I would not discourage them. The event was as I foresaw. By the noble effort which many of our brethren made, most of the pressing debts are already discharged, amounting in the whole to near £7000. But a debt of about £7000 remains upon us still. What can be done with regard to this? I will tell you what occurs to my mind. Many of our brethren chose to subscribe yearly ten, five, three, two guineas, or less. I doubt not but these will cheerfully pay the residue of their subscription, and perhaps some of them will add a little thereto, as they see the great occasion there is for it. A few delayed subscribing, because they wanted to see the event; supposing the design to be impracticable, and that ‘nothing good would come out of it,’ As it now appears that great good has come out of it, that many burdens are already removed, I cannot but earnestly exhort all these now to set their shoulders to the work. Now, at least, let them exert themselves, for my sake, for the gospel’s sake, and for the sake of their still afflicted brethren, who groan under a load which they cannot well bear, and yet cannot remove without our assistance. Several generously contributed at once, in hope of paying the whole debt. Of them nothing more can be required, but their prayers that others may be as openhearted as themselves. Nevertheless, if of their own free goodwill they see good to add a little to their former benefactions--this, as well as the former, is lent unto the Lord, and what they lay out shall be paid them again. Ought I not to add, that there were some of our brethren who did not answer my expectation? I knew they were able to assist largely; and I flattered myself they were not less willing than able, as they owed me their own souls also, and this was the first favour of the kind which I had requested of them. Let me be excused from saying any more of what is past. Let them now drop all excuses and objections, and show they love me and their brethren, and the work of God, not in word only, but in deed and in truth. Let me have joy over you, my brethren, in particular. You have a measure of this world’s goods, and you see your brother hath need. I have need of your help, inasmuch as the burdens of my brethren are my own. Do not pass by on the other side; but come and help as God has enabled you. Do all you can to lighten the labour, and strengthen the hands, of your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[42]

Wesley was a great reader, as well as a great writer; and, during the year 1768, his journal is enriched with an unusual number of his critical remarks. A few may be given as specimens of others.

“January 11.--This week I spent my scraps of time in reading Mr. Wodrow’s ‘History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.’ It would transcend belief, but that the vouchers are too authentic to admit of any exception. O what a blessed governor was that goodnatured man, so called, King Charles the Second! Bloody Queen Mary was a lamb, a mere dove, in comparison of him!”

“April 29.--I read over an extremely sensible book, but one that surprised me much: ‘An Inquiry into the Proofs of the Charges commonly advanced against Mary Queen of Scotland.’ By means of original papers, the author has made it clear: (1) That she was altogether innocent of the murder of Lord Darnley, and no way privy to it. (2) That she married Lord Bothwell (then near seventy years old, herself but four-and-twenty), from the pressing instance of the nobility in a body, who, at the same time, assured her he was innocent of the king’s murder. (3) That Murray, Morton, and Lethington, themselves contrived that murder, in order to charge it upon her; as well as forged those vile letters and sonnets which they palmed upon the world for hers. ‘But how then can we account for the quite contrary story, which has been almost universally received?’ Most easily. It was penned and published in French, English, and Latin, (by Queen Elizabeth’s order,) by George Buchanan, who was secretary to Lord Murray and in Queen Elizabeth’s pay; so he was sure to throw dirt enough. Nor was she at liberty to answer for herself. ‘But what then was Queen Elizabeth?’ As just and merciful as Nero, and as good a Christian as Mahomet.”

“May 20.--I went on reading that fine book, Bishop Butler’s ‘Analogy.’ But I doubt it is too hard for most of those for whom it is chiefly intended. Freethinkers, so called, are seldom close thinkers. They will not be at the pains of reading such a book as this. One that would profit them must dilute his sense, or they will neither swallow nor digest it.”

“November 19.--I read Dr. Nowell’s answer to Mr. Hill, concerning the expulsion of the students at Oxford. He has said all that could be said for that stretch of power; and he says quite enough, to clear the Church of England from the charge of predestination: a doctrine which he proves to be utterly inconsistent with the Common Prayer, the Communion Service, the Office of Baptism, the articles, the homilies, and the other writings of those that compiled them.”

The last extract refers to a matter too nearly allied to Methodism to be passed without further notice.

“On the 12th of March, 1768, six students belonging to Edmund hall, Oxford, were expelled the university, for holding Methodistical tenets, and taking upon them to pray, read or expound the Scriptures, and sing hymns in private houses. The principal of the hall, Dr. Dixon, defended their doctrines from the thirty-nine articles of the Established Church, and spoke in the highest terms of their piety and the exemplariness of their lives; but sentence was pronounced against them. Dr. Nowell, one of the heads of houses present, observed, that as these six gentlemen were expelled for having too much religion, it would be very proper to inquire into the conduct of some who had too little.”[43]

The expelled students were Benjamin Kay, Thomas Jones, Thomas Grove, Erasmus Middleton, Joseph Shipman, and James Mathews. The junta of expellers were Drs. Durell, Randolph, Fothergill, Nowell, and Atterbury.[44] The charges brought against the young culprits were: 1. That they had held or frequented illicit conventicles, where some of them, though not in orders, had preached and prayed extempore, particularly in the house of a staymaker, a woman who herself officiated and taught. 2. That some of them had been bred up to the lowest trades and occupations, for one had been a weaver and kept a taphouse, a second had been a barber, a third a draper; and further all were wholly illiterate, and incapable of performing the statutable exercises of the university; and were maintained at the charge of persons suspected of enthusiasm. 3. That they were attached to the sect called Methodists, and held their doctrines, namely, “that faith without works is sufficient for salvation; that there is no necessity for good works; that the immediate impulse of the Spirit is to be waited for; that once a child of God always a child of God; and the like.” 4. That one of them, before his entrance into the university, had preached, and, in defiance of his father’s authority, had connected himself with the Methodists. 5. That some of them had behaved very irreverently and disrespectfully to their tutor, and had industriously sought to cavil with and to vex him.[45]

It is right to add, that none of these young men had been connected with Wesley. Mr. Jones, the barber, had, for some time resided, with the Rev. John Newton, and, under his instruction, had made considerable progress in the Greek and Hebrew languages. Mr. Kay was of a respectable family, and an excellent scholar, and had an exhibition paid by the Ironmongers’ Company. Mr. Mathews had been instructed by Fletcher of Madeley. Mr. Middleton had been under the tutelage of the Rev. Thomas Haweis. Of Mr. Grove and Mr. Shipman we know nothing, except that the latter, after his expulsion, was admitted to the college of the Countess of Huntingdon, at Trevecca.

This act of Oxford tyranny, as might be expected, created great commotion; and numbers of tracts and pamphlets, pro and con, were published. Among others, Whitefield rushed into the battle, in a “Letter to the Rev. Dr. Durell,” 8vo, 50 pages, and defended the expelled with great vigour and effect; as also did Dr. Horne, afterwards bishop of Norwich. Macgowan published his “Shaver,” in which he shaved the collegiate rulers with no gentle hand, and, in the process, must have made them smart. Sir Richard Hill, a young man of thirty-six, who for some time past had been using his utmost endeavours to improve Oxford morality, issued his “Pietas Oxoniensis,” 8vo, 85 pages, in which he belaboured the junta with unsparing severity. Several replies were written in justification of the Oxford bull; and, after an immense expenditure of time, and not a little display of angry temper, this execrable act of the Oxford authorities was allowed to repose in silence. It is a fact, however, far too serious to be forgotten, that while Oxford university, in past days, has tolerated in its students the most notorious wickedness, and while, at the present day, it tolerates German scepticism and Romish heresy, it once, in one of its paroxysms of pious zeal, ignominiously expelled six young men, whose only crimes were, that some of them had been ignobly bred, and all had sung, and prayed, and read the Scriptures in private houses.

The Countess of Huntingdon was accused of maintaining some or all of these young students at the Oxford university; and perhaps there was a modicum of truth in this. Be that as it may, she soon made her young preachers independent of Oxford help. Trevecca House, in the parish of Talgarth, in Wales, was an ancient structure, supposed to have been erected about the year 1176. This building the countess opened as a college, five months after the expulsions just mentioned,--on the 24th of August, 1768, the anniversary of her ladyship’s birthday. Whitefield preached at the opening; Fletcher was made the president; and, for a few months, Mr. Easterbrook the head master; when Joseph Benson was appointed his successor. Of course, Fletcher was not expected to relinquish his charge at Madeley; but he was to attend the college at Trevecca as often as he conveniently could; to give advice, with regard to the appointment of masters, and the admission or exclusion of students; to oversee their studies and conduct; to assist their piety; and to judge of their qualifications for the ministry.[46] As is well known, both Fletcher and Benson soon retired, because of the doctrinal differences that sprang up; but Trevecca was still used as a seminary for the training of Calvinistic ministers, till 1792, when the institution was removed to Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire. Wesley from the beginning was in doubt of it, though, perhaps, without reason. In a letter to his brother, dated “May 19, 1768,” he writes: “I am glad Mr. Fletcher has been with you. But if the tutor fails, what will become of our college at Trevecca? Did you ever see anything more queer than their plan of institution? Pray who penned it, man or woman? I am afraid the visitor too will fail.”[47] Was there a tinge of jealousy in this? We know not. Troubles, it is true, soon sprung up; but the countess made Trevecca her principal place of residence; and within its walls were trained a noble band of earnest, laborious, and useful ministers. The old building is now the residence of a Celtic farmer.[48] O tempora! O mores!

Excepting the hubbub arising out of the Oxford expulsions, there was not much, in 1768, that was antagonistic to the Methodist movement. A small, paltry pamphlet was published, with the title, “Enthusiasm Reprehended. Three Letters to Mr. John Wesley. With Strictures on his Character, the Reception he met with at Perth, and his Conduct on that occasion.” A 12mo volume, of 212 pages, was also issued, entitled “Sermons to Asses”; and was dedicated to Whitefield, Wesley, Romaine, and Madan. Besides these, an eighteenpenny poem was published, entitled “The Hypocrite: a comedy;” in which the writer tries to turn Cibber’s satire on disloyalty into a castigation of enthusiasm.

Wesley’s publications also were fewer than usual, and hardly any of them original. The following belong to this period.

1. “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Rutherforth.” This has been already noticed in a previous chapter.

2. “A Caution to False Prophets: a Sermon on Matthew vii. 15-20. Particularly recommended to the people called Methodists.” 12mo, 12 pages. In this sermon, Wesley discusses a point which he confesses had puzzled him for many years, namely, whether it is right to hear a minister who is either immoral, or who preaches false doctrine. He still hesitates to pronounce an opinion, and recommends those who were in doubt to “wait upon God in prayer, and then act according to the best light they had.”

3. “Instructions for Members of Religious Societies. Translated from the French.” Under the date of February 26, 1768, Wesley writes: “I translated from the French one of the most useful tracts I ever saw, for those who desire to be ‘fervent in spirit.’ How little does God regard men’s opinions! What a multitude of wrong opinions are embraced by all the members of the Church of Rome! Yet how highly favoured have many of them been!”

4. “An Extract from the Rev. Mr. Law’s Later Works.” Two vols., 12mo, 251 and 204 pages. About a quarter of a century before this, Wesley had published an extract from Law’s “Christian Perfection”; an extract from his “Serious Call”; and an extract from his “Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp.” He now published similar extracts from Law’s answer to “Christianity as old as Creation,” his “Spirit of Prayer,” his “Spirit of Love,” his “Letters,” and his “Address to the Clergy.”

5. “An Extract of the Life of the late Rev. David Brainerd.” 12mo, 274 pages. Just at the time when Methodism was extending its mission to America and Newfoundland, Wesley issued his life of one of the most devoted missionaries that ever lived: a young man who died before he arrived at the age of thirty; but whose piety, for depth and fervour, has seldom been excelled; and whose four years’ mission among the Delaware and other Indians, from 1743 to 1747, would warm the heart and improve the character of all candidates for missionary work.

Besides the above, another publication belongs to the year 1768,--“Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs,” 12mo, 47 pages. This, strictly speaking, was Wesley’s first political pamphlet. At the general election of 1768, John Wilkes, at the time an outlaw, was returned to parliament by the county of Middlesex; and, shortly after, was arrested and committed to the King’s Bench prison. For nearly a fortnight, crowds collected outside the prison walls, and soldiers were sent to protect the place. A riot followed; the soldiers fired; six of the rioters were killed, and fourteen badly wounded; and the exploit got the name of the “Massacre of St. George’s Fields.” For months, Wilkes’s business occupied the attention of court and cabinet; when the wretched demagogue was sentenced to pay a fine of £1000, to be imprisoned for two-and-twenty months, and afterwards to find security for good behaviour for seven years. While in prison, he was at the zenith of his fame; subscriptions were opened for the payment of his debts; and his likenesses were so multiplied, that portraits of him squinted from the signboards of half the public houses in the kingdom.

It was in the midst of such a state of things, that Wesley wrote the pamphlet already mentioned. He admits that, though “cobblers, tinkers, porters, and hackney coachmen” think themselves wise enough “to instruct both the king and his council,” he himself is “not so deeply learned. Politics were beyond his province; but he would use the privilege of an Englishman to speak his naked thoughts.” “I have,” he writes, “no bias, one way or the other. I have no interest depending. I want no man’s favour, having no hopes, no fears, from any man.” He then proceeds to defend the character of the king; and maintains that, as an outlaw, Wilkes was incapacitated to take a seat in the House of Commons. “Encumbered with no religion, and disappointed in his application for place and power, Wilkes had set up for patriot, vehemently inveighed against evil counsellors and grievances, and was paid in French louis d’or for his agitative services.” Wesley then expresses the opinion that, “supposing things to take their natural course, they must go from bad to worse; the land will become a field of blood; and many thousands of poor Englishmen will sheathe their swords in each other’s bowels, for the diversion of their good neighbours. Then, either a commonwealth will ensue, or else a second Cromwell. One must be; but it cannot be determined which,--King Wilkes, or King Mob.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] C. Wesley’s Life, vol. ii., p. 242.

[2] Methodist Magazine, 1783, p. 684.

[3] Methodist Magazine, 1857, p. 616.

[4] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 17.

[5] Ibid. vol. ii., p. 427.

[6] Methodist Magazine, 1857, p. 693.

[7] Manuscript letter.

[8] The meaning of this is, that, at least, £500 of what the Methodists have always technically designated “The Yearly Collection,” was, at this period, employed in paying chapel debts. Except that for Kingswood school, this was the only connexional collection that Wesley had; and he strongly insisted that every Methodist should render it support. In an unpublished letter, addressed to Matthew Lowes, and dated March 11, 1762, Wesley writes: “In the enclosed papers, (which you may read in every society, just before you meet the classes,) you will see the design of the general yearly collection, to which every Methodist in England is to contribute something. If there is any who cannot give a halfpenny a year, another will give it for him.”

[9] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 126.

[10] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1751, p. 179.

[11] Myles’s History.

[12] Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 122; and 1829, p. 585.

[13] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1763, p. 463.

[14] Burslem old circuit book.

[15] Manuscript.

[16] Methodist Magazine, 1812, p. 534; and 1843, p. 89.

[17] Liverpool old society book.

[18] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiv., p. 276.

[19] Ibid. vol. xii., p. 126.

[20] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 126. All this confusion arose chiefly out of the half insane ravings of Bell and his friends in 1762. In a long, unpublished letter, dated September 29, 1764, Wesley writes: “I never staggered at all at the reveries of George Bell. I saw instantly, at the beginning and from the beginning, what was right and what was wrong; but I saw withal, ‘I have many things to speak, but you cannot bear them now.’ Hence, many imagined I was imposed upon; and applauded themselves in their greater perspicacity; as they do at this day. ‘But if you knew it,’ says his friend to Gregory Lopez, ‘why did you not tell me?’ I answer with him, ‘I do not speak all I know, but what I judge needful.’ Still, I am persuaded, there is no state under heaven from which it is not possible to fall.”

[21] Methodist Magazine, 1783, p. 681.

[22] Wesley’s seal is a dove, having in its mouth an olive branch, and surrounded with the words “Nuncia Pacis.”

[23] Methodist Magazine, 1805, p. 277.

[24] Ibid. 1808, p. 297.

[25] Theological Magazine, 1802, p. 39.

[26] Methodist Magazine, 1803, p. 215.

[27] Methodist Magazine, 1813, p. 441.

[28] Wesley’s Works, vol. iii., p. 320.

[29] Methodist Magazine, 1815, p. 459.

[30] Taylor’s “Redeeming Grace.”

[31] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 359.

[32] Methodist Magazine, 1785, p. 491.

[33] Atmore’s “Memorial”; and Methodist Magazine, 1851, p. 869.

[34] Wesley’s Works, vol. iii., p. 324.

[35] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1744, p. 51.

[36] Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 454.

[37] Wesleyan Times, June 19, 1849.

[38] Entwisle’s Memoir, p. 31.

[39] Methodist Magazine, 1826, p. 464.

[40] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 127.

[41] Minutes of Conference.

[42] A manuscript circular, signed by Wesley himself.

[43] London Magazine, 1768, p. 125.

[44] Philip’s Life of Whitefield, p. 492.

[45] London Magazine, 1768, p. 214.

[46] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 281.

[47] Ibid. vol. xii., p. 126.

[48] “Life and Times of Howel Harris,” p. 246.

1769. Age 66

Terrible was the political excitement at the commencement of 1769. It was now, that the first of the celebrated letters of “Junius” appeared in the columns of the Public Advertiser. These withering invectives became, to a great extent, the political textbook of the nation. For years past, Ireland also had been turbulent, split into factions, and overrun by hordes of Levellers and Whiteboys, Oakboys and Hearts of Steel, all bound together by secret oaths, and a detestation of paying tithes. The kingdom was full of wicked wits and scoffers; and jokes, repartees, bonmots, and sarcasms, none of them distinguished for their loyalty, began to spice a large number of the newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets of the period. Never was Methodism more greatly needed than now.

Whitefield’s work in England was nearly ended. He and Wesley were still united in bonds of ardent friendship. The latter writes: “January 9, 1769--I spent a comfortable and profitable hour with Mr. Whitefield, in calling to mind the former times, and the manner wherein God prepared us for a work which it had not then entered into our hearts to conceive.” On the day following, Wesley preached in the house of the Countess of Huntingdon, in Portland Row, and Whitefield administered the sacrament.[49] And seven weeks later, Wesley wrote again: “February 27--I had one more agreeable conversation with my old friend and fellow labourer, George Whitefield. His soul appeared to be vigorous still, but his body was sinking apace; and, unless God interposes with His mighty hand, he must soon finish his labours.” For six months more, Whitefield rambled over England, preaching three or four times every week, and exclaiming, as though his youthful zest was unabated, “Field preaching, field preaching for ever.”[50] At the beginning of September, he embarked for Georgia, and addressed to Wesley the following farewell letter.

“THE DOWNS, ON BOARD THE Friendship, Captain Ball, September 12, 1769.

“REVEREND AND VERY DEAR SIR,--What hath God wrought for us, in us, by us! I sailed out of these Downs almost thirty-three years ago! Oh the height, the depth, the length, the breadth of Thy love, O God! Surely it passeth knowledge. Help, help, O heavenly Father, to adore what we cannot fully comprehend! I am glad to hear, that you had such a pentecost season at the college; one would hope, that these are earnests of good things to come, and that our Lord will not yet remove His candlestick from among us. Duty is ours. Future things belong to Him, who always did, and always will order all things well.

‘Leave to His sovereign sway, To choose and to command; So shall we wondering own His way, How wise, how strong His hand.’

“Mutual Christian love will not permit you, and those in connection with you, to forget a willing pilgrim, going now across the Atlantic for the thirteenth time. At present, I am kept from staggering; being fully persuaded, that the voyage will be for the Redeemer’s glory, and the welfare of precious and immortal souls. Oh to be kept from flagging in the latter stages of our road! Ipse, Deo volente, sequar, etsi non passibus æquis. Cordial love and respect await your brother, and all that are so kind as to inquire after, and be concerned for,

“Reverend and very dear sir, “Less than the least of all,

“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[51]

Thus the old friends parted, not to meet again, till they met in heaven. Twelve months afterwards, the great orator was dead.

Wesley spent the month of January in meeting the London classes, and in a visit to Sheerness and Chatham. In February, he made a tour to Norfolk; and, on the 6th of March, set out for Ireland, and arrived in Dublin on the 22nd. Here we pause, to insert two of his letters to two of his female correspondents. The first was addressed to Lady Maxwell, and refers to a subject of some interest, though one on which opinions will differ.

“LONDON, March 3, 1769.

“MY DEAR LADY,--I have heard my mother say, ‘I have frequently been as fully assured, that my father’s spirit was with me, as if I had seen him with my eyes.’ But she did not explain herself any further. I have myself many times found, on a sudden, so lively an apprehension of a deceased friend, that I have sometimes turned about to look; at the same time, I have felt an uncommon affection for them. But I never had anything of this kind with regard to any but those that died in faith. In dreams, I have had exceeding lively conversations with them; and I doubt not but they were then very near.

“I am, my dear lady, your ever affectionate servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[52]

The next was addressed to Sarah Crosby, the female preacher.

“CHESTER, March 18, 1769.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--The westerly winds detain me here. When I am in Ireland, you have only to direct to Dublin, and the letter will find me.

“I advise you, as I did Grace Walton formerly--1. Pray in private or public as much as you can. 2. Even in public, you may properly enough intermix short exhortations with prayer; but keep as far from what is called preaching as you can; therefore, never take a text; never speak in a continued discourse, without some break, above four or five minutes. Tell the people, ‘We shall have another prayermeeting at such a time and place.’ If Hannah Harrison had followed these few directions, she might have been as useful now as ever.

“As soon as you have time, write more particularly and circumstantially; and let sister Bosanquet do the same. There is now no hindrance in the way; nothing to hinder you speaking as freely as you please to, dear Sally, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[53]

Trouble awaited Wesley in Dublin. James Morgan and Thomas Olivers had quarrelled,[54] and the society had suffered loss. Besides this, says Wesley, “I was summoned, by a poor creature who fed my horse three or four times while I was on board. For this service he demanded ten shillings. I gave him half-a-crown. When I informed the court of this, he was sharply reproved. Let all beware of these land sharks on our sea coasts!”

On the 3rd of April, Wesley left Dublin for the provinces. At Armagh, for the first time in his life, he preached in a stable. At Kinnard, he met an old acquaintance, Archdeacon C----e, and, at his request, opened a new church, which had just been built. At Londonderry, he had, what he calls, “a brilliant congregation,” but says: “Such a sight gives me no great pleasure; as I have very little hope of doing them good: only ‘with God all things are possible.’ In no other place in Ireland has more pains been taken by the most able of our preachers. And to how little purpose! Bands they have none: four-and-forty persons in society! The greater part of these heartless and cold. The audience in general dead as stones.” At Manorhamilton, “all behaved well,” says he, “but one young gentlewoman, who laughed almost incessantly. She knew there was nothing to laugh at; but she thought she laughed prettily.” At Cork, the society had been gradually decreasing for seven years, until now the number of members was reduced from 400 to 190. At Portarlington, the society once had a hundred and thirty members; now it had only twenty-four.

Fourteen weeks were spent in traversing all parts of Ireland. In some places, there was declension and great discouragement; in many, Wesley’s ministry was accompanied with amazing power; in none, did he meet with brutal persecution. Occasionally a giddy girl would laugh, or an empty headed man would sneer; but the days of sticks and stones were over. Wesley returned to Dublin on the 15th of July; met his Irish preachers in conference; and then, on July 24, embarked for England; having to open his English conference at Leeds on August 1. Before reviewing its proceedings, some further extracts must be given from his correspondence.

The first letter is remarkable. We have scarcely met with another like it. The fastidious may object to some of its expressions; but it must be remembered that, though Wesley always employed plainness of speech, he rarely employed coarseness. Besides, desperate cases require desperate remedies. In this instance, ordinary language, in all likelihood, would have been useless. The Irish Methodists were far from faultless; and Hugh Saunderson, to whom the letter was addressed, and who had just commenced his itinerancy in the Armagh circuit, was far from being a model of perfection. More than once had Wesley to remonstrate with him for his irregularities; and, in 1777, had to expel him. On one occasion, in 1774, Wesley himself was actually arrested on account of Saunderson’s peccant conduct. The charge was, that the man had robbed his wife “of £100 in money, and upwards of £30 in goods; and had, beside that, terrified her into madness; so that, through want of her help, and the loss of business,” the prosecutor, George Sutherland, “was damaged £500.” It was farther alleged, that Saunderson was one of Wesley’s preachers, and that the two, to evade Mrs. Saunderson’s pursuit, were preparing to fly the country. On such a pretext Wesley was actually arrested, and taken to the Edinburgh Tolbooth, where he had to wait till his friends gave bail for his appearance. This was done; the case was tried; and Mr. Sutherland, the prosecutor, was fined £1000. Of Saunderson’s guilt we know nothing; but, three years afterwards, Wesley expelled him from his connexion; and the man first set up at Edinburgh, and then divided the society at Exeter, where he “pitched his standard and declared open war.”[55] Such was the culprit to whom Wesley sent the letter following.

“April 24, 1769.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I shall now tell you the things which have been more or less upon my mind, ever since I have been in the north of Ireland. If you forget them, you will be a sufferer, and so will the people; if you observe them, it will be for the good of both.

“1. To begin with little things. If you regard your health, touch no supper, but a little milk or water gruel. This will entirely, by the blessing of God, secure you from nervous disorders; especially, if you rise early every morning, whether you preach or no.

“2. Be steadily serious. There is no country upon earth where this is more necessary than Ireland; as you generally are encompassed with those who, with a little encouragement, would laugh or trifle from morning to night.

“3. In every town, visit all you can from house to house. I say all you can; for there will be some whom you cannot visit; and if you examine, instruct, reprove, exhort, as need requires, you will have no time hanging on your hands. It is by this means, that the societies are increased wherever T. R. goes; he is preaching from morning to night, warning every one, that he may present every one perfect in Christ Jesus.

“4. But on this, and every other occasion, avoid all familiarity with women. This is a deadly poison, both to them and you. You cannot be too wary in this respect. Therefore begin from this hour.

“5. The chief matter of your conversation, as well as your preaching, should doubtless be the weightier matters of the law. Yet, there are several comparatively little things, which you should earnestly inculcate from time to time; for ‘he that despiseth small things shall fall by little and little.’ Such are--

“(1) Be active, be diligent; avoid all laziness, sloth, indolence. Fly from every degree, every appearance of it; else you will never be more than half a Christian.

“(2) Be cleanly. In this let the Methodists take pattern by the Quakers. Avoid all nastiness, dirt, slovenliness, both in your person, clothes, house, all about you. Do not stink above ground. This is a bad fruit of laziness. Use all diligence to be clean.

“(3) Whatever clothes you wear let them be whole: no rents, no tatters, no rags. These are a scandal to either man or woman; being another fruit of vile laziness. Mend your clothes, or I shall never expect you to mend your lives. Let none ever see a ragged Methodist.

“(4) Clean yourselves of lice. These are a proof both of uncleanness and laziness. Take pains in this. Do not cut off your hair, but clean it, and keep it clean.

“(5) Cure yourselves and your family of the itch. A spoonful of brimstone will cure you. To let this run from year to year, proves both sloth and uncleanness. Away with it at once. Let not the north be any longer a proverb of reproach to all the nation.

“(6) Use no tobacco unless prescribed by a physician. It is an uncleanly and unwholesome self indulgence; and the more customary it is, the more resolutely should you break off from every degree of that vile custom.

“(7) Use no snuff unless prescribed by a physician. I suppose no other nation in Europe is in such vile bondage to this silly, nasty, dirty custom, as the Irish are; but let the Christians be in this bondage no longer. Assert your liberty, and that all at once; nothing will be done by degrees. But just now you may break loose, through Christ strengthening you.

“(8) Touch no dram. It is liquid fire. It is a sure, though slow poison. It saps the very springs of life. In Ireland, above all countries in the world, I would sacredly abstain from this, because the evil is so general. To this, and snuff, and smoky cabins, I impute the blindness which is so exceeding common throughout the nation.

“I might have inserted under the second article, what I particularly desire, wherever you have preaching, namely, that there may be a little house. Let this be got without delay. Wherever it is not, let none expect to see me.

“I am, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[56]

No apology is needed for the publication of this letter; for Wesley himself published it in his Arminian Magazine. Its picture of the Irish and of the Irish Methodists is far from being fragrant and pleasant; but it was doubtless true, and shows that Wesley was a great reformer in more respects than one. All the Irish Methodists, however, must not be included in the company above alluded to. The exceptions were not few, but many, and some of them distinguished. One of these was Mrs. Elizabeth Bennis, the first Methodist in Limerick, in 1749, a lady of respectability and intelligence, long the correspondent of Wesley, and who continued one of his devoted followers till her death in 1802.[57] The following letter was addressed to her during Wesley’s present visit to the sister island, and refers to an unfounded opinion which Wesley had now renounced.

“CORK, May 30, 1769.

“DEAR SISTER,--Some years since, I was inclined to think that none, who had once enjoyed and then lost the pure love of God, must ever look to enjoy it again till they were just stepping into eternity. But experience has taught us better things. We have, at present, numerous instances of those who have cast away that unspeakable blessing, and now enjoy it in a larger measure than ever. And should not this be your case? Because you are unworthy? So were they. Because you have been an unfaithful steward? So had they been also; yet, God healed them freely; and so He will you, only do not reason against Him. Forget yourself. Worthy is the Lamb: you shall not die, but live, live all the life of heaven on earth. You need nothing, in order to this, but faith; and who gives this? He that standeth at the door.

“Let there never more be any reserve between you and your truly affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[58]

Wesley arrived in Leeds on Saturday, July 29, and on Sunday, the 30th, preached, for the Rev. Henry Crook, in Hunslet church, morning and afternoon. Mr. Crook was an old friend of the two Wesleys. As early as 1756, Charles Wesley preached in his church at Hunslet, and speaks of hundreds of communicants, most of whom had been awakened under Mr. Crook’s faithful ministry.[59]

The conference, at Leeds, opened on the 1st of August, and “a more loving one,” says Wesley, “we never had.” The Intelligencer newspaper, of August 8, tells the public, that, “for a week past, Wesley had held a kind of visitation, but what they call a conference, with several hundreds of his preachers, from most parts of Great Britain and Ireland, where he settled their several routes for the succeeding year.” It further states, that “a large sum of money” was collected for the purpose of “sending missionaries to America.”[60]

This was the “tall talk” of a newspaper. “Wesley’s itinerant preachers” throughout the entire kingdom were only one hundred and eleven in number; and the “large sum” collected for sending missionaries to America was £70, of which £50 was to be appropriated to the payment of the debt on the chapel in New York.

Above two days of the time of the conference were spent in the arrangement of temporal matters,--a thing which annoyed Wesley, who therefore directed that, in future, as much of such business as possible should be done by the secretaries before the conference met.

The two topics of most interest were Methodist missions, and the perpetuation of the Methodist system after Wesley’s death.

It is a fact worth remembering, that already, for years past, Methodism had been planted in the West Indian islands, by means of Nathaniel Gilbert and his co-workers. Laurence Coughlan had recently taken it to Newfoundland; and a few soldiers had established it at Gibraltar, where there were thirty-two members, fifteen of whom were rejoicing in the consciousness of personal pardon.[61] They had preaching every night and every morning, their preachers being “Brother Morton,” Henry Ince, of the 2nd Regiment, and Henry Hall, of the Royal Scots; six classmeetings were held every week, and the work was prospering.[62] Lord Cornwallis, the commanding officer, issued a garrison order on June 9, 1769, as follows:--“Whereas divers soldiers and inhabitants assemble themselves every evening to prayer, it is the governor’s positive order, that no person whatever presume to molest them, nor go into their meeting to behave indecently there.”[63] Wesley was acquainted with this; but not a word is found in the conference minutes concerning it. The truth is, while Methodism was now really planted in the West Indies, Newfoundland, Gibraltar, and America, none needed help except America, and, hence, none else are mentioned.

Wesley, his brother, Ingham, and Whitefield had all been in America; and Whitefield was about to go again. The work was begun in Georgia by the Wesleys. At the same time, occurred the revival in New England, under Mr. Edwards and others. Whitefield came, and not only preached in both, but likewise all the way between, a distance of many hundred miles. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were converted by his ministry; but, for want of organisation and discipline, the greater part of them had backslidden.[64] Such was the state of things in 1769.

Four years before this, a small number of Methodist emigrants from Ireland had landed in New York, one of them being Philip Embury. In 1766, another Methodist family followed, of the name of Heck. Mrs. Barbara Heck was distressed to find that her predecessors had greatly declined in godliness. At her request, Philip Embury began to preach; just at that juncture, Captain Webb, the barrackmaster at Albany, joined him; a chapel was built; a society formed; and help was asked from England.[65] Hence the thirteenth question at the conference of 1769: “We have a pressing call from our brethren at New York, who have built a preaching house, to come over and help them. Who is willing to go?” Answer: “Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor.” Q. “What can we do further in token of our brotherly love?” A. “Let us now make a collection among ourselves. This was immediately done; and, out of it, £50 were allotted towards the payment of their debt, and about £20 given to our brethren for their passage.”

It is doubtful, however, whether this was, as is generally supposed, the first collection which the Methodists made on behalf of their American mission. Six months before this, Wesley had permitted Robert Costerdine, who was then the assistant in the Sheffield circuit, to “read publicly, on any Sunday” he liked, the letter which had been received from New York, and to “receive what the hearers were willing to give.”[66] It is more than possible, that this was done; but, be that as it may, Boardman and Pilmoor set sail, and, after a nine weeks’ passage, entered upon their work: Pilmoor at Philadelphia, and Boardman at New York. At Philadelphia, they found Captain Webb and a society of about a hundred members, to whom, and to thousands more, Pilmoor commenced preaching from the grand stand erected on the racecourse. At New York, Boardman says, the chapel would contain about 1700 hearers; and that about a third part of the congregations got in, and the other two thirds were glad to hear without.[67]

Space forbids further details, except to add that, two years afterwards, the number of Methodists in America was reported in the minutes of conference as 316; and that even a thing so innocent as sending preachers to America was too important for the wicked to pass without a sneer. Hence, in a squib, the public were informed, that the following promotions in the Church were about to be declared: “Rev. G. Whitefield, Archbishop of Boston; Rev. W. Romaine, Bishop of New York; Rev. J. Wesley, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Rev. M. Madan, Bishop of the Carolinas; Rev. W. Shirley, Bishop of Virginia; and Rev. C. Wesley, Bishop of Nova Scotia.” It was added, that as his majesty would soon have the livings of these gentlemen at his disposal, he intended to provide for Dr. Dodd, and other court celebrities,[68] anxious to fill important places.

The other important matter brought before the conference of 1769 was the perpetuation of Methodism after Wesley’s death; and, on Friday, August 4, Wesley read the following paper.

“MY DEAR BRETHREN,--1. It has long been my desire, that all those ministers of our Church, who believe and preach salvation by faith, might cordially agree between themselves, and not hinder but help one another. After occasionally pressing this, in private conversation, wherever I had opportunity, I wrote down my thoughts upon the head, and sent them to each in a letter. Out of fifty or sixty, to whom I wrote, only three vouchsafed me an answer. So I give this up. I can do no more. They are a rope of sand, and such they will continue.

“2. But it is otherwise with the travelling preachers in our connexion. You are at present one body. You act in concert with each other, and by united counsels. And now is the time to consider what can be done, in order to continue this union. Indeed, as long as I live, there will be no great difficulty. I am, under God, a centre of union to all our travelling, as well as local preachers. They all know me and my communication. They all love me for my works’ sake; and, therefore, were it only out of regard to me, they will continue connected with each other. But by what means may this connection be preserved, when God removes me from you?

“3. I take it for granted, it cannot be preserved, by any means, between those who have not a single eye. Those who aim at anything but the glory of God, and the salvation of men; who desire or seek any earthly thing, whether honour, profit, or ease, will not, cannot continue in the connexion; it will not answer their design. Some of them, perhaps a fourth of the whole number, will procure preferment in the Church. Others will turn Independents, and get separate congregations, like John Edwards and Charles Skelton. Lay your accounts with this, and be not surprised if some, you do not suspect, be of this number.

“4. But what method can be taken, to preserve a firm union between those who choose to remain together? Perhaps you might take some such steps as these. On notice of my death, let all the preachers, in England and Ireland, repair to London within six weeks. Let them seek God by solemn fasting and prayer. Let them draw up articles of agreement, to be signed by those who choose to act in concert. Let those be dismissed, who do not choose it, in the most friendly manner possible. Let them choose by votes a committee of three, five, or seven, each of whom is to be moderator in his turn. Let the committee do what I do now; propose preachers to be tried, admitted, or excluded; fix the place of each preacher for the ensuing year, and the time of next conference.

“5. Can anything be done now, in order to lay a foundation for this future union? Would it not be well, for any that are willing, to sign some articles of agreement before God calls me hence? Suppose something like these:--

“‘We, whose names are underwritten, being thoroughly convinced of the necessity of a close union between those whom God is pleased to use as instruments in this glorious work, in order to preserve this union between ourselves, are resolved, God being our helper: (1) To devote ourselves entirely to God; denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily, steadily aiming at one thing, to save our own souls, and them that hear us. (2) To preach the old Methodist doctrines, and no other, contained in the minutes of the conferences. (3) To observe and enforce the whole Methodist discipline, laid down in the said minutes.’”

Such was Wesley’s propounded scheme. The preachers wisely requested Wesley to extract the most material part of the minutes, and to send a copy to each itinerant, to be seriously considered,--a request with which Wesley complied during the following year, by the publication of a pamphlet of sixty pages, entitled, “Minutes of several Conversations between the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley and others.”

This concluded the business of the conference; and “at the conclusion,” says Wesley, “all the preachers were melted down, while they were singing those lines for me,--

‘Thou, who so long hast saved me here, A little longer save; Till freed from sin, and freed from fear, I sink into a grave: Till glad I lay my body down, Thy servant’s steps attend; And O! my life of mercies crown With a triumphant end.’”[69]

This was a beautiful finish to one of the most important conferences Wesley ever held. The next day, he again started on his itinerancy of mercy, and hastened to join in the anniversary services of the Countess of Huntingdon’s college at Trevecca. These services really extended from August 18 to August 24, though Wesley himself was there only on the two concluding days. The gathering was a glorious one. Fletcher, the president, was there, with his seraphic soul lighting up an almost unearthly face; Daniel Rowlands also, the rector of Llangeitto and chaplain to the Duke of Leinster; Howel Harris, one of the bravest veterans in the group; the Rev. Walter Shirley, from Ireland, and others; making eight clergymen altogether; to whom must be added the Countess of Huntingdon, the Countess of Buchan, Lady Anne Erskine, and several of their relatives and friends. There were a number of Welsh exhorters; and, of course, the students; and likewise an immense concourse of communicants and spectators. For seven days, there was preaching twice a day; the sacrament was repeatedly administered; a lovefeast was held; baskets of bread and meat were distributed in the courtyard among the country people; and the whole season was what Whitefield called a pentecost.[70] Wesley preached twice, gave an exhortation, and administered the Lord’s supper to the countess’s family, and so ended his service in connection with what he designates “the anniversary of her ladyship’s school.” This was his first and last visit.

At this time, Joseph Benson, now in the twenty-first year of his age, was classical master of Wesley’s school at Kingswood, and had, with Wesley’s sanction, entered himself at St. Edmund’s hall, Oxford, where he regularly kept his terms. But now an effort was made to obtain his services as head master at Trevecca. Wesley, for more reasons than one, was loth to lose him. Hence the letters following.

“CORK, May 27, 1769.

“DEAR JOSEPH,--You have now--what you never had before--a clear providential call to Oxford. If you keep a single eye, and have courage and steadiness, you may be an instrument of much good. But you will tread on slippery ground; and the serious persons you mention may do you more hurt than many others. When I was at Oxford, I never was afraid of any but the almost Christians. If you give way to them and their prudence a hair’s breadth, you will be removed from the hope of the gospel. If you are not moved, if you tread in the same steps which my brother and I did, you may be the means, under God, of raising another set of real Bible Christians. How long the world will suffer them is in God’s hand.

“With regard to Kingswood school, I have one string more; if that breaks, I shall let it drop. I have borne the burden one-and-twenty years; I have done what I could; now, let some one else do more.

“I am, dear Joseph, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[71]

Again.

“LONDON, December 26, 1769.

“DEAR JOSEPH,--Every man of sense, who reads the rules of the school, may easily conclude that a school so conducted by men of piety and understanding will exceed any other school or academy in Great Britain or Ireland. In this sentiment, you can never be altered. And if it was not so conducted since you were there, why was it not? You had power enough. You have all the power which I have. You may do what you please.

“‘Dirue et ædifica; muta quadrata rotundis;’ and I will second you to the uttermost.

“Trevecca is much more to ---- than Kingswood is to me. I mixes with everything. It is my college, my masters, my students. I do not speak so of this school. It is not mine, but the Lord’s. I look for no more honour than money from it.

“I am glad you defer your journey; and am, dear Joseph, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[72]

Wesley was evidently sore about Benson leaving him; but, a few weeks afterwards, the exchange was made; and then, after nine months of faithful service at Trevecca, the young head master was unceremoniously dismissed, because of his defending the doctrines of his friend Wesley.

From Trevecca, Wesley made his way to Bristol, which he reached on August 26; and, from there, set off to Cornwall, where he employed a week in visiting as many of his societies as he could in so short a period. On getting back to Bristol, he inquired into the state of Kingswood school, and writes: “The grievance now is the number of children. Instead of thirty, as I desired, we have near fifty; whereby our masters are burdened. And it is scarce possible to keep them in so exact order as we might do a smaller number. However, this still comes nearer a Christian school than any I know in the kingdom.”

The next month was spent in the neighbourhood of Bristol, and was not without adventures. At Bradford, he was surrounded by a noisy rabble; “and one,” says he, “called a gentleman, had filled his pocket with rotten eggs; but a young man smashed them all at once; and, in an instant, he was perfume all over, though it was not so sweet as balsam.”

At Salisbury, the scene of so many of his sister Patty’s sorrows, Wesley writes: “I was as in a new world. The congregation was alive, and much more the society. How pleasing would it be, to be always with such! But this is not our calling.” Wesley had seen dark days here; but now the sun was shining. After the desolation caused by Westley Hall’s disgraceful conduct, the few remaining Methodists took possession of a shop in Greencroft Street, and then, in 1759, built themselves a chapel.[73] Barbara Hunt was one of their chief members,--a brave young woman, now thirty-three years old, but who lived long enough to be a Methodist threescore years and three, and died exclaiming, “O how glad should I be to clap my glad wings and tower away!”[74] Another was David Saunders, the hero of Mrs. Hannah More’s “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.” “His coat,” says the fair authoress, perhaps mixing a little fiction with fact,--“his coat had been, in a long course of years, so often patched with different sorts of cloth, that it was now become hard to say which had been the original colour; his stockings were covered with darns of different coloured worsted, but had not a hole in them; his shirt, though nearly as coarse as the sails of a ship, was as white as the drifted snow; his open honest countenance bore strong marks of health and cheerfulness.” His good wife was cleanly, thrifty, and a hard worker; and a happier man than the “shepherd of Salisbury plain” did not exist. David Saunders was a shepherd in more respects than one. While he tended his sheep, he also, as a faithful classleader, watched over the souls committed to his care. He died in peace, in 1796, at the age of eighty.[75]

Wesley got back to London on October 14, but two days afterwards set out for Oxfordshire, and spent the week in preaching at Henley, Wallingford, Oxford, Witney, Broadmarston, and Wycombe. The last week in October he employed at Towcester, Northampton, Weedon, Bedford, and other intervening towns, preaching, during his five days’ tour, not fewer than seventeen times in widely distant places.

At the beginning of November he went to Norfolk; at the end, he visited his old friend Perronet, at Shoreham, and preached twice in his parish church. Even here, in the vicar’s kitchen, there was Methodist preaching every Friday night, and also a Methodist society, embracing Mr. Kingswood, Mr. Sharp, old Mrs. Lightfoot and her servant maid, poor dame Cacket, and bold, masculine minded Miss D. Perronet at the head of them.[76]

Except short tours to Kent and Sussex, the remainder of the year was employed in London, where he received letters from Boardman and Pilmoor in America, and which he read to the London society. He was importuned to visit America himself; and, though such a visit was utterly impracticable, yet he was far from hasty in declining it. Hence the following, addressed to his friend, the Rev. Walter Sellon.

“LONDON, December 30, 1769.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--It is not yet determined whether I should go to America or not. I have been importuned some time; but nil sat firmi video. I must have a clear call before I am at liberty to leave Europe.

“You should heat your milk, but never let it boil; boiling robs it of the most nutritious particles. Do not make too much haste in dealing with Elisha Coles; I am afraid the treatise will be too short. And pray add a word to that lively coxcomb, Mr. Toplady, not only with regard to Zanchius, but his slander on the Church of England. You would do well to give a reading to both his tracts. He does certainly believe himself to be the greatest genius in England. Pray take care, or natis sit pro suis virtutibus.

“I am, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[77]

Mr. Toplady’s two tracts, referred to in this epistle, were his (1) “Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell; occasioned by some passages in that gentleman’s answer to the Author of ‘Pietas Oxoniensis,’” 8vo, 136 pages: and (2) “The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted. Translated, in great measure, from the Latin of Jerom Zanchius, with some Account of his Life prefixed,” 8vo, 134 pages. Both these pamphlets were published in 1769.

All this, and a great deal more, really arose out of the expulsion of the Oxford students in 1768. Sir Richard Hill, in defending them, had warmly defended the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. Dr. Nowell, in his Answer, had clearly shown, that this was not the doctrine of the Church of England; and now impetuous Augustus Toplady hastened to the rescue, and administered two allopathic doses of Calvinism’s most drastic tincture, to cure the Church of Arminian disease and fever. Toplady’s style is trenchant; his doctrines are as near an approach to the doctrine of fate, as held by Plato, Seneca, and other heathen writers, as it is possible to conceive. A more impious piece, in the garb of piety, was never published than his Zanchius; while his “Church of England Vindicated” is rank with the most dogmatic and violent abuse of Dr. Nowell and the Arminian clergy. It would be easy, but not pleasant, to give extracts; and we can hardly recommend the reader to peruse the pamphlets for himself. Augustus Toplady, a stripling twenty-nine years of age, is a pope infallible; and all who hold opinions different to his are reprobate knaves, or fools.

Wesley was sick of controversial writing; and, besides, he had no time for it. Walter Sellon had leisure at his command, and had already this year published his able treatise, entitled, “The Doctrine of General Redemption considered,” 12mo, 178 pages. He was also now engaged in refuting a book hardly less horrible than the Zanchius of Augustus Toplady, namely, “A Practical Discourse of God’s Sovereignty,” 12mo, 347 pages, by Elisha Coles, a clerk to the East India Company, who died in 1688. Sellon’s book was soon issued, with the title, “A Defence of God’s Sovereignty, against the impious and horrible Aspersions cast upon it by Elisha Coles, in his practical treatise on that subject.” In his preface, he tells his readers, he “did intend to have exposed the errors and blasphemy” of Toplady’s Zanchius, but when he “found it would enlarge his work too much, and especially when he understood that Toplady had vilely slandered the Church of England,” he chose “to make it the subject of another book, which the reader might expect unless it should be done by some abler hand.”[78]

Controversial war was now begun in earnest, and a severer battle was never fought. Sir Richard Hill, Augustus Toplady, and Walter Sellon were fairly in the lists, and others soon after followed.

In the midst of all this, Wesley was savagely attacked in two letters, published in the Gospel Magazine for 1769, entitled, “Observations on Mr. J. Wesley’s view of ‘The Scripture Doctrines of Predestination, Election, and Reprobation.’” He is accused of “inexcusable vanity”; of “impertinent quibbling”; of “jesuitical sophistry”; of holding “a scheme unscriptural and dangerous, absurd and impious”; and of “finespun reasoning worse than nothing.” The author complacently tells his readers, in conclusion, that, though he had felt himself “very resentful,” yet being “called to imitate the lovely pattern of the lowly Jesus, he had answered Wesley not with asperity, but with the meekness of wisdom.”

Attacks upon Wesley were made from other quarters. It was a busy year with young Toplady; for, besides the books already noticed, he published a sixpenny pamphlet, with the title, “Many made Righteous by the Obedience of One. Two Sermons on Romans v. 19, preached at Bideford, in 1743, by the late Rev. James Hervey, with a Preface by Augustus Toplady.” Some one else issued another, entitled, “The Jesuit Detected,” in which the zealous advocate of Mr. Hervey arrays Wesley in the garb of the Babylonian woman, and then abuses him for looking so like her. Booth Brathwaite, unknown to fame, published another sixpennyworth, called “Methodism a Popish Idol; or, the Danger and Harmony of Enthusiasm and Separation.” Poor Booth, a bigot to church establishments, raves against sectaries with abundant zeal, little knowledge, and less charity. And to all these must be added, “The Pretences of Enthusiasts, considered and confuted: A Sermon preached before the university of Oxford, at St. Mary’s, on Sunday, June 26, 1768. By William Hawkins, M.A., Prebendary of Wells, late Poetry Professor, and Fellow of Pembroke College, in Oxford. Published by desire.” 8vo, 27 pages.

Wesley’s own publications in 1769 were not many.

1. “An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from October 20, 1762, to May 25, 1765.” 12mo, 124 pages.

2. “An Extract from the Journal of Elizabeth Harper.” 12mo, 47 pages.

3. “An Extract of Letters on Religious Subjects, by Mrs. Lefevre.” 12mo, 106 pages.

4. “The Witness of the Spirit. A Sermon on Romans viii. 16.” Dublin: 12mo, 16 pages. This important sermon was written at Newry, in 1767. Wesley declares that his sentiments on the witness of the Spirit were the same as they had been from the beginning. “The testimony of the Spirit,” says he, “is an inward impression on the soul of believers, whereby the Spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit, that they are the children of God.” Having established his doctrine, and answered the objections to it, he concludes with two pungent inferences: “1. Let none ever presume to rest in any supposed testimony of the Spirit, which is separate from the fruit of it. 2. Let none rest in any supposed fruit of the Spirit without the witness.”

5. “Advices with respect to Health. Extracted from a late Author.” 12mo, 218 pages. The late author was Dr. Tissot; the book itself shows Wesley’s intense anxiety to be of use to the bodies as well as souls of his fellow creatures. He strongly commends Tissot’s descriptions of diseases, the fewness and cheapness of his medicines, and his regimen; but protests against his fondness for bleeding, and for glysters; against his ointment for the itch, and his vehement recommendation of Peruvian bark.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 126.

[50] Whitefield’s Works, vol. iii., p. 387.

[51] Methodist Magazine, 1783, p. 273.

[52] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 321.

[53] Ibid. vol. xii., p. 331.

[54] Taylor’s “Redeeming Grace,” p. 49; and Wesley’s Works, vol. iii., p. 350.

[55] Wesley’s Works, vol. iv., pp. 16, 173, 222.

[56] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 165.

[57] Irish Evangelist, May, 1862.

[58] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 362.

[59] C. Wesley’s Journal, vol. ii., p. 117.

[60] Smith’s History of Methodism, vol. i., p. 380.

[61] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 112.

[62] Smith’s History of Methodism, vol. i., p. 387.

[63] Rule’s “Memoir of a Mission to Gibraltar,” p. 5.

[64] Wesley’s Works, vol. vii., p. 392.

[65] About the same time, Thomas Bell, at Charlestown, wrote as follows: “Mr. Wesley says, the first message of the preachers is to the lost sheep of England. And are there none in America? They have strayed from England into the wild woods here, and they are running wild after this world. They are drinking their wine in bowls, and are jumping and dancing, and serving the devil, in the groves and under the green trees. And are not these lost sheep? And will none of the preachers come here? Where is Mr. Brownfield? Where is John Pawson? Where is Nicholas Manners? Are they living, and will they not come?”--(“The Centenary of Methodism,” published by the Primitive Methodists in Ireland, in 1839, p. 189.)

[66] Methodist Magazine, 1845, p. 578.

[67] Ibid. 1783, p. 276; and 1784, p. 163.

[68] Lloyd’s Evening Post, May 26, 1769.

[69] Methodist Magazine, 1799, p. 253.

[70] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 99.

[71] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 383.

[72] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 384.

[73] Methodist Magazine, 1836, p. 52.

[74] Ibid. 1815, p. 46.

[75] “Methodism in Frome,” by Tuck, p. 42.

[76] Miss Perronet’s manuscript letters; and _Methodist Magazine_, 1811, p. 234.

[77] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 42; and manuscript letter.

[78] Sellon’s book was not published till 1770, and seems to have been revised by Wesley, who also approved of his dealing with Toplady in a separate pamphlet. Hence the following, addressed to Sellon.

“LEWISHAM, February 21, 1770. “MY DEAR BROTHER,--Do not make too much haste. Give everything the last touch. It will be enough, if the papers meet me at Manchester, before the end of March. I believe it will be the best way to bestow a distinct pamphlet on that exquisite coxcomb. Surely wisdom will die with him! I believe we can easily get his other tract, which it would be well to sift to the very foundation, in order to stop the mouth of that vain boaster. I am, etc., JOHN WESLEY.”--(Manuscript letter.)

1770. Age 67

Wesley began the year 1770 with a covenant service in London, at which eighteen hundred Methodists were present,--a sight worth seeing.

In his leisure moments, he employed himself in reading; and, as usual, makes racy remarks on men and books. Having finished Dr. Burnet’s “Theory of the Earth,” he writes: “He is doubtless one of the firstrate writers, both as to sense and style; his language is remarkably clear, unaffected, nervous, and elegant; and none can deny, that his theory is ingenious, and consistent with itself.” He read Rousseau upon education, and says: “But how was I disappointed! Sure a more consummate coxcomb never saw the sun! How amazingly full of himself! Whatever he speaks, he pronounces as an oracle. But many of his oracles are as palpably false as that ‘young children never love old people.’ But I object to his temper more than to his judgment: he is a mere misanthrope, a cynic all over. So indeed is his brother infidel, Voltaire; and well-nigh as great a coxcomb. But he hides both his doggedness and vanity a little better; whereas, here it stares us in the face continually. As to his book, it is whimsical to the last degree; grounded neither upon reason nor experience. The advices, which are good, are trite and common, only disguised under new expressions; and those which are new, which are really his own, are lighter than vanity itself. Such discoveries I always expect from those who are too wise to believe their Bibles.”

Baron Emanuel Swedenborg, after rendering great service to science, and thereby winning the esteem of Charles XII., and receiving the honour of being enrolled among the members of the academies of Upsal, Stockholm, and Petersburgh, came to London in 1743, attended the Moravian chapel in Fetter Lane, went mad,[79] and began to write and publish the visionary books, containing the creed of the Swedenborgians. Wesley writes: “I sat down to read and seriously consider some of the writings of Baron Swedenborg. I began with huge prejudice in his favour, knowing him to be a pious man, one of a strong understanding, of much learning, and one who thoroughly believed himself. But I could not hold out long. Any one of his visions puts his real character out of doubt. He is one of the most ingenious, lively, entertaining madmen, that ever set pen to paper. But his waking dreams are so wild, so far remote both from Scripture and common sense, that one might as easily swallow the stories of ‘Tom Thumb,’ or ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’” The baron died two years after this, and was buried in the Swedish church in Wellclose Square, London.

In the month of February, Wesley, for the last time, took part in a religious service, and administered the sacrament, in the mansion of the Countess of Huntingdon, in Portland Row. Thomas Maxfield was present, and though a few years before he had been one of the strongest sticklers in favour of the wild doctrines propounded by George Bell and other sanctified ones in London, he now, in Wesley’s own presence, spoke strongly against his doctrine of Christian perfection.[80] This might be gratifying to her ladyship and her Calvinistic friends; but it would have been in better taste for Maxfield, at least, to have maintained, on such a subject, a respectful silence. No doubt, foolish ideas had been circulated; but Wesley can hardly be held accountable for these. His own doctrines on the subject were based upon Scripture, and these he was ready to defend, and resolved to propagate. It is true, that his anticipations respecting the great work, which was professedly wrought in London and elsewhere, had not been realised. Even Miss Bosanquet had lost the blessing of Christian perfection;[81] and Wesley, in a letter dated March 15, 1770, confesses that, of those who professed to obtain it, hardly one in thirty retained it. “Many hundreds in London,” says he, “were made partakers of it, within sixteen or eighteen months; but I doubt whether twenty of them are now as holy and as happy as they were.”[82] This was a humiliating fact, and gave to Wesley’s opponents a great advantage; but, in itself, it was no disproof of Wesley’s doctrine; and can scarcely be considered a satisfactory excuse for Thomas Maxfield, of all men living, attacking his friend in the house of his Calvinistic foes.

Wesley’s friend Whitefield was in America, preaching with as much zest as ever; and, just at this juncture, Wesley addressed what proved to be his last letter to his old and always faithful coadjutor; but the letter contains not a single syllable respecting the slight which had been cast upon him by a man whom gratitude ought to have taught better manners.

“LEWISHAM, February 21, 1770.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Mr. Keen informed me some time since of your safe arrival in Carolina; of which, indeed, I could not doubt for a moment, notwithstanding the idle report of your being cast away, which was so current in London. I trust our Lord has more work for you to do in Europe, as well as in America. And who knows but before your return, to England, I may pay another visit to the new world? I have been strongly solicited by several of our friends in New York and Philadelphia. They urge many reasons, some of which appear to be of considerable weight; and my age is no objection at all; for I bless God my health is not barely as good, but abundantly better in several respects, than when I was five-and-twenty. But there are so many reasons on the other side, that, as yet, I can determine nothing; so I must wait for further light. Here I am: let the Lord do with me as seemeth Him good. For the present, I must beg of you to supply my lack of service, by encouraging our preachers, as you judge best (who are as yet comparatively young and inexperienced); by giving them such advices as you think proper; and, above all, by exhorting them, not only to love one another, but, if it be possible, as much as lies in them, to live peaceably with all men.

“Some time ago, since you went hence, I heard a circumstance, which gave me a good deal of concern; namely, that the college or academy in Georgia had swallowed up the orphan house. Shall I give my judgment without being asked? Methinks, friendship requires I should. Are there not then two points which come in view? a point of mercy, and a point of justice? With respect to the former, may it not be inquired, Can anything on earth be a greater charity than to bring up orphans? What is a college or an academy compared to this? unless you could have such a college as perhaps is not upon earth. I know the value of learning, and am more in danger of prizing it too much than too little; but, still, I cannot place the giving it to five hundred students on a level with saving the bodies, if not the souls too, of five hundred orphans. But let us pass from the point of mercy to that of justice. You had land given, and collected money, for an orphan house. Are you at liberty to apply this to any other purpose? at least, while there are any orphans in Georgia left? I just touch upon this, though it is an important point, and leave it to your own consideration, whether part of it, at least, might not properly be applied to carry on the original design? In speaking thus freely, on so tender a subject, I have given you a fresh proof of the sincerity with which I am your ever affectionate friend and brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[83]

The college business above mentioned was simply this. Six years before, Whitefield had informed the council of Georgia, that he had already expended £12,000 upon his Orphan House; that he was now anxious to attach to it a college, to which the respectable inhabitants of Georgia, Virginia, and the West Indies might send their sons to be educated; that, in order to accomplish his purpose, he was prepared to lay out a considerable sum of money “in purchasing a large number of negroes” for the cultivation of the lands, and for the “future support of a president, professors, and tutors;” and that he now asked the council to grant him, in trust, for the purposes aforesaid, two thousand acres of land, on the north fork of Turtle River. The council yielded his request at once, and with the greatest pleasure. Whitefield then memorialised the king to grant a charter for the founding of the college, stating that, if this were done, he was “ready to give up his present trust, and make a free gift of all lands, negroes, goods, and chattels, which he now possessed in Georgia, for the support of the proposed institution, to be called by the name of Bethesda college, in Georgia.” A long official correspondence followed. The government were not unwilling to grant a charter, but they insisted that the president of the college should be a minister of the Church of England, and that there should be a daily use of the Church liturgy. These were conditions which Whitefield respectfully declined; and hence the charter asked for was refused. The result was, Whitefield added to his Georgian orphan house a public academy, by the erection of two additional wings, one hundred and fifty feet each in length; and, a month before Wesley wrote his letter, opened the new building, by preaching before his excellency the governor, and before the Georgian council and assembly, from, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this house, His hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you; for who hath despised the day of small things?” Thus Whitefield left behind him, in America, a complex orphanage and college, for the support of which he had obtained grants of land to the extent of 3800 acres, and had bought seventy-five male and female negroes for the purpose of cultivating his extensive farm, and making it productive.[84]

We have already seen that Wesley was not only urged, but was more than willing, to visit his newly instituted societies in America. Pilmoor was working hard at New York, and Boardman at Philadelphia; a number of negroes had been converted; the work was growing; and the young evangelists--Boardman of seven, and Pilmoor of five years’ standing--wished for advice and help.[85] Wesley had nearly arrived at the age of threescore years and ten; but, if his way had opened, he would have bounded off across the Atlantic with as little anxiety as he was accustomed to trot to the hospitable Perronet home at Shoreham. The obstacles however were insurmountable. There was no one, during his absence, to take his place as superintendent general of the societies in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and to this must be added the strong objections of the people to let him go. “If I go to America,” said he, “I must do a thing which I hate as bad as I hate the devil.” “What is that?” asked his friend. “I must keep a secret,” he answered; meaning, that he must conceal his purpose, otherwise his societies would interfere, and effectually prevent his going.[86]

On the 5th of March, Wesley set out on his journey to the north, which occupied the next five months. Coming to Newbury, he writes: “I had been much importuned to preach here. But where? The Dissenters would not permit me to preach in their meetinghouse. Some were then desirous to hire the old playhouse; but the good mayor would not suffer it to be so profaned! So I made use of a workshop,--a large, commodious place. But it would, by no means, contain the congregation. All that could hear behaved well.”

From Newbury, Wesley proceeded to Bristol, Gloucester, Birmingham, and Wednesbury. He then made his way, through Staffordshire and Cheshire, to Manchester, where he arrived at the end of March, and made the following characteristic entry in his journal: “In this journey, as well as in many others, I observed a mistake that almost universally prevails. Near thirty years ago, I was thinking, ‘How is it that no horse ever stumbles while I am reading?’ (History, poetry, and philosophy, I commonly read on horseback, having other employment at other times.) No account can possibly be given but this: because, then I throw the reins on his neck. I then set myself to observe; and I aver, that, in riding above a hundred thousand miles, I scarce ever remember any horse (except two that would fall head over heels any way), to fall, or make a considerable stumble, while I rode with a slack rein. To fancy, therefore, that a tight rein prevents stumbling is a capital blunder. I have repeated the trial more frequently than most men in the kingdom can do. A slack rein will prevent stumbling if anything will. But in some horses nothing can.”

From Manchester, Wesley proceeded to Liverpool, Whitehaven, and Carlisle, preaching there, and at intermediate places. He writes: “At Carlisle, it was the day of small things; the society consisting but of fifteen members.” Methodism had been founded in this border city by Robert Bell, an exciseman; and its place of worship was a shed for sheltering carts. At almost every meeting the mob attended; stones and brickbats were often thrown, and the Methodists hissed at and otherwise abused.[87]

Leaving Carlisle, Wesley made his way to Edinburgh, which he reached on April 20, and says: “I endeavoured to confirm those whom many had strove to turn out of the way. What pity is it, that the children of God should so zealously do the devil’s work! How is it, that they are still ignorant of Satan’s devices? Lord, what is man?” “The congregations were nearly as usual; but the society which, when I was here before, consisted of above one hundred and sixty members, was now shrunk to about fifty. Such is the fruit of a single preacher’s staying a whole year in one place, together with the labours of good Mr. Townshend!”

It was at this time that Wesley had his first interview with Lady Glenorchy.[88] She writes: “The Rev. Dr. Webster[89] and Mr. Wesley met at my house, and agreed on all doctrines on which they spoke, except those of God’s decrees, predestination, and the saints’ perseverance. I must, according to the light I now have, agree with Dr. Webster. Nevertheless, I hope Mr. Wesley is a child of God. He has been an instrument of saving souls; as such, I honour him, and will countenance his preachers. I have heard him preach thrice; and should have been better pleased had he preached more of Christ, and less of himself.”[90]

Lady Glenorchy had recently opened St. Mary’s chapel, in which service was performed by presbyterians, episcopalians, and Methodists; but her ladyship now wished to have a schoolmaster and a minister of her own; and, notwithstanding her disparaging remarks on Wesley, she employed him to obtain them for her. A few weeks later she wrote to him as follows.

“EDINBURGH, May 29, 1770.

“REVEREND SIR,--When I consider how much you have to do, and how very precious your time is, I feel unwilling to give you the trouble of reading a letter from me; yet I know not how to delay returning you my best thanks for the pains you have taken to procure me a Christian innkeeper and schoolmaster. And, though you have not as yet been successful, I hope you may find some before you reach London, who are willing to leave their native country and friends for the sake of promoting the interest of Christ’s kingdom. If Mr. Eggleston’s objections relate only to temporal things, perhaps it may be in my power to remove them. I am exceedingly obliged to you, dear and honoured sir, for your good advice; it is agreeable to that small glimmering of light the Lord has been pleased to give me for five years past. Let me entreat you to remember me at the throne of grace. I am, reverend sir, with esteem and respect, your obliged servant,

“WILLIELMA GLENORCHY.”[91]

Within a week after this, Wesley obtained her ladyship a schoolmaster; and, at the beginning of the year following, sent her a minister, the Rev. Richard De Courcy, who had been a Methodist in Ireland,[92] had been educated at Trinity college, Dublin, had obtained deacon’s orders, and had officiated as curate to Walter Shirley.[93] Lady Glenorchy writes: “Mr. De Courcy is quite the person Mr. Wesley represented him,--of a sweet disposition, and wishes only to preach Christ to poor sinners wherever he finds an open door.”[94] This was in February, 1771, and yet, within six months afterwards, on June 28, her ladyship writes again: “Before I left Edinburgh, I dismissed Mr. Wesley’s preachers from my chapel; first, because they deny the doctrines of imputed righteousness, election, and the saints’ perseverance; secondly, because I found none of our gospel ministers would preach in the chapel, if they continued to have the use of the pulpit; thirdly, because I found my own soul had been hurt by hearing them, and I judged that others might be hurt by them also.”[95]

Thus, after Wesley had served her ladyship to the utmost of his power, he and his preachers were ignominiously expelled from the sacred precincts of St. Mary’s, and her chapel was left in the sole possession of Mr. De Courcy and his Calvinistic friends. It is right to add that, notwithstanding her Calvinism, Lady Glenorchy maintained, to the end of life, a warm friendship with her Methodist friend, Lady Maxwell, whom, at her death, she appointed her sole executrix, and the principal manager of her chapels, both in England and across the border.[96]

To return to Wesley. From Edinburgh, he went to Perth, Dunkeld, and Inverness, at which last mentioned place Benjamin and William Chappel had been three months waiting for a vessel to return to London, and had employed the time in meeting the people every night to sing and pray together. Benjamin Chappel, who thus begun Methodism in Inverness, was a wheelwright, and, in after years, had the honour of being the first Methodist in Prince Edward’s Island.[97]

At Aberdeen, as at Inverness and Nairn, Wesley preached in the kirk. At Arbroath, the society, though of but nine months’ standing, was the largest in Scotland, with the exception of that at Aberdeen. At Dunbar he preached in the new chapel, “the cheerfulest in the kingdom”; and, on May 21, reached Newcastle on Tyne; but here we pause to insert a letter of considerable interest.

Within the last two years, Wesley had met at Bristol with a clergyman, who was one of the king of Sweden’s chaplains, but who had recently spent several years in Pennsylvania. This gentleman, Dr. Wrangel, had strongly requested that Wesley would send preachers to America, nearly twelve months before Boardman and Pilmoor were appointed; and, further, to show his friendly feeling towards Methodism he had preached in the Bristol chapel to a crowd of Methodists, and “gave,” says Wesley, “general satisfaction by the simplicity and life which accompanied his sound doctrine.” Dr. Wrangel had now returned to Sweden, and wrote the following to Wesley.

“STOCKHOLM, May 5, 1770.

“DEAR AND MUCH BELOVED BROTHER IN CHRIST JESUS,--I hope my heart will ever be impressed with the warmest gratitude for the comfort I enjoyed in your society. Though absent in body, I have often been amongst you. When I left England, I arrived first at Gothenburg, and lodged at the right reverend bishop, Dr. Lamberg’s, who was fellow chaplain with me at court. I found him to be a great friend of yours. He had heard you preach while on his travels in England. I sent him your books, and he was well pleased with what he read, and desired me to remember him to you.

“I have now been upwards of a year in Stockholm, and have officiated as chaplain to the king, and at the same time preached in most of the churches here, and I must say, with uncommon success. Whenever I have preached the churches have been crowded. The king, on his deathbed, made me a privy councillor. When I spoke to him of the way of salvation, he received the word with gladness, and departed in the Lord, to the great edification and comfort of the whole family. His queen also, who is of English descent, is eminent in piety. This, I hope, will be attended with good consequences in favour of religion.

“Last parliament session several clergymen, and amongst them four bishops, agreed to my proposals concerning a society for propagating practical religion. We intend, as soon as the plan is rightly fixed, to enter into correspondence with several parts of the world; and we expect the honour of your correspondence also.

“Providence is about to settle me in a station of great importance. I am about to be named the almoner of his majesty. This office is of importance to religion in general. Finally, my dear brother, let me be included in all your prayers, and let me hear from you. I am, with the greatest sincerity of affection, dear and reverend brother, your most humble and affectionate brother and servant,

“C. M. WRANGEL.”[98]

Further correspondence followed, from which we learn that Dr. Wrangel himself, like Wesley, had been an open air preacher; but was now, not only the king of Sweden’s almoner, but “president of the consistory at court, and chaplain to all the royal orders.” He writes to Wesley in 1771: “Pray, dear sir, desire your society to intercede for me. I send you enclosed the letter of admission to our society. The rules, not yet being printed in English, we send in German. I sincerely thank you for the kind present of your sermons and books. I presented a copy of your sermon to the society, which was very acceptable. The society will have the life of Mr. Whitefield inserted in their Pastoral Collections, or account of the work of God abroad. I beg of you, sir, to remember me kindly to all your friends, not forgetting dear Kingswood. I have been greatly blessed in my labour amongst the great, and shall soon give a particular account of it.”[99]

Thus, as England had its Wesleys, America its Whitefield, and Wales its Howel Harris, Sweden also had its great reformer,--Dr. Wrangel, once a field preacher, but now a founder of a quasi missionary society, and, as a faithful minister of Christ, bearing his testimony before kings and princes. Through Dr. Wrangel’s friendship with Wesley, Methodism had already, fifty-six years before its appointment of the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens to Stockholm, indirectly extended its influences to the Swedish capital, and had begun that wondrous work, which, fostered by the Rev. Dr. Scott, has issued in some of the most remarkable results recorded in mission history.

Wesley left Newcastle for London on the 11th of June, and, on his journey, preached for the most part thrice a day. At Whitby, one of his itinerants, of six years’ standing, “had set up for himself; his reasons for leaving the Methodists being--(1) that they went to church; (2) that they held perfection.” It is a remarkable fact, that sixty-five of the Whitby Methodists professed to be entirely sanctified. From Whitby, Wesley proceeded along the east coast to Robinhood’s Bay, Scarborough, Bridlington, and Hull.

From Hull, he made his way to Beverley, York, Tadcaster, Pateley, Otley, Yeadon, Heptonstall, Colne, Haworth, and Keighley. The Keighley, or Haworth, circuit, at this period, extended from Otley to Whitehaven, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles.[100] Yeadon has just been mentioned. Here James Rhodes began to hold Methodist prayer-meetings as early as 1747; and here his brother Joseph preached the first Methodist sermon in Yeadon, in the house of Judith Jackson. Here Thomas Mitchell, one of Wesley’s bravest itinerants, was trained; and here William Darney, while preaching, was attacked by a mob, led on by Reynolds, curate of Guiseley, had eggs thrown at his face, was dragged out of doors, and then stamped upon. Here Jonathan Maskew, by the same godless gang, had his clothes torn off his back, and, in a state of nakedness, was trailed over the rough stone pavement, till he was a mass of bruises. The bush burned, but it was not consumed. In 1766, the first chapel was erected; and now, in 1770, it had to be enlarged.

At the beginning of July, Wesley spent about a week at Leeds, and in the surrounding towns and villages. He visited the orphanage of Miss Bosanquet, who had removed to Cross Hall, Morley. Her friend Sarah Crosby, in a letter dated July 13, 1770, remarks: “Mr. Wesley left Leeds yesterday. I never heard him preach better, if so well. In every sermon he set forth ‘Christian perfection’ in the most beautiful light. Mr. Rankin, who travels with him, is a blessed man, and seems to fear no one’s face. I believe there has not been such a time at Leeds for many years.”[101]

From Leeds, Wesley proceeded to Doncaster, Epworth, Horncastle, Louth, and other places; and then, turning round, came back to Doncaster, and, from there, went to Rotherham, Sheffield, Derby, and Nottingham, preaching, not only there, but in many of the intervening villages and towns. He writes: “I preached at Bingham, and really admired the exquisite stupidity of the people. They gaped and stared, while I was speaking of death and judgment, as if they had never heard of such things before. And they were not helped by two surly, ill mannered clergymen, who seemed to be just as wise as themselves.”

In Loughborough market place, he preached to a congregation of some thousands, all of them still as night. This was his first sermon here; but, four years previous to this, some of his preachers had visited the town, and, among others, converted by their ministry, was Thomas Cook, who in humility, penitence, and self denial, was, even among the first Methodists, almost without an equal. For three months together, he would live on barley bread and water, often fasting, from even nourishment like that, for whole days together, and praying the whole night through. He invariably wore clothing of the coarsest material, and when urged to use an overcoat answered: “When you can assure me, that there is not a poor man destitute of one coat, I may then perhaps wear two.” For ten years, he prayed for all with whom he happened to converse; and as he lived, so he died,--humble, holy, loving, and devout,--saying in answer to a question, and with his characteristic self abasement, “Oh no! no funeral sermon for me!”[102]

On Thursday, August 2, after a five months’ absence, Wesley got back to London; and, on August 7, met his conference; in reference to which, the following unpublished letter, addressed to Mr. Merryweather, at Yarm, is not without interest.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--I have the credit of stationing the preachers; but many of them go where they will go, for all me. For instance, I have marked down James Oddie and John Nelson for Yarm circuit the ensuing year; yet, I am not certain that either of them will come. They can give twenty reasons for going elsewhere. Mr. Murlin says, he must be in London. ’Tis certain he has a mind to be there; therefore, so it must be; for you know a man of fortune is master of his own motions.

“I am your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

The difficulties of conference, in stationing preachers, are not novel.

There were now fifty Methodist circuits, one of which was America! There were a hundred and twenty itinerant preachers, and 29,406 members of society. Nearly £2,000 had been subscribed, during the year, towards defraying the chapel debts; and yet, in consequence of new erections, the aggregate debt was about the same. His chapels were becoming Wesley’s greatest burdens.[103] It was resolved, that, during the coming year, no new chapel should be built, nor any old one altered, unless the entire expenditure were raised; and a proposal was made to vest all the chapels in a general trust, consisting of persons chosen from among the Methodists throughout the kingdom. This would have been a disastrous mistake. Fortunately it was not adopted.

Kingswood school, as usual, was a trouble. It had been opened two-and-twenty years, and had had, during that period, eight classical masters, five of whom had obtained episcopal ordination, and now a sixth, Joseph Benson, had not only entered himself a graduate at Oxford, but had exchanged Kingswood for Trevecca. No wonder that Wesley, at the conference of 1770, asked, “How can we secure our masters?” The answer was, “Ask each, before he is received, Do you design to stay here? have you any thoughts of being ordained? have you any design to preach?” It is a fact worth noting, that, during the remainder of Wesley’s lifetime, there was only one more classical master who became an ordained clergyman, and that was Mr. Benson’s immediate successor, Isaac Twicross.[104]

Wesley found, that some of his preachers were still engaged in trade; and, hence, it was now agreed, that those who would not relinquish trading in cloth, hardware, pills, drops, and balsams, should be excluded from the brotherhood; but that, if any of them, like Thomas Hanby, John Oliver, and James Oddie, had a share in ships, there would be no objection to that.[105]

The conference of 1770, however, will always be memorable chiefly, if not entirely, for its doctrinal minutes. From the first, Whitefield, Howel Harris, and their friends, had been Calvinists; and so were many of the evangelical clergy, patronised by the Countess of Huntingdon, as Romaine, Newton, Venn, Berridge, Shirley, and others. At an early period of their history, the two Wesleys agreed, with the Methodist Calvinistic leaders, to avoid preaching on Calvinistic topics to the utmost extent possible. Charles Wesley afterwards endorsed the document with the words “Vain Agreement.” So indeed it was: in fact it could hardly be otherwise. Wesley, more than once, tried to meet his friends at a sort of halfway house; but the attempt was dangerous, it exposed Wesley to suspicion, and it issued in a failure. We have already seen that, in 1743, Wesley, for the purpose of terminating their disputes, made concessions to Whitefield, respecting unconditional election, irresistible grace, and final perseverance, which it was impossible to defend. Accordingly, at the conference held a few months afterwards, he honestly confessed, that he had “unawares leaned too much towards Calvinism;”[106] and proceeded to propound doctrines, which, in substance, were the same as those he now embodied in the theses of 1770. Twenty-six years had elapsed since then; but there was a striking resemblance between the two periods; and, substantially, the same cause for outspokenness. To say nothing more concerning Whitefield’s doctrines, it is important to bear in mind, that, in 1744, Moravianism, or rather Zinzendorfism, had turned the doctrine of justification by faith only into an antinomian channel; and now, in 1770, the same thing was practically being done by not a few who, at all events, were called Methodists. Mr. Fletcher’s description of the antinomianism of the period is a frightful picture; and though not so applicable to the followers of Wesley as to those of the Countess of Huntingdon’s connexion, yet the former were not so free from the antinomian poison as they should have been. Hence the publication of Wesley’s theological theses; substantially the same as he had enunciated in 1744; but not so guardedly expressed. As they led to the longest and bitterest controversy in Wesley’s history, we subjoin them in their entirety.

“We said, in 1744, ‘We have leaned too much toward Calvinism.’ Wherein?

“1. With regard to man’s faithfulness. Our Lord himself taught us to use the expression; and we ought never to be ashamed of it. We ought steadily to assert, on His authority, that, if a man is not ‘faithful in the unrighteous mammon,’ God will not give him the true riches.

“2. With regard to working for life. This also our Lord has expressly commanded us: ‘Labour,’ εργαζεσθε, literally ‘Work’ ‘for the meat that endureth to everlasting life.’ And, in fact, every believer, till he comes to glory, works for as well as from life.

“3. We have received it as a maxim, that ‘a man is to do nothing in order to justification,’ Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favour with God should ‘cease from evil, and learn to do well,’ Whoever repents should do ‘works meet for repentance,’ And if this is not in order to find favour, what does he do them for?

“Review the whole affair: 1. Who of us is now accepted of God? He that now believes in Christ with a loving and obedient heart.

“2. But who among those that never heard of Christ? He that feareth God and worketh righteousness, according to the light he has.

“3. Is this the same with ‘he that is sincere’? Nearly, if not quite.

“4. Is not this ‘salvation by works’? Not by the merit of works, but by works as a condition.

“5. What have we been disputing about for these thirty years? I am afraid, about words.

“6. As to merit itself, of which we have been so dreadfully afraid; we are rewarded ‘according to our works,’ yea, ‘because of our works.’ How does this differ from, for the sake of our works? And how differs this from secundum merita operum? as our works deserve? Can you split this hair? I doubt I cannot.

“7. The grand objection to one of the preceding propositions is drawn from matter of fact. God does in fact justify those, who, by their own confession, neither feared God nor wrought righteousness. Is this an exception to the general rule? It is a doubt, God makes any exception at all. But how are we sure, that the person in question never did fear God and work righteousness? His own saying so is not proof; for we know, how all that are convinced of sin undervalue themselves in every respect.

“8. Does not talking of a justified or a sanctified state tend to mislead men? almost naturally leading them to trust in what was done in one moment? Whereas we are every hour and every moment pleasing or displeasing to God, ‘according to our works’;--according to the whole of our inward tempers, and our outward behaviour.”

What was the result of these loosely worded propositions? The answer to this will extend over several years; but suffice it to say at present that the publication gave huge offence to the whole host of Calvinistic Methodists; and Lady Huntingdon declared, that whoever did not wholly disavow the theses should quit her college. Mr. Benson, her classical master, so far from disavowing, defended them, and hence sprung up a correspondence between Wesley and himself, from which the following are extracts.

“BRISTOL, October 5, 1770.

“DEAR JOSEPH,--I am glad you had the courage to speak your mind on so critical an occasion. At all hazards, do so still; only with all possible tenderness and respect. She is much devoted to God, and has a thousand valuable and amiable qualities. There is no great fear that I should be prejudiced against one whom I have intimately known for these thirty years. And I know what is in man; therefore, I make large allowance for human weaknesses. But what you say is exactly the state of the case. They are ‘jealous of their authority.’ Truly, there is no cause: Longe mea discrepat illi et vox et ratio. I fear and shun, not desire, authority of any kind. Only when God lays that burden upon me, I bear it, for His and the people’s sake. ‘Child,’ said my father to me when I was young, ‘you think to carry everything by dint of argument; but you will find, by-and-by, how very little is ever done in the world by clear reason.’ Very little indeed! Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason, to counteract them all we can. It is yours, in particular, to do all that in you lies to soften the prejudices of those that are round about you, and to calm the passions from which they spring. Blessed are the peacemakers! Whatever I say, it will be all one. They will find fault, because I say it. There is implicit envy at my power (so called), and a jealousy rising therefrom. Hence prejudice in a thousand forms; hence objections springing up like mushrooms. And while these causes remain, they will spring up, whatever I can do or say. However, keep thyself pure; and then there need be no strangeness between you and, dear Joseph, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[107]

“LONDON, November 30, 1770.

“DEAR JOSEPH,--For several years, I have been convinced that I had not done my duty with regard to that valuable woman; that I had not told her what, I was thoroughly assured, no one else would dare to do, and what I knew she would bear from no other person, but possibly might bear from me. But, being unwilling to give her pain, I put it off from time to time. At length, I did not dare to delay any longer, lest death should call one of us hence. So I, at once, delivered my own soul, by telling her all that was in my heart. It was my business, my proper business, so to do; as none else either could or would do it. Neither did I at all take too much upon me: I know the office of a Christian minister. If she is not profited, it is her own fault, not mine: I have done my duty, and I do not know there is one charge in that letter which was either unjust, unimportant, or aggravated; any more than that against the doggerel hymns, which are equally an insult upon poetry and common sense.

“I am, dear Joseph, your affectionate brother,

JOHN WESLEY.”[108]

The above refers to a letter which Wesley had addressed to Lady Huntingdon; but which has never yet been published. Evidently it was faithful, and also unpalatable. It seems to have strengthened prejudices against him, instead of removing them. His position also was not improved by anti-Calvinian publications over which he had no control. Mr. William Mason, who had been one of Wesley’s classleaders, but had left him, and was now a magistrate of the county of Surrey, and resided at Rotherhithe Wall,[109] issued his “Axe laid to the Root of Antinomian Licentiousness; extracted from the works of Mr. Flavel.” 1770: 8vo, 36 pages. Another writer, signing himself “Academicus,” gave to the public a small octavo volume of 124 pages, entitled “The Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism”; in which Sir Richard Hill is severely, perhaps abusively, flagellated for his virulent attack on Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury, and the Rev. William Romaine is charged with preaching a sermon which “shocked every serious and rational Christian that heard it.” All these incidents had to do with the lamentable anger and bitterness of the memorable Calvinian controversy which will soon demand attention.

The sessions of the conference of 1770 being ended, Wesley set out for Cornwall, where he spent the next three weeks. Returning to Bristol, he and his brother, at the beginning of October, agreed, at the request of the society, to administer to them the Lord’s supper every other Sunday; which arrangement, of course, rendered it necessary, that an ordained clergyman should reside at Bristol, or in its neighbourhood.

The rest of the year was occupied with his usual journeys to Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Kent. Poor Whitefield was dead; and Wesley, if the way was opened, was quite ready to take his place, by including America within the bounds of his vast Methodist circuit. Hence the following to Mrs. Marston, of Worcester.

“December 14, 1770.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--If I live till spring, and should have a clear, pressing call, I am as ready to embark for America, as for Ireland. All places are alike to me: I am attached to none in particular. Wherever the work of our Lord is to be carried on, that is my place for to-day. And we live only for to-day: it is not our part to take thought for to-morrow.

“I am, dear Molly, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[110]

On Saturday, September 29, while on his way to Boston, in New England, Whitefield, at the importunity of the people, preached at Exeter, in the open air, a sermon nearly two hours long. At six o’clock next morning he was dead. A friend, addressing him just before he commenced his last sermon, said, “Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach.” “True,” replied the dying evangelist; and then turning aside, he clasped his hands, and, looking up, said: “Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of Thy work.” Whitefield was buried, where he died, at Newburyport. Every mark of respect was shown to his remains. All the bells in the town tolled, and the ships in the harbour fired mourning guns, and hung their flags half-mast high. In Georgia, all the black cloth in the stores was bought up, and the church was hung with mourning; the governor and council met at the statehouse in habiliments of sorrow, and went in procession to hear a funeral sermon.

Whitefield intended to be interred in Tottenham Court chapel, and had told the congregation, that he should like the Wesley brothers to be interred beside him. “We will,” said he, “all lie together. You refuse them entrance here while living: they can do you no harm when they are dead.”[111] Whitefield’s wish was not realised; but, at length, Wesley was admitted to Whitefield’s pulpit.

The Rev. Mr. Joss announced in Tottenham Court chapel on November 11, that, on the sabbath following, Wesley would preach a sermon there on Whitefield’s death, as it had long ago been agreed between the two, that whichever survived the other should preach the deceased’s funeral discourse.[112] An immense multitude assembled. “It was,” says Wesley, “an awful season; all were as still as night.” On the same day, he preached again in Whitefield’s tabernacle in Moorfields. The hour appointed was half-past five; but the place was filled at three, and Wesley began at four. His text was the same at both places: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” Whitefield’s characteristics were described as consisting of “unparalleled zeal, indefatigable activity, tender heartedness to the afflicted, and charitableness toward the poor, the most generous friendship, nice and unblemished modesty, frankness and openness of conversation, unflinching courage, and steadiness in whatever he undertook for his Master’s sake.” Wesley then sketched the doctrines Whitefield preached, and concluded thus.

“These are the fundamental doctrines which he everywhere insisted on; and may they not be summed up in two words,--the new birth, and justification by faith? These let us insist upon with all boldness, at all times, and in all places. Keep close to these good, old, unfashionable doctrines, how many soever contradict and blaspheme. Go on, my brethren, in the name of the Lord, and in the power of His might. Let brother no more lift up sword against brother; rather put ye on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind, brotherly kindness, gentleness, longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. Let the time past suffice for strife, envy, contention; for biting and devouring one another. O God, with Thee no word is impossible! O that Thou wouldest cause the mantle of Thy prophet, whom Thou hast taken up, now to fall on us that remain! Take away from us all anger and wrath, and bitterness; all clamour and evil speaking! Let Thy Spirit so rest upon us, that from this hour we may be kind to each other, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us!”

Well did such sentiments harmonise with the spirit and the life of Wesley’s old and faithful friend; and mournful is the fact, that they were so soon utterly ignored by the party of which Whitefield had been the chief. No sooner was Wesley’s sermon preached and published, than it was attacked, because he had omitted to mention the election and final perseverance of the saints. His doctrines of “the new birth and justification by faith” were a defective, precarious scheme, and abortive as to saving purposes; because, according to his tenets, a man may be justified by faith, and be born again, and yet never enjoy eternal life, unless he does more for himself, to make his salvation effectual, than has been done for him by the blood and righteousness of Christ.[113]

Whitefield bequeathed his orphan house estate in Georgia, with all its “buildings, lands, and negroes,” “to that elect lady, that mother in Israel, that mirror of true and undefiled religion, the Right Honourable Selina, Countess Dowager of Huntingdon.” His two chapels in London, with his books and furniture in the Tabernacle house, were left to his “worthy, trusty, tried friends, Messrs. Daniel West and Robert Keen.” Within the last three years, he had become possessed, by legacies, of about £1700, including £700 accruing to him at his wife’s decease; and this amount he bequeathed to a whole host of friends, the largest share falling to the Countess of Huntingdon; while, in an addendum to his will, he says: “I also leave a mourning ring to my honoured and dear friends and disinterested fellow labourers, the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley, in token of my indissoluble union with them, in heart and Christian affection, notwithstanding our differences in judgment about some particular points of doctrine. Grace be with all them, of whatever denomination, that love our Lord Jesus, our common Lord, in sincerity.”[114]

Thus died one of the greatest Christian orators that ever lived,--a man who, though often heavily afflicted, preached, in four-and-thirty years, upwards of eighteen thousand sermons,[115] many of them in the open air, and often to enormous crowds, and in the teeth of brutal persecution.[116]

Space forbids enlargement; but, perhaps, two unpublished letters, belonging to this period, may be welcome. The first was addressed to Matthew Lowes, and the second to Miss Foard, who afterwards became Mrs. Thornton, of 86, Blackman Street, Southwark.

“LONDON, October 13, 1770.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Health you shall have, if health be best; if not, sickness will be a greater blessing. I am glad you have Dr. Wilson near. A more skilful man, I suppose, is not in England. If you should continue weak, (as I did from November to March,) good is the will of the Lord. You are not a superannuated preacher: but you are a supernumerary. I believe one of your boys is rejoicing in the love of God.

“I am, with love to sister Lowes, dear Matthew, your affectionate brother,

“J. WESLEY.”

“December 29, 1770.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--When we had an opportunity of spending a day or two together, you convinced me that you fear and love God, and desire to enjoy all His promises. And I found you less prejudiced, than I expected, against the doctrine of Christian perfection. I only want you to experience this: to be ‘all faith, all gentleness, all love.’ Labour to be wise, and yet simple! To steer between the extremes of neglecting to cultivate your understanding, which is right; and leaning to it, which is fatally wrong. And be free and open with, my dear Nancy, your affectionate brother,

“J. WESLEY.”

Little more, in reference to 1770, remains to be related. To a great extent, mob violence was ended; but Wesley was still the target at which literary malice shot its shafts. The aid of the Muses was again invoked, and some unknown poetaster issued an octavo pamphlet of 39 pages, entitled, “The Perfections of God,--a standing Rule to try all Doctrines and Experience. A Poem humbly offered to the consideration of Mr. John Wesley and his followers.” This was evidently the production of one of his Calvinistic friends. Hence the following--

“Shall Wesley sow his hurtful tares, And scatter round a thousand snares, Telling how God from wrath may turn, And love the soul He thought to burn, And how again His mind may move, To hate, where He has vowed to love, How all mankind He fain would save, Yet longs for what He cannot have, Industrious thus to sound abroad A disappointed, changing God?”

Again, in reference to the “Hymn on God’s Everlasting Love,” we have the following choice morceau.

“Blush Wesley, blush, be filled with shame, Doom thy vile poem to the flame; What tongue thy horrid crime can tell? Put saints to sing the song of hell! Haste hence to Rome, thy proper place; Why should we share in thy disgrace? We need no greater proof to see, Thy blasphemies with hers agree.”

In addition to the above, there was published a sermon of 32 pages, 8vo, entitled “Methodistical Deceit: a Sermon preached in the parish church of St. Matthew, Bethnal Green, by Haddon Smith, curate of the said church.”

It is right to say that Mr. Smith’s discourse is levelled against the Calvinistic Methodists, of whom, however, he unfortunately speaks as though they were all the Methodists that existed. Remembering the recent origin of the Methodist movement, and the unparalleled opposition it had been its lot to encounter, it is somewhat amusing to find the Bethnal Green curate describing the Methodists as “the overbearing sect”; perhaps it was a lapsus linguæ; or perhaps the Rev. Mr. Smith began to see, that crushing the system with the iron heel of persecution only diffused its fragrance wider; and that, after all, Methodism, instead of dying, was every year more vigorous than ever. Mr. Smith was severely handled in a pamphlet of 40 pages, with the title, “Letters to the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith, occasioned by his Curious Sermon entitled Methodistical Deceit; by Philalethes.”

Wesley’s own publications, in 1770, were as follows.

1. “An Extract from Dr. Young’s Night Thoughts, on Life, Death, and Immortality.” 12mo, 241 pages. Wesley professed to have left out all the lines in Young, which he “apprehended to be either childish, or flat, or turgid, or obscure”; and appended brief explanations of the words and phrases, which he thought would be scarcely understood by unlearned readers.

2. “Minutes of several Conversations between the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley and others.” 8vo, 60 pages. This was a new and enlarged edition of the minutes published in 1763, embracing minutes of all the conferences held from that period to the year 1770.

3. “A Sermon on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield.” 8vo, 32 pages.

4. “Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.” 8vo, 47 pages. This was published in the midst of the terrible national confusion, produced by the dissolute and unprincipled anarchist,--the infamous John Wilkes. The pamphlet has been already noticed in a previous chapter.[117]

5. It was Wesley’s purpose to leave Augustus Toplady in the hands of Walter Sellon. He did this, in one respect, but not in another. For instance, he published a small 12mo tract of eight pages, with the title, “What is an Arminian?” He writes: “To say, ‘this man is an Arminian,’ has the same effect on many hearers as to say, ‘this is a mad dog.’ It puts them into a fright at once; they run away from him with all speed and diligence; and will hardly stop, unless it be to throw a stone at the dreadful and mischievous animal.” He then proceeds to show, that the differences between an Arminian and a Calvinist may all be reduced to a single sentence,--the Calvinist believes that God has eternally and absolutely decreed to save such and such persons, and no others; that these cannot resist the saving grace that He imparts; and that they cannot finally fall from that grace, which they are not able to resist. An Arminian holds doctrines just the opposite of these. Wesley concludes his tract by advising both Arminian and Calvinist preachers never to use, either in public or private, the word “Calvinist,” or “Arminian,” as a term of reproach, seeing this was neither better nor worse than calling names,--a practice as inconsistent with good sense and good manners as it is with Christianity itself.

6. Besides this, Wesley issued another tract, entitled, “The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted. By the Rev. Mr. A.---- T----.” 12mo, 12 pages. This was a faithful abridgment of Toplady’s translation of Zanchius, without note or comment, except a short advertisement at the beginning, and a paragraph at the end, both of which we give verbatim.

“Advertisement.--It is granted, that the ensuing tract is, in good measure, a translation. Nevertheless, considering the unparalleled modesty and self diffidence of the young translator, and the tenderness wherewith he treats his opponents, it may well pass for an original.”

This was stinging; especially when compared with the concluding paragraph--

“The sum of all is this: One in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand.

“A---- T----.”

This was the whole of Wesley’s offending. His tract, we again affirm, was an honest, faithful abridgment of Toplady’s pretended translation; but the truth is, by divesting the work of Toplady of its cloudy verbiage, the Calvinistic theory was presented in a form enough to horrify every man of reason and religion. What was the result? Wesley’s Abridgment was issued in the month of March, 1770. Poor Toplady seems to have become insane with anger; and, before the same month expired, had completed his answer, which was published forthwith, under the title of “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley: relative to his pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination.” 8vo, 30 pages. The most charitable excuse for this angry writer is, that he had, in a paroxysm of mortified vanity, lost his balance, and was now non compos mentis. Wesley had honestly abridged his work; and had written the two brief paragraphs already quoted. That was all: and, for this, the irate young man of thirty, who in former years had written to Wesley in terms of the most filial respect, now tells him that, “for more than thirty years past he has been endeavouring to palm on his credulous followers his pernicious doctrines, with all the sophistry of a jesuit, and the dictatorial authority of a pope.” Wesley is charged with acting “the ignoble part of a lurking, sly assassin.” He is exhorted to “renounce the low, serpentine cunning, which puts him on falsifying what he finds himself unable to refute; to dismiss those dirty subterfuges (the last resources of mean, malicious impotence), which degrade the man of parts into a lying sophister, and sink a divine into the level of an oyster woman.” Wesley is told, “that it once depended on the toss of a shilling whether he should be a Calvinist or an Arminian. Tails fell uppermost, and he resolved to be an universalist.” The elect Toplady continues: “possessed of more than serpentine elability, you cast your slough, not once a year, but, almost, once an hour. Hence, your innumerable inconsistencies, and flagrant self contradictions; the jarring of your principles, and the incoherence of your religious system. Somewhat like the necromantic soup in the tragedy of ‘Macbeth,’ your doctrines may be stirred into a chaotic jumble, but witchcraft itself would strive in vain to bring them into coalition.” The gentlemanly polemic then informs Wesley, that he shall not hold himself obliged to again enter the lists with him, if he “descends to his customary recourse of false quotations, despicable invective, and unsupported dogmatisms. An opponent,” continues this model of polite behaviour, “an opponent, who thinks to add weight to his arguments by scurrility and abuse, resembles the insane person who rolled himself in the mud, in order to make himself fine. I would no more enter into a formal controversy with such a scribbler, than I would contend, for the wall, with a chimney sweeper.”

Is it surprising that, after this, Calvinism was discussed at the conference of 1770; and that, just before it commenced its sittings, Wesley wrote the following unpublished letter to his friend, Mr. Merryweather, at Yarm?

“YORK, June 24, 1770.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Mr. Augustus Toplady I know well; but I do not fight with chimney sweepers. He is too dirty a writer for me to meddle with; I should only foul my fingers. I read his title page, and troubled myself no farther. I leave him to Mr. Sellon. He cannot be in better hands.

“As long as you are seeking and expecting to love God with all your heart, so long your soul will live.

“I am your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

FOOTNOTES:

[79] Methodist Magazine, 1781, p. 46.

[80] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 387.

[81] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 375.

[82] Ibid. p. 350.

[83] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 148.

[84] Whitefield’s Works, vol. iii.

[85] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 224.

[86] Whitehead’s Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 345.

[87] Thomas Dixon’s manuscript journal.

[88] “Life of Lady Glenorchy,” p. 155.

[89] One of the ministers of the Tolbooth church,--a man of great abilities and of polished manners, but an avowed Calvinist of the highest order.--(Lady Glenorchy’s Life, p. 132.)

[90] “Life of Lady Glenorchy,” p. 156.

[91] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 279.

[92] “Life of Lady Glenorchy,” pp. 163, 226.

[93] “Life and Times of Lady Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 157.

[94] Lady Glenorchy’s Life, p. 223.

[95] Ibid. p. 239.

[96] Methodist Magazine, 1816, p. 730.

[97] Methodist Magazine, 1851, p. 837.

[98] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 330.

[99] Ibid. 1784, p. 614.

[100] Methodist Magazine, 1814, p. 166.

[101] Manuscript.

[102] Methodist Magazine, 1807, p. 242.

[103] The following hitherto unpublished letter was addressed to Matthew Lowes, and refers both to circuit, and connexional chapel, debts.

“LONDON, March 2, 1770. “DEAR MATTHEW,--The way you propose for clearing the circuit is, I think, the very best which can be devised. Only let your fellow labourers second you heartily, and the thing will be done.

“Four or five circuits exerted themselves nobly. Had all the rest done the same our burden would have been quite removed. Well, we will fight till we die. “I am, etc., J. WESLEY.”

[104] Myles’s History.

[105] This had become a matter of grave importance. Matthew Lowes, one of Wesley’s most useful itinerants, states, in his unpublished Autobiography, that though the trading of the preachers, in cloth, groceries, hardware, etc., was of considerable benefit to themselves and their families, it was strongly objected to by the people: (1) because it interfered with the businesses of Methodists in the places which the preachers visited; and (2) because it was deemed inconsistent for a minister of the word of God to be engaged in any kind of trade whatever. Lowes’ trading was chiefly confined to the sale of a valuable balsam, of which he himself was the sole maker and vendor; and which, while of great use to the afflicted, and a source of income to the poor itinerant, did not in the least interfere with the business of others; but even Lowes was obliged to give up the itinerancy, when, for the sake of the suffering, and, for the benefit of his numerous family, he refused to give up his balsam. In 1771, he was compelled to retire from the itinerant work, partly for the reason just mentioned, and partly on the ground of health, and, for about a quarter of a century afterwards, acted as a local preacher at Newcastle on Tyne, and supported himself, his wife, and his children, chiefly by the sale of his useful medicine. Three months after his retirement, Wesley wrote to him the following, now for the first time published.

“NORWICH, November 10, 1771. “DEAR MATTHEW,--You should do all you can; otherwise want of exercise will not lessen, but increase your disorder. Certainly there is no objection to your making balsam, while you are not considered as a travelling preacher. I am, with love to sister Lowes, your affectionate brother, “J. WESLEY.”

[106] Minutes, 1744.

[107] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 385.

[108] Ibid. p. 387.

[109] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 364.

[110] Methodist Magazine, 1826, p. 752.

[111] J. Pawson’s manuscripts.

[112] Lloyd’s Evening Post, Nov. 16, 1770.

[113] Gospel Magazine, 1771, p. 39.

[114] Lloyd’s Evening Post, 1771, pp. 127, 139.

[115] Gospel Magazine, 1776, p. 443.

[116] Poor Whitefield was pelted even after he was dead. In the Annual Register, for 1770, it is wickedly stated, that his last visit to America was owing “to an attachment to a woman, by whom he had a child while his wife was living;” and it is added, that “this child was the first infant ever entered into his orphan house in Georgia”!

[117] Wesley’s “Free Thoughts” were sharply criticised by an able writer, in 1771, in an octavo pamphlet of 58 pages, with the title of “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley; in answer to his late pamphlet, entitled ‘Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.’”

1771. Age 68

The year 1771 was one of unceasing conflict. The first two months, as usual, were spent in London, during which Wesley’s wife, in one of her insane piques, and without assigning the slightest reason, unceremoniously left his house in London, and started for her own in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. It was on this occasion that Wesley wrote the words so often quoted: “Non eam reliqui; non dimisi; non revocabo.”

On the 3rd of March, Wesley set out for Ireland, where he laboured for the next few months.

Affairs in Scotland were a source of increasing anxiety. Hence the following letter to Lady Maxwell, in reference to Alexander McNab, one of his itinerants, and the Rev. Richard De Courcy, who was about to become minister in Lady Glenorchy’s chapel, Edinburgh.

“LONDON, January 24, 1771.

“MY DEAR LADY,--Although Mr. McNab is quite clear as to justification by faith, and is, in general, a sound and good preacher, yet, I fear, he is not clear of blame in this. He is too warm and impatient of contradiction, otherwise he must be lost to all common sense, to preach against final perseverance in Scotland. From the first hour that I entered the kingdom, it was a sacred rule with me never to preach on any controverted point,--at least, not in a controversial way. Any one may see that this is only to put a sword into our enemies’ hands. It is the direct way to increase all their prejudices, and to make all our labours fruitless.

“You will shortly have a trial of another kind. Mr. De Courcy purposes to set out for Edinburgh in a few days. He was from a child a member of our societies in the south of Ireland. There he received remission of sins, and was, for some time, groaning for full redemption. But when he came to Dublin the Philistines were upon him, and soon prevailed over him. Quickly, he was convinced that ‘there is no perfection,’ and that ‘all things depend on absolute and unchangeable decrees.’ At first, he was exceedingly warm upon these heads; now, he is far more calm. His natural temper, I think, is good; he is open, friendly, and generous. He has also a good understanding, and is not unacquainted with learning, though not deeply versed therein. He has no disagreeable person, a pleasing address, and is a lively as well as sensible preacher. Now, when you add to this that he is quite new, and very young, you may judge how he will be admired and caressed. How will a raw, inexperienced youth be able to encounter this? If there be not the greatest of miracles to preserve him, will it not turn his brain? And may he not then do far more hurt than either Mr. W---- or Mr. T---- did? Will he not prevent your friend from going on to perfection? Nay, may he not shake you also? At present, indeed, he is in an exceedingly loving spirit. But will that continue long? There will be danger on the one hand if it does; there will be danger on the other if it does not.

“It does not appear, that any great change has been wrought in our neighbours by Mr. Whitefield’s death. He had fixed the prejudice so deep, that even he himself was not able to remove it; yet, our congregations have increased exceedingly, and the work of God increases on every side. I am glad you use more exercise. It is good for both body and soul. As soon as Mr. De Courcy is come, I shall be glad to hear how the prospect opens. You will then need a larger share of the wisdom from above; and I trust you will write with all openness to, my dear lady, your ever affectionate servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[118]

It was Wesley who obtained Mr. De Courcy’s services for Lady Glenorchy. He knew the man, and thought highly of him, but also saw his danger; and hence the warning to Lady Maxwell. It would be a pleasant task to sketch the subsequent career of this devoted Irishman; but, at present, we must confine ourselves to Edinburgh. De Courcy set out for the northern metropolis, as Wesley had said he would; and, immediately on his arrival at Newcastle, addressed to Wesley the following.

“February 9, 1771.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--Yesterday evening, after a very tedious journey, the Lord brought me safe to Newcastle. When I reflect on the fatigue and dangers which attend travelling, I should be astonished above measure that you have so indefatigably persevered in all the labours of an itinerant life for so many years, were I not well assured that you have been supernaturally assisted in body and mind for that extensive work to which God has eminently chosen you.

“I write this in Mr. McNab’s chamber, with whom, and Mr. Hanby, I find great fellowship of spirit. I have accepted your kind invitation, and purpose taking up my abode with them till Monday, when I set out for Edinburgh. I would stay longer with your dear people here, but that I find Lady Glenorchy is particularly anxious for my speedy arrival in Edinburgh. As my situation there will expose me to diversified trials, do dear sir, pray that I may be kept

‘Humble, teachable, and mild, Patient as a little child,’

“I remain, reverend and dear sir, your most affectionate, but unworthy brother, “RICHARD DE COURCY.”[119]

A few days after De Courcy’s arrival, Wesley wrote a second time to Lady Maxwell, as follows.

“February 26, 1771.

“MY DEAR LADY,--I cannot but think the chief reason of the little good done by our preachers in Edinburgh is the opposition which has been made by the ministers of Edinburgh, as well as by the false brethren from England. These steeled the hearts of the people against all the good impressions which might otherwise have been made; so that the same preachers, by whom God has constantly wrought, not only in various parts of England, but likewise in the northern parts of Scotland, were in Edinburgh only not useless. They felt a damp upon their spirits; they had not their usual liberty of speech; and the word they spoke seemed to rebound upon them, and not to sink into the hearts of the hearers. At my first coming, I usually find something of this myself; but the second or third time of preaching, it is gone.

“I think it will not be easy for any one to show us, either, that Christ did not die for all, or, that He is not willing as well as able to cleanse from all sin, even in the present world. If your steady adherence to these great truths be termed bigotry, yet you have no need to be ashamed. You are reproached for Christ’s sake, and the spirit of glory and of Christ shall rest upon you. Perhaps our Lord may use you to soften some of the harsh spirits, and to preserve Lady Glenorchy, or Mr. De Courcy, from being hurt by them.

“I am, my dear lady, your very affectionate servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[120]

From these letters, it is painfully apparent that the Calvinistic controversy was not confined to England. Edinburgh rang with discordant notes; and, in five months after Mr. De Courcy’s coming, Lady Glenorchy dismissed Wesley’s preachers from her chapel, assigning, as her reason, that they were not Calvinists.[121]

South of the Tweed there were sounds of the coming battle; hence the following extract from a letter to Miss Bishop.

“February 16, 1771.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--... Legality, with most that use that term, really means tenderness of conscience. There is no propriety in the word, if one would take it for seeking justification by works. Considering, therefore, how hard it is to fix the meaning of that odd term, and how dreadfully it has been abused, I think it highly advisable for all the Methodists to lay it quite aside.

“If Mr. Shirley could find any other doctrine, which he thought was peculiarly mine, he would be as angry at it as he is at Christian perfection. But it is all well: we are to go forward, whoever goes back or turns aside. Perhaps we may see a new accomplishment of Solomon’s words, ‘He that reproveth a man shall afterward find more favour than he who flattereth with his tongue.’ But, be that as it may, I have done my duty: I could no otherwise have delivered my own soul; and no offence at all would have been given thereby, had not pride stifled both religion and generosity. But my letter[122] is now out of date: it is mentioned no more; there is a more plausible occasion found, namely, those eight terrible propositions which conclude the minutes of our conference. At the instance of some who were sadly frightened thereby, I have revised them over and over; I have considered them in every point of view; and truly, the more I consider them, the more I like them. The more fully I am convinced, not only that they are true,--agreeable both to Scripture and sound experience,--but, that they contain truths of the deepest importance, and such as ought to be continually inculcated by those who would be pure from the blood of all men.

“Your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[123]

Benson had been dismissed from Trevecca, in the month of January, for defending Wesley’s minutes; and now Fletcher, the president of the college, informed the Countess of Huntingdon, that, if all Arminians were to be expelled, he must be expelled. This was a serious matter. Fletcher, at Trevecca, had been, according to Benson, “almost an angel in human flesh.” “Prayer, praise, love, and zeal were the element in which he lived. His one employment was to call, entreat, and urge others to ascend with him to the glorious Source of being and blessedness. He had leisure comparatively for nothing else. Languages, arts, sciences, grammar, rhetoric, logic, even divinity itself, were all laid aside, when he appeared in the schoolroom among the students. His full heart would not suffer him to be silent; and the students were readier to hearken to him than to attend to Sallust, Virgil, or Cicero. Soon, they were all in tears; and then he would say, ‘As many of you as are athirst for the fulness of the Spirit, follow me into my room.’” Away they trooped after him, and would continue praying, one after another, for hours together, till they could bear to kneel no longer; Fletcher, in the midst, so filled with the love of God, that, more than once, he cried, “O my God, withhold Thy hand, or the vessel will burst!”[124] Such a man in such a place was invaluable; but he was not the man to truckle in the presence of arbitrary power. Hence the following to Wesley.

“MADELEY, February 20, 1771.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--I fear we are going, or are already gone, from our plan of catholicism at the college. Mr. Benson’s affair has made me tell my mind to our Deborah, about bigotry, partiality, prejudice, and everything that seemed to me contrary to the Christian spirit in some late transactions. The answer was, that if one half of the things objected to by me was true, there would be room for the cruelty of my charges; but facts and words have been grossly misrepresented. Therefore, my mouth is shut so far.

“This, however, I have insisted, and do insist, upon, if every Arminian must quit the college, I am discharged for one; for I cannot give up the possibility of the salvation of all any more than I can give up the truth and love of God.

“Secondly, I will be no party man, nor give up my connections with any that fear God, much less with Mr. Wesley, who shall be always welcome to my pulpit, and I make no doubt will welcome me to his.

“Thirdly, nobody shall prevent my following after an entire devotedness of heart to God, by baiting my Christian hopes and privileges under the name of perfection.

“To this, I have received no particular answer; but, as I set out for the college to-day, I may get one viva voce.

“Though no letter writer, I am and shall always remain, reverend and dear sir, your ready though unprofitable servant,

“JOHN FLETCHER.”[125]

The result of Fletcher’s visit to the college is given in the subjoined extracts from letters sent to Benson.

“March 22, 1771.

“On my arrival at the college, I found all very quiet, I fear, through the enemy’s keeping his goods in peace. While I preached, I found myself as much shackled as ever I was in my life; and, after private prayer, I concluded I was not in my place. The same day I resigned my office to my lady, and on Wednesday to the students and the Lord. Last Friday I left them all in peace, the servant, but no more the president, of the college.”[126]

“Mr. Shirley has sent my lady a copy of part of the minutes of the last conference, namely, of the year 1770. They were called horrible and abominable. My lady told me, she must turn against them; and that whoever did not fully disavow them must quit the college. She accordingly ordered the master and all the students to write their sentiments upon them without reserve. I did so; explained them according to Mr. Wesley’s sentiments; and approved the doctrine, though not cautiously worded. I concluded by observing, that, as after such a step on my part, and such a declaration on my lady’s, I could no longer, as an honest man, stay in the college, I took my leave of it; wishing my lady might find a minister to preside over it less insufficient than

“JOHN FLETCHER.”[127]

So much respecting Trevecca. Returning to Wesley, we find him defending himself in the following long letter, published in Lloyd’s Evening Post for March 1, 1771.

“February 26, 1771.

“SIR,--The editor of a monthly publication, pompously called The Gospel Magazine, has violently fallen upon one and another, who did not knowingly give him any provocation. And whereas, in other magazines, the accused has liberty to answer for himself, it is not so here. This gentleman will publish only the charge; but not the defence. What can a person, thus injuriously treated, do? To publish pamphlets, on every head, would not answer the end, for the answer would not come into near so many hands as the objection. Is there then a better way than to appeal to candid men, in one of the public papers, by which means the antidote will operate both as widely and as speedily as the poison? This method, therefore, I take at last, after delaying as long as I could with innocence.

“In that magazine for last month, there is a warm attack upon my sermon on the death of Mr. Whitefield. The first charge is against the text, ‘Let me die the death of the righteous.’ ‘How improper,’ says Mr. R.,[128] ‘to apply the words of a mad prophet to so holy a man as Mr. Whitefield.’

“Improper! See how doctors differ! I conceive nothing can possibly be more proper. If Mr. R. did indeed tell his congregation, some of whom disliked his attacking my poor text before, ‘Let who will be vexed, I do not care; I will not justify Balaam while I live’; yet, others imagine nothing would be more suitable than for Balaam junior to use the words of his forefather; especially, as he did not apply them to Mr. Whitefield, but to himself. Surely a poor reprobate may, without offence, wish to die like one of the elect! And I dare say, every one understood me to mean this, the moment he heard the text. If not, the very hymn I sung showed to whom I applied the words--

‘Oh that, without a lingering groan, I might the welcome word receive! My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live!’

“But the main attack is on the sermon itself; in which I am charged with asserting a gross falsehood, in the face of God and the congregation, and that knowing it to be such, namely, that ‘the grand fundamental doctrines which Mr. Whitefield everywhere preached, were those of the new birth and justification by faith.’ No, says Mr. R., not at all: the grand fundamental doctrines, which he everywhere preached, were the everlasting covenant between the Father and the Son, and absolute predestination flowing therefrom.

“I join issue on this head. Whether the doctrines of the eternal covenant, and of absolute predestination, are the grand fundamental doctrines of Christianity, or not, I affirm again--(1) that Mr. Whitefield did not everywhere preach these; (2) that he did everywhere preach the new birth, and justification by faith.

“1. He did not everywhere preach the eternal covenant, and absolute predestination. In all the times I myself heard him preach, I never heard him utter a sentence either on one or the other. Yea, all the times he preached in West Street chapel, and in our other chapels throughout England, he did not preach these doctrines at all, no, not in a single paragraph; which, by the bye, is a demonstration that he did not think them the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

“2. Both in West Street chapel, and all our other chapels throughout England, he did preach the necessity of the new birth, and justification by faith, as clearly as he has done in his two volumes of printed sermons. Therefore, all that I have asserted is true, and provable by ten thousand witnesses.

“Nay, says Mr. R., ‘Mr. Whitefield everywhere insisted on other fundamental doctrines, from the foundation of which the new birth and justification by faith take their rise, and with which they are inseparably connected. These are the everlasting covenant, which was entered into by the Holy Trinity, and God the Father’s everlasting, unchangeable election of sinners’ (in virtue of which a fiftieth part of mankind shall be saved, do what they will; and the other forty-nine parts shall be damned, do what they can). ‘These doctrines are not of a less essential nature than either regeneration or justification. No, by no means; they are to the full equally essential to the glory of God. Yea, there is an inseparable connection between them. This is a most essential, a most fundamental point.’ (Magazine, p. 41.)

“If so, then every one who does not hold it must perish everlastingly. If, as you here assert, he cannot be justified, then he cannot be saved. If, as you say, he cannot be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

“After asserting this, can Mr. R. ever take the name of catholic love into his mouth? Is not this the very opposite to it? the height and depth of bigotry? Does this spirit do honour to his opinion? Can we conceive anything more horrid? Is it not enough to make a person of humanity shudder? Yea, to make his blood run cold?

“I do not here enter into the merits of the cause. I need not. It is done to my hands. The whole doctrine of predestination is thoroughly discussed in those three tracts lately printed: ‘An Answer to the Eleven Letters commonly ascribed to Mr. Hervey’; ‘Arguments against General Redemption Considered’; and ‘An Answer to Elisha Coles.’ Till these are seriously and solidly refuted, I have no more to say on that head. But I must aver, that the excluding all from salvation who do not believe the horrible decree is a most shocking insult on all mankind, on common sense, and common humanity.

“I am, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

Of course, this was too pungent to pass without notice. Accordingly, in the Gospel Magazine for the month following, there appeared an incisive review of Sellon’s Answer to Elisha Coles, which is described as “a mite of reprobate silver, cast into the Foundery, and coming out thence, with the impress of that pride, self righteousness, and self sufficiency, natural to men in their fallen, unrenewed state.” Sellon is accused of “trifling effrontery,” and is said “to have sunk far below the gentleman, and to have lost all appearance of the Christian”; and is further designated “the Cardinal Bellarmine of the day; the obsequious servant and faithful labourer to his holiness.”

In a subsequent number of the same periodical, published in the month of May, Wesley’s minutes are attacked; the writer, “A Real Protestant,” indignantly asking, “Are not these the very doctrines of popery, yea, of popery unmasked? Is it not awful that 29,406 souls, who are in Mr. Wesley’s societies, should be so dreadfully seduced from the protestant doctrines, and deluded into a belief of the doctrines of the mother of harlots, the whore of Babylon, the Church of Rome?”

Thus the bitter controversy proceeded. Comment would be easy; but we prefer to let the chief actors speak; and, not to interrupt this painful scene, proceed to give other letters bearing upon the subject, so that the reader may have before him as full a view of the spirit and behaviour of both parties as it is possible to furnish.

While on his way to Ireland, Wesley wrote the following to Fletcher.

“I always did, for between these thirty and forty years, clearly assert the total fall of man, and his utter inability to do any good of himself; the absolute necessity of the grace and Spirit of God to raise even a good thought or desire in our hearts; the Lord’s rewarding no work, and accepting of none, but so far as they proceed from His preventing, convincing, and converting grace through the Beloved; the blood and righteousness of Christ being the sole meritorious cause of our salvation. Who is there in England, that has asserted these things more strongly and steadily than I have done?”[129]

The next letter, addressed to Lady Huntingdon, was occasioned by one which her ladyship had sent to Wesley’s brother on the subject of his minutes,[130] and was dated “Bath, June 8, 1771.” The countess brands the minutes as “popery unmasked”; and declares that “all ought to be deemed papists who do not disown them.” She thus concludes: “as you have no part in this matter, I find it difficult to blame your brother to you; while as an honest man I must pity you, as you must suffer equal disgrace, and universal distrust, from the supposed union with him.” Charles Wesley endorsed this unworthy letter with the words: “Lady Huntingdon’s last; unanswered by John Wesley’s brother.”[131]

Charles Wesley doubtless communicated the contents to his brother, who was now in Ireland; in fact, her ladyship requested him to do this: and hence the following.

“June 19, 1771.

“MY DEAR LADY,--Many years since, I saw that ‘without holiness no man shall see the Lord.’ I began following after it, and inciting all with whom I had any intercourse to do the same. Ten years after, God gave me a clearer view than I had before of the way how to attain this, namely, by faith in the Son of God; and, immediately, I declared to all, ‘We are saved from sin, we are made holy, by faith.’ This I testified in private, in public, in print; and God confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. I have continued to declare this, for above thirty years; and God has continued to confirm the word of His grace. But, during this time, well-nigh all the religious world have set themselves in array against me, and, among the rest, many of my own children, following the example of one of my eldest sons, Mr. Whitefield. Their general cry has been, ‘He is unsound in the faith; he preaches another gospel!’ I answer, Whether it be the same which they preach or not, it is the same which I have preached for above thirty years. This may easily appear from what I have published during that whole term. I instance only in three sermons; that on ‘Salvation by Faith,’ printed in the year 1738; that on ‘The Lord our Righteousness,’ printed a few years since; and that on Mr. Whitefield’s funeral, printed only some months ago.

“But it is said, ‘Oh but you printed ten lines in August last, which contradict all your other writings.’ Be not so sure of this. It is probable, at least, that I understand my own meaning as well as you do; and that meaning I have yet again declared in the sermon last referred to. By that, interpret those ten lines, and you will understand them better; although I should think that any one might see, even without this help, that the lines in question do not refer to the condition of obtaining, but of continuing in the favour of God. But whether the sentiment contained in these lines be right or wrong, and whether it be well or ill expressed, the gospel which I now preach God does still confirm by new witnesses in every place; perhaps never so much in this kingdom as within these last three months. Now, I argue from glaring, undeniable fact: God cannot bear witness to a lie; the gospel, therefore, which He confirms must be true in substance. There may be opinions maintained at the same time which are not exactly true; and who can be secure from these? Perhaps, I thought myself so once. When I was much younger than I am now, I thought myself almost infallible; but, I bless God, I know myself better now.

“To be short. Such as I am, I love you well. You have one of the first places in my esteem and affection; and you once had some regard for me. But it cannot continue if it depends upon my seeing with your eyes, or on my being in no mistake. What if I was in as many as Mr. Law himself? If you were, I should love you still, provided your heart was still right with God. My dear friend, you seem not to have well learned yet the meaning of those words, which I desire to have continually written upon my heart, ‘Whosoever doth the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.’

“I am, my dear lady, your affectionate

“JOHN WESLEY.”[132]

Contemporaneously with the above letter, the Rev. Walter Shirley and Lady Huntingdon sent the following circular to Wesley, as well as to a large number of their Calvinian friends.

“SIR,--Whereas Mr. Wesley’s conference is to be held at Bristol, on Tuesday, the 6th of August next, it is proposed, by Lady Huntingdon, and many other Christian friends, (real protestants,) to have a meeting at Bristol at the same time, of such principal persons, both clergy and laity, who disapprove of the underwritten minutes[133]; and as the same are thought injurious to the very fundamental[134] principles of Christianity, it is further proposed, that they go in a body to the said conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said minutes; and, in case of a refusal, that they sign and publish their protest against them. Your presence, sir, on this occasion is particularly requested; but, if it should not suit your convenience to be there, it is desired that you will transmit your sentiments on the subject to such person as you think proper to produce them. It is submitted to you, whether it would not be right, in the opposition to be made to such a dreadful heresy,[134] to recommend it to as many of your Christian friends, as well of the Dissenters as of the Established Church, as you can prevail on to be there, the cause being of so public a nature.

“I am, sir, your obedient servant,

“WALTER SHIRLEY.

“P.S.--Your answer is desired, directed to the Countess of Huntingdon; or the Rev. Mr. Shirley; or John Lloyd, Esq., in Bath; or Mr. James Ireland, merchant, Bristol; or to Thomas Powis, Esq., at Berwick, near Shrewsbury; or to Richard Hill, Esq., at Hawkstone, near Whitchurch, Shropshire. Lodgings will be provided. Inquire at Mr. Ireland’s, Bristol.”

A fine confederacy of elected saints, armed with self invested papal power to insist upon the recantation of poor Wesley and his heretical preachers!

The modest and self diffident countess and her executive chaplain apologise for this high handed interference on the ground that they “were warmly interested in the revival of spiritual religion and the doctrines of the Reformation;” that they “apprehended that the doctrines contained in the minutes had the most fatal tendency; and, in the strongest and most explicit terms, maintained salvation by works”; and that Wesley was not an ordinary personage, but stood “at the head of near thirty thousand people,--a veteran in the cause of the gospel,--one of the chiefs in the late reformation.”[135]

One would have thought that, at least, the last mentioned reason would have led them to adopt a less offensive and more respectful method of correcting his “dreadful heresy,” than that of marching upon him and his conference en masse; and imperiously insisting upon his recantation. Surely, it would not have been too great a condescension for them and their friends, first of all, to have respectfully solicited of such “a veteran and chief” an explanation of what he meant; and, if they still found him to be in error, to ask for an opportunity to reason the matter with him and to set him right. But, no; this was far too troublesome for the elect of God, who, of course, were right, and all others wrong; and, hence, the only action, which would not impinge upon their sacred dignity, was to march, in solemn phalanx, to the assembly of Wesley and his poor itinerants, and there “insist upon a formal recantation”; and then, in case the heretics should refuse to yield, and because the valiant defenders of the truth were without power to imprison, to banish, or to burn, it was piously proposed that, for want of something more effectual, they should content themselves with a public protest against the pestilential minutes.

One of Shirley’s circulars was handed to Fletcher, the ex-president of Trevecca, who wrote to Wesley the following letter, hitherto unpublished.

“MADELEY, June 24, 1771.

“DEAR SIR,--When I left Wales, where I had stood in the gap for peace, I thought my poor endeavours were not altogether vain. Lady Huntingdon said she would write civilly to you, and desire you to explain yourself about your minutes. I suppose you have not heard from her, for she wrote me word since that she believed she must not meddle in the affair. At least, that is what I made of her letter. Upon receiving yours from Chester, I cut off that part of it where you expressed your belief of what is eminently called by us the doctrine of free grace; and sent it to the college, with a desire it might be sent to Lady Huntingdon. She has returned it to me, with a letter, in which she expresses the greatest disapprobation of it. The purport of her letter is, to charge you with tergiversation, and me with being the dupe of your impositions. She has also wrote in stronger terms to her college.

“Things, I hoped, would have remained there; but how am I surprised and grieved to see zeal borrowing the horn of discord, and sounding an alarm throughout the religious world against you. Mr. Hutton called upon me last night, and showed me a printed circular, which I suppose is, or will be, sent to the serious clergy and laity throughout the land. I have received none, as I have lost, I suppose, my reputation of being a ‘real protestant,’ by what I wrote upon your minutes in Wales.

“This is an exact copy of the printed letter.

[Here follows Shirley’s circular as above.]

“I think it my duty, dear sir, to give you the earliest intelligence of this bold onset, and to assure you that upon the evangelical principles, mentioned in your last letter to me, I, for one, shall be glad to stand by you and your doctrine to the last, hoping that you will gladly remove stumbling blocks out of the way of the weak, and alter such expressions as may create prejudice in the hearts of those who are inclined to admit it.

“I write to Mr. Shirley to expostulate with him, and to request him to call in his circular letter. He is the last man that should attack you. His sermons contain propositions much more heretical and anti-Calvinistical than your minutes. If my letters have not the desired effect, I shall probably, if you approve of them and correct them, make them public for your justification.

“I find Mr. Ireland is to write to make you tamely recant without measuring swords, or breaking a pike with our real protestants. I wrote to him also.

“I am, dear sir, your unworthy servant in the gospel,

“JOHN FLETCHER. “To the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, at his Preaching House in Dublin, Ireland.”

There was chivalry in this,--the real, genuine chivalry of a noble mind and generous heart. The Swiss mountaineer was not the man to see a friend bullied without rushing to his rescue.

Wesley was not without sympathy. A few days later, his faithful friend, Vincent Perronet, the vicar of Shoreham, who was also of Swiss extraction, wrote to him as follows.

“SHOREHAM, July 9, 1771.

“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,--I am truly concerned, that so laborious a servant of Christ should be attacked in so violent a manner. Insulted by some, without the least decency, or regard to common decorum; and threatened by others with a synodical sentence.

“Had I been honoured with an invitation from a great personage, for whom I have a very high esteem, I should have told her ladyship, that I have no greater veneration for synods than the most excellent Bishop Nazianzen had formerly, whose great learning and Christian virtues could not screen him from the usual violence of those assemblies, and who therefore desired to see no more of them.

“However, with regard to the merit of good works, I should frankly have declared my abhorrence of the very sound of the word; since I could not conceive how an unprofitable servant could merit anything from a holy God. But then, on the other hand, I should have added, that whoever should speak contemptuously of the diligent exercise of good works, as if they derogated from the honour of Christ, I should tell such a divine, that, whether he found his divinity either in Luther, or Calvin, or the Synod of Dort, it was no divinity of the gospel of Christ; since Christ came to purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. And as the Holy Spirit has assured us, over and over, that ‘we shall be judged according to our works,’ it is, therefore, no wonder that St. Paul should pray that his converts might be ‘established in every good word and work.’ Besides, I might have observed that the zealot who decries good works was acting a most ridiculous part with regard to faith; for if his faith did not bring forth good works, his faith was good for nothing.

“However, though such good works were the fruits of faith, and consequently the fruit of the Spirit of Christ, and, for that reason, must be acceptable to God, yet, I must have added, so far as they were our works, so far they wanted the blood of Christ to wash away their defilements, and to atone for their deficiencies; and, therefore, even our best works can have no merit in them.

“I should, then, have remonstrated to that worthy lady to the following purpose,--that if one, who had laboured in the vineyard, I believed, full as much as any person since the days of the apostles, was not thought worthy of the mantle of love, for any mistake he might have made, yet surely he had a right to expect, that notice would have been given him to explain his meaning, before his judge pronounced sentence. This is a privilege granted to every supposed criminal in our courts of law, and where this is denied that court is no better than a court of inquisition.

“But now, my dear brother, what effect such a letter might have had, I pretend not to say. It would, at the least, have testified to that friendship, which I have constantly had for you these twenty-five years. May God direct us both, and may our worst enemies be all brought to Him! You have my leave to make what use you please of this long letter.

“I am, my very dear brother, yours most affectionately,

“VINCENT PERRONET.”[136]

Just at this juncture, Wesley drew up and printed, at Dublin, under date “July 10, 1771,” a clear and logical exposition of the doctrines set forth in the minutes, which he doubtless circulated among his preachers and friends. At the top of the first page of one of the copies, he requested Miss Bishop, of Bath, not to “show it before conference,” adding, “if the Calvinists do not, or will not understand me, I understand myself; and I do not contradict anything I have written these thirty years. Poor Mr. Shirley’s triumph will be short.”[137]

Wesley’s views were the same as Perronet’s. What were Charles Wesley’s, and what part was taken by him in this momentous controversy? The biographer of the Countess of Huntingdon would have his readers to believe, that Charles disapproved of his brother’s letter to her ladyship; that he would reprove him for it; and, that he preferred peace above all things.[138] It might be so; we have no means of gainsaying it. It is doubtful whether he attended the conference in Bristol; in fact, almost certain that he did not. Hence the following, addressed to him only three days before the commencement of its sittings.

“KINGSWOOD, August 3, 1771.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I will not throw away Thomas Rankin on the people of London. He shall go where they know the value of him.

“We cannot put out what we never put in. I do not use the word ‘merit.’ I never did, neither do I now, contend for the use of it. But I ask you, or any other, a plain question: and do not cry, Murder; but give me an answer. What is the difference between ‘mereri,’ and ‘to deserve’? or between ‘deserving,’ and ‘meritum’? I say still, I cannot tell. Can you? Can Mr. Shirley, or any man living? In asking this question, I neither plead for merit, nor against it. I have nothing to do with it. I have declared a thousand times, there is no goodness in man till he is justified; no merit, either before or after; that is, taking the word in its proper sense: for in a loose sense ‘meritorious’ means no more than ‘rewardable.’

“As to reprobation, seeing they have drawn the sword, I throw away the scabbard. I send you a specimen. Let fifteen hundred of them be printed as soon as you please.[139]

“Nothing was ever yet expended out of the yearly collection, without being immediately set down by the secretary. I never took a shilling from that fund yet.

“What you advise with regard to our behaviour toward our opposers exactly agrees with my sentiments. I am full of business, as you may suppose. So adieu!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[140]

On the evening before Wesley’s conference assembled, two letters were put into his hand, one written by Lady Huntingdon, the other by the Rev. Walter Shirley. The purport of her ladyship’s letter was, that, having learned that the proposed method of visiting his conference appeared to him and to his friends “as an arbitrary way of proceeding, she and her allies wished to inform him, that they intended no personal disrespect, but a degree of zeal against the principles established in the minutes, which were repugnant to the whole plan of man’s salvation under the new covenant of grace, and also to the clear meaning of the Established Church, as well as to all other protestant churches, to whose foundations the highest honour and respect are due.”[141]

Shirley’s letter apologises for that part of his circular which seemed to assume, that he and his friends had a “civil right to go in a body to Wesley’s conference, and insist on a formal recantation of the minutes.” All he meant was, to send Wesley a “respectful message importing their design, and requesting him to appoint a day and hour for the conference to receive them.” The reason why he had inserted “the offensive expression, ‘insist upon a formal recantation,’” (for which he now apologised,) was, because “it was supposed by some, that, instead of giving satisfaction on the points in question, such a forced construction would be put on the meaning of the minutes, as might elude the intended opposition, and yet leave the doctrines therein contained entire and unrepealed.” Shirley concludes by stating, that the doctrines of the minutes appear to him “evidently subversive of the fundamentals of Christianity.”[142]

Remembering that Wesley was not under the slightest obligation to either the Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. Shirley, or any of their Calvinistic friends, he might, without any want of courtesy, have treated with contempt a letter casting upon him the slur of trickishness, and have declined to see its author; but, instead of that, he appointed Thursday, August 8, for the momentous interview. Accordingly, on that day, Shirley, and two other ministers of the Countess of Huntingdon’s chapels, together with Messrs. Lloyd, Ireland, and Winter, and two students (!) from Trevecca college, went to Wesley’s conference. Shirley’s circular, summoning a synod, had been sent to all his sympathisers, clerical and laical, throughout the three kingdoms; and the result was a grand convocation of less than half a score, and even these included two laics belonging to Bath and Bristol, and at least two young men, still merely preparing for the ministry. The thing was a ridiculous failure; but not even on that account did Wesley refuse to see the self elected deputies. First of all, Wesley engaged in prayer. Then Shirley desired to know if the letters of himself and Lady Huntingdon had been read to the conference. Being answered in the negative, he asked leave to read them, which was granted. A lengthened conversation followed; and then Shirley produced a written declaration which he wished the conference to sign. Wesley read it, and made some alterations, which Shirley says were “not very material,” and then he and fifty-three of his preachers appended to it their signatures.[143] The declaration thus signed was as follows:--

“Whereas the doctrinal points in the Minutes of a Conference, held in London, August 7, 1770, have been understood to favour Justification by Works: now the Rev. John Wesley, and others assembled in Conference, do declare, that we had no such meaning; and that we abhor the doctrine of Justification by Works as a most perilous and abominable doctrine; and as the said Minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we hereby solemnly declare, in the sight of God, that we have no trust or confidence but in the alone merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for Justification or Salvation either in life, death or the day of judgment; and though no one is a real Christian believer, (and consequently cannot be saved) who doth not good works, where there is time and opportunity, yet our works have no part in meriting or purchasing our salvation[144] from first to last, either in whole or in part.”

After the declaration had been agreed to, Shirley was requested “to make some public acknowledgment, that he had mistaken the meaning of the minutes.” Shirley hesitated, but at last consented, and wrote a certificate to that effect.

In the meantime, Wesley had received from Fletcher the manuscript copy of his “Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Last Minutes: occasioned by a circular, printed letter, inviting principal persons, both clergy and laity, as well of the Dissenters as of the Established Church, who disapprove of those Minutes, to oppose them in a body, as a dreadful heresy: in Five Letters to the Hon. and Rev. Author of the circular letter.”

Wesley at once gave the manuscript to William Pine to print and publish. Shirley, hearing of this, waited upon Wesley the day after he and his friends had been to conference, and requested that the manuscript should not be printed, urging as their reason, that Fletcher himself wished for this, “if matters should end peaceably.” Wesley, however, persisted, and the work was published without delay, in a 12mo pamphlet of 98 pages. Whilst the manuscript was being printed, Wesley took the opportunity to reply to the letter of Lady Huntingdon, which had been put into his hands the night before his conference commenced. Nine days had elapsed since then, and now Wesley, on August 14, addresses her ladyship in the following unflinching terms, his letter also showing that the publication of Fletcher’s “Vindication” was no after thought, but was proceeding even while the conference was sitting.

“MY DEAR LADY,--The principles established in the minutes I apprehend to be no way contrary to that great truth, justification by faith, or that consistent plan of doctrine, which was once delivered to the saints. I believe whoever calmly considers Mr. Fletcher’s Letters will be convinced of this. I fear, therefore, that ‘zeal against those principles’ is no less than zeal against the truth, and against the honour of our Lord. The preservation of His honour appears so sacred to me, and has done for above these forty years, that I have counted, and do count, all things loss in comparison of it. But till Mr. Fletcher’s Letters are answered, I must think everything spoken against these minutes is totally destructive of His honour, and a palpable affront to Him; both as our Prophet and Priest, but more especially as the King of His people. Those Letters, therefore, which could not be suppressed without betraying the honour of our Lord, largely prove that the minutes lay no other foundation than that which is laid in Scripture, and which I have been laying, and teaching others to lay, for between thirty and forty years. Indeed, it would be amazing that God should at this day prosper my labours as much if not more than ever, by convincing as well as converting sinners, if I was establishing another foundation, repugnant to the whole plan of man’s ‘salvation under the covenant of grace, as well as the clear meaning of our Established Church, and all other protestant churches.’ This is a charge indeed! But I plead not guilty: and till it is proved upon me, I must subscribe myself, my dear lady, your ladyship’s affectionate but much injured servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[145]

Wesley had told his brother, that as “they had drawn the sword,” he himself should “throw away the scabbard,” and now this was done. Shirley found the tables turned, and, instead of attacking others, had to defend himself; and hence, in September, he issued his “Narrative of the Principal Circumstances relative to the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s late Conference, held in Bristol, August 6, 1771.” 8vo, 24 pages.

Space prohibits any lengthened outline of Fletcher’s “Vindication.” He gives (1) a general view of Wesley’s doctrine; (2) an account of the commendable design of his minutes; (3) a vindication of their propositions. It is in this production, that he furnishes his fearful description of the antinomianism which was then so prevalent, and which really rendered some utterance on the subject of good works a solemn necessity. He also makes extracts from Shirley’s published sermons, teaching the very doctrines which Wesley’s minutes teach; to which quotations Shirley’s reply was, that “they were wrote many years ago when he had more zeal than light,” and that he had “frequently wished that they were burnt.”[146]

Fletcher concludes thus:--

“O sir, have we not fightings enough without, to employ all our time and strength? Must we also declare war and promote fightings within? Must we catch at every opportunity to stab one another? What can be more cutting to an old minister of Christ than to be traduced as a dreadful heretic, in printed letters sent to the best men of the land, through all England and Scotland, and signed by a person of your rank and piety? While he is gone to a neighbouring kingdom, to preach Jesus Christ, to have his friends prejudiced, his foes elevated, and the fruit of his extensive ministry at the point of being blasted? Of the two greatest and most useful ministers I ever knew, one is no more. The other, after amazing labours, flies still, with unwearied diligence, through the three kingdoms, calling sinners to repentance. Though oppressed with the weight of near seventy years, and the cares of near thirty thousand souls, he shames still, by his unabated zeal and immense labours, all the young ministers in England, perhaps in Christendom. He has generally blown the gospel trumpet, and rode twenty miles, before most of the professors, who despise his labours, have left their downy pillows. As he begins the day, the week, the year, so he concludes them, still intent upon extensive services for the glory of the Redeemer, and the good of souls. And shall we lightly lift up our pens, our tongues, our hands against him? No; let them rather forget their cunning. If we will quarrel, can we find nobody to fall out with, but the minister upon whom God puts the greatest honour?”

Shirley’s “Narrative” was published in September, in which he gives great prominence to one of Fletcher’s letters requesting his “Vindication” to be suppressed. He furnishes an extract from one addressed to Mr. Ireland, dated August 15, to the following effect: “I feel for poor dear Mr. Shirley, whom I have, (considering the present circumstances,) treated too severely in my vindication of the minutes. My dear sir, what must be done? I am ready to defray, by selling to my last shirt, the expense of the printing of my Vindication, and suppress it.”

This was characteristic of Fletcher’s large heartedness; but the extract from his letter was a garbled one, and rendered it necessary that he should again enter the field of battle, and defend himself as well as others. This was done at once, and, before the year was ended, another production of his facile pen was published, namely, “A Second Check to Antinomianism: occasioned by a late narrative, in three letters, to the Hon. and Rev. Author. By the Vindicator of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Minutes.” 12mo, 109 pages.

He tells Shirley, that, though it was perfectly true that he had written to Mr. Ireland, requesting his letters to be suppressed, he had also stated to the same gentleman, that “the minutes must be vindicated,--that Mr. Wesley owed this to the Church, to the ‘real protestants,’ to all his societies, and to his own aspersed character.” He states: “I was going to preach when I had the news of your happy accommodation, and was no sooner out of church, than I wrote to beg my Vindication might not appear in the dress in which I had put it. I did not then, nor do I yet, repent having written upon the minutes; but, as matters are now, I am very sorry I did not write in a general manner, without taking notice of the circular letter, and mentioning your dear name.”[147] He adds, that when he gave the manuscript to Wesley, he begged him to correct it, and to expunge whatever might be “unkind or too sharp.” Wesley had assured him, that “he had expunged every tart expression”; and, if so, (for Fletcher had not yet seen it in a printed form,) he was “reconciled to its publication.” Fletcher further adds, that he had just received a letter (September 11, 1771) from Bristol, stating that when Thomas Olivers, who was now acting as Wesley’s editor, heard of Fletcher’s wish to suppress his “Vindication,” he had already announced to the Bristol congregation, that the work was in the press, and would soon be ready. “Besides,” continues Fletcher, in reference to Thomas Olivers being the only preacher who refused to sign the declaration at the conference,--“Besides, Mr. Olivers would have pleaded, with smartness, that he never approved of a patched up peace,--that he bore his testimony against it at the time it was made,--had a personal right to produce my arguments, since both parties refused to hear his at the conference.”

These facts are of great consequence, inasmuch as Shirley magnifies Wesley’s publication of Fletcher’s Vindication into a heinous fault; and others after him have endeavoured to brand Wesley’s character, not only for perpetuating the war, but for publishing Fletcher’s manuscript contrary to Fletcher’s wish. This is utterly unjust. The war was begun, not by Wesley, but by the Calvinists; and surely the attacked was not presumptuous, or wanton, in endeavouring to defend himself. It is true, that, in doing that, he uses the sword of his friend Fletcher; but what of that? The sword was given him to use, on July 27, when on his return from Ireland; and, though Fletcher subsequently hesitated as to the propriety of the step he had taken, it was not until the sword was brandished, by Fletcher’s manuscript being committed to the press and actually announced for sale. Besides, Fletcher’s hesitancy had reference, not to the thing done, but to the manner of its being done. A vindication he considered to be imperatively required: but he was afraid that his own was too personal. Shirley was aggrieved, because he pretends to have thought that the signing of the declaration would have ended the matter; but Shirley conveniently forgets: (1) that he himself had blackened Wesley’s character throughout the three kingdoms; (2) that Wesley and his preachers had conceded nothing to their adversaries, except that the minutes of 1770 were “not sufficiently guarded in the way in which they are expressed”; (3) that, as Fletcher abundantly demonstrates, there was a terrible necessity for an enforcement of the doctrine of the minutes at this momentous period, both the pulpits and pews of churches being infected with the deadly antinomianism of the late Dr. Crisp; and (4) that, after all, the doctrine of the minutes was only one part of the controversy which the Calvinists had raised, and that there were other attacks on Wesley, made by men like Augustus Toplady, and the editor of the Gospel Magazine, which it was impossible, and, in fact, would have been criminally disastrous, to have passed without rebuke.

That Fletcher did not regret the publishing of his Vindication is evident from the alacrity he showed in the preparation and publishing of his “Second Check;” the chief object of which was to establish “the doctrine of justification by works in the day of judgment”; and to reprove Walter Shirley for insinuating, in his “Narrative,” that this was a doctrine which Wesley and his fifty-three itinerant preachers had given up.

Shirley retired from the field of battle; but others took up the gauntlet. The Gospel Magazine, faithful to its character, was as furious as ever. In its August number, it published a review of the “Church of England vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination,” declaring that Wesley was its author’s “dictator and employer.” The work is pronounced “a composition of low scurrility and illiberal abuse.” The writer is charged with having “horribly blasphemed, and daringly given the lie to the God of truth, by asserting that any justified soul may at last perish in hell.” “Arminianism is a hodgepodge of human systems, made up of grace and works, so blended together as to destroy the true meaning of both.”

In the same number was published Cleon’s poem on “Wesley’s apostasy from the genuine faith of the gospel, an awful proof that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse.” One verse must serve as a specimen. After describing the doctrine of Wesley’s minutes, Cleon writes:

“In vain for worse may Wesley search the globe, A viper hatched beneath the harlot’s robe; Rome, in her glory, has no greater boast, Than Wesley aims--to all conviction lost.”

In the September number, “Simplex, from the neighbourhood of the Foundery,” expresses his astonishment, that Shirley and his friends should have been satisfied with the declaration, signed at conference, inasmuch as “it denies not one tittle clearly asserted in the minutes.” Wesley is credited with possessing “the unfathomable policy of a dubious divine.” He is a “fox,” who “has had sagacity enough to elude his hunters;” and “evidently shows that he never meant to recant what he had declared in the minutes, when he signed the declaration.”

In a subsequent number, “Simplex” reappears, and tells his readers that he is “sorry to see the name of a Christian minister prefixed to such foul and futile productions as those of Mr. Sellon. Mr. Fletcher’s pen is more cleanly, but every whit as unfair. He is like a madman flinging abroad firebrands, arrows, and death, amongst those who differ from him. Master Thomas Olivers has shocked common decency in his letter to Mr. Toplady. And Mr. Wesley must be more explicit than he has been accustomed to be, before he can give a satisfactory answer to Simplex’s querulous epistle.” These are moderate specimens of the tone and language of the Gospel Magazine.

Another brace of antagonists must be mentioned, Richard and Rowland Hill, the sons of Sir Rowland Hill, the former born in 1732, and the latter in 1745. Richard had been educated at Westminster, and had spent four or five years at Magdalen college, Oxford. Rowland had been sent to Eton, and then to Cambridge university. Both the brothers had turned preachers, though, as yet, neither of them had been ordained. They were young, proud, and irascible; and, with greater zeal than prudence, entered into the Calvinian conflict.

Richard Hill published[148] a sixpenny pamphlet, 8vo, of 31 pages, entitled “A Conversation between Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr. Madan, and Father Walsh, superior of a convent of English Benedictine monks at Paris, held at the said convent, July 13, 1771, relative to some doctrinal Minutes, advanced by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley and others, at a conference in London, August 7, 1770. To which are added some Remarks by the Editor; as also Mr. Wesley’s own Declaration concerning his Minutes, versified by another Hand.” A prodigiously long title of a supremely silly tract, whose object is to show that Wesley’s doctrine was a great deal worse than popery; in fact, that “popery is about midway between protestantism and Mr. J. Wesley.” We content ourselves with Sir Richard’s poetical version of Wesley’s declaration:

“Whereas, the religion and fate of three nations Depend on the importance of our conversations; And as some objections are thrown in our way, Our words have been construed to mean what they say; Be’t known from henceforth, to each friend and each brother, Whene’er we say one thing, we mean quite another.”

Sir Richard was not content with this. He issued a penny 12mo tract of 12 pages, with the title, “An Answer to some capital Errors contained in the Minutes,” etc., which finishes by reproducing the doggerel calumny just given, as though it were far too precious to be entombed in the more costly pamphlet with which he had enriched the Christian church.

His third publication,--by far the best,--was an octavo pamphlet of 40 pages, entitled, “Five Letters to the Reverend Mr. Fletcher, relative to his Vindication of the Minutes of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley.” Apart from its theology, of which we say nothing, this was worthy of a scholar, a Christian, and a gentleman. The spirit of the piece is most loving, and the style unexceptionable.

The publications, on the other side, in addition to those of Fletcher, were three in number.

First, Wesley’s tract of 12 pages, entitled, “The Consequence Proved”; without either the author’s or the printer’s name. Its object is to substantiate his former assertion, that the gist of Toplady’s Zanchius is to teach that “one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected, and nineteen in twenty are reprobate: that the elect shall be saved, do what they will; and the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can.” Wesley says: “I have not leisure to consider the matter at large. I can only make a few strictures, and leave the young man (Toplady) to be farther corrected by one that is full his match, Mr. Thomas Olivers.”[149]

To be handed over to Thomas Olivers was one of the bitterest pills that Toplady had to swallow. Olivers was a man of great intellectual power; but he had the misfortune to commence life as a Welsh mechanic of not the highest order. He was left an orphan when only four years old, and had now attained the age of forty-six. His publication, 12mo, 60 pages, was entitled, “A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Toplady, occasioned by his late Letter to the Reverend Mr. Wesley.” In invective and tart rebuke, Toplady met a match in the intrepid and fiery Welshman who, on behalf of Wesley, undertook to fight the furious predestinarian with the not too respectable weapons of his own choosing. It certainly is difficult to decide which is the more proficient in the use of strong language. It was a fisticuff encounter between a pugilistic pair, whose thumping blows may be considered of equal force.

The third publication, alluded to above, was “The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Predestination, as it is stated and asserted by the Translator of Jerome Zanchius, in his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell; together with some Animadversions on his Translation of Zanchius, his Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, and his Sermon on 1 Timothy i. 10.” 12mo, 129 pages. The author was the redoubtable Walter Sellon, who, for outspokenness, was only second to Toplady and Olivers themselves. At the same time, however, Sellon’s book evinces great ability and research, and thoroughly demolishes the unfounded theories of an opponent, whose pen was guided by bigotry rather than by Christian discretion. The castigation was severe, but it was merited. The lash of a scorpion whip is far from pleasant; but the man who uses it has no reason to complain of another using it in self defence. Toplady had a right to wince and writhe; but, under the circumstances, he had no right to foam, as, in succeeding chapters, we shall find he did.

Here, for the present, we shall leave this embittered conflict, and trace the steps of the illustrious man whose high position seemed to engender the envy which led to the attack upon him; but who, excepting a short skirmish now and then, pursued his high and holy mission with as much serenity as if the conflict had not existed.

He landed in Ireland on March 24, and re-embarked for England on July 22nd following.

At Dublin, the society had been jangling for years, and, as a consequence, had suffered loss. Though not expressly stated, it is clear that the cause of their quarreling was a dispute respecting the authority of the preachers and of the leaders respectively. Wesley, as the fountain of Methodistic law, now laid it down that classleaders had no authority to restrain the assistant, if they thought he acted improperly; but might mildly speak to him, and then refer the matter to Wesley to be decided. They had no “authority to hinder a person from preaching, or to displace a particular leader, or to expel a particular member, or to regulate the temporal and spiritual affairs of the society, or to make any public collection, or to receive the yearly subscription.” All this was the work of the assistant, with one exception, namely, that the temporal affairs of the society were regulated by the society steward. The power of a classleader simply consisted in authority to meet his class, to receive their contributions, and to visit his sick members; and the power of all classleaders united was “authority to show their classpapers to the assistant, and to deliver the money they had received to the stewards, and to bring in the names of the sick.”

Rightly or wrongly, such was Methodist discipline in 1771. “In the Methodist discipline,” writes Wesley, “the wheels regularly stand thus: the assistant, the preachers, the stewards, the leaders, the people. But here the leaders, who are the lowest wheel but one, were quite got out of their place. They were got at the top of all, above the stewards, the preachers, yea, and above the assistant himself. To this chiefly, I impute the gradual decay of the work of God in Dublin.” “Nothing,” says he, at Londonderry, where two years before he had organised a band of singers, which through the preacher’s neglect was now dispersed, “Nothing will stand in the Methodist plan unless the preacher has his heart and his hand in it. Every preacher, therefore, should consider it is not his business to mind this or that thing only, but everything.”

More than three months of Wesley’s time were spent, not in Dublin, but in itinerating the Irish provinces. In many instances, he was gladdened with the prosperity of the work of God; in others, as Dublin, Athlone, Tullamore, Waterford, Cork, and Augher, the aspect of things was far from promising.

While on this lengthened journey, Wesley made the following entry in his journal: “1771. June 28--This day I entered the sixty-ninth year of my age. I am still a wonder to myself. My voice and strength are the same as at nine-and-twenty. This also hath God wrought.”

Wesley remained in Ireland until he was obliged to leave in order to meet his conference at Bristol. Much space has been already occupied with an account of its important proceedings; but it may be added that, notwithstanding the Calvinian disturbances, there was reported an increase of 1934 members. Among others, Joseph Benson was received on trial as an itinerant preacher; and Francis Asbury and Richard Wright were sent as a reinforcement to America. Nearly £1700 were contributed to extinguish the chapel debts; and, to accomplish the thing at once, it was recommended that, upon an average, every Methodist, in the three kingdoms, should give, for one year, a penny a week. “If this is done,” says Wesley, “it will both pay our whole debt, and supply all contingencies.”

No sooner was the conference over than Wesley set out for Wales, where he laboured nearly the next three weeks. One of the Sundays was spent in Pembroke, where he preached in two of the churches. He writes: “Many of the congregation were gay, genteel people; so I spake on the first elements of the gospel. But I was still out of their depth. Oh how hard it is to be shallow enough for a polite audience!”

Returning to Bristol on August 31, he employed the next month in visiting the societies surrounding that city. Twelve months before, he had rejoiced over an apparently great religious revival in Kingswood school; but now, says he, “it is gone! It is lost! It is vanished away! There is scarce any trace of it remaining! Then we must begin again; and, in due time, we shall reap if we faint not.”

Just at this period, Dr. William Cadogan’s book on the gout and all chronic diseases was attracting great attention. Dr. Johnson called it “a good book in general, but a foolish one in particulars.” Wesley read the book, and agrees with Cadogan, that “very few of the chronic distempers are properly hereditary; and that most of them spring either from indolence, or intemperance, or irregular passions. But,” he adds, and here he comes in conflict with modern teetotallers, “but why should Dr. Cadogan condemn wine toto genere, which is one of the noblest cordials in nature? Yet stranger, why should he condemn bread? Great whims belong to great men!”

After an absence of seven months, Wesley got back to London on Saturday, October 5; and, on the Monday following, set out on his usual tour through the counties of Bedford and Northampton. This occupied a week, as did a similar visit to the societies in Oxfordshire. For many years, Wesley was accustomed to spend the last two or three months in each year in weekly journeys from London as a pastoral centre. The Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire journey was one; the Oxfordshire another; Chatham and Sheerness a third; Staplehurst, Rye, Winchelsea, and other places a fourth; and Norfolk a fifth, which generally occupied a longer time.

Wesley concludes the year with this entry: “December 30--At my brother’s request, I sat again for my picture. This melancholy employment always reminds me of that natural reflection,--

‘Behold, what frailty we in man may see! His shadow is less given to change than he.’”

Little more remains to be related respecting the year 1771, except the points following.

It is a curious fact, that, in the year when Fletcher began to render Wesley important service by the publication of his “Checks,” Fletcher’s future wife, Miss Bosanquet, applied to Wesley for advice on the subject of female preaching. Our space prevents the possibility of discussing such a topic at the length which it deserves; but Wesley’s letter, hitherto unpublished, will be acceptable, as showing that, however much importance he was disposed to attach to church order, he was not the man to make all things bend to it.

“LONDONDERRY, June 13, 1771.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--I think the strength of the cause rests there,--on your having an extraordinary call. So, I am persuaded, has every one of our lay preachers; otherwise, I could not countenance his preaching at all. It is plain to me, that the whole work of God termed Methodism is an extraordinary dispensation of His providence. Therefore, I do not wonder if several things occur therein, which do not fall under the ordinary rules of discipline. St. Paul’s ordinary rule was, ‘I permit not a woman to speak in the congregation.’ Yet, in extraordinary cases, he made a few exceptions; at Corinth in particular.

“I am, my dear sister, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[150]

In 1771, Wesley began a revision and republication of all the works which he had published during the last five-and-thirty years, with the exception of his Notes on the Old and New Testament, his “Christian Library,” his “Natural Philosophy,” and his books for Kingswood school. It was during this year that he issued a careful reprint of the four volumes of sermons published in 1746, 48, 50, and 60, with the addition of ten sermons, most of which had been published separately.

Besides these, he published five 12mo volumes of his collected works, embracing the sermons just mentioned; and making together about 1800 printed pages, in which he not only corrected the errors of the press, but his own mistakes, and did, what has not been done in any subsequent edition of his works,--placed an asterisk before the passages and paragraphs which he judged were most worthy of the reader’s notice.

He likewise published the fourteenth “Extract” from his journal, extending from May 27, 1765, to May 5, 1768. 12mo, 128 pages.[151]

His only other publications were his “Consequence Proved,” and his “Defence” of his minutes, already mentioned; and finally, “A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Fleury,” of Waterford, in Ireland. Mr. Fleury was a young parson, who, both in 1769, and now again in 1771, had taken the opportunity of Wesley’s visits to Waterford to preach against him. Wesley writes: “1771, May 28--At eleven, and again in the afternoon, I went to the cathedral, where a young gentleman most valiantly encountered the ‘grievous wolves,’ as he termed the Methodists. I never heard a man strike more wide of the mark. However, the shallow discourse did good; for it sent abundance of people, rich and poor, to hear and judge for themselves.” The “young gentleman’s” two sermons, which were published, were made up of the stale objections and invectives that had been used, by his superiors and seniors, times without number. Wesley’s letter is a characteristic reply to them.

FOOTNOTES:

[118] Lady Maxwell’s Life, p. 72.

[119] Methodist Magazine, 1784, p. 388.

[120] Lady Maxwell’s Life, p. 22.

[121] Ibid.

[122] Doubtless his letter to Lady Huntingdon.

[123] Methodist Magazine, 1805, p. 279.

[124] Wesley’s Life of Fletcher.

[125] Manuscript letter.

[126] Benson’s Life, by Treffry.

[127] Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 285.

[128] Probably Mr. Romaine.

[129] Fletcher’s Vindication, 1st Edit., p. 21.

[130] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 240.

[131] Jackson’s Life of C. Wesley, vol. ii., p. 256.

[132] Methodist Magazine, 1797, p. 563.

[133] The minutes of the conference of 1770.

[134] The italic words are emphasized in the original.

[135] Shirley’s “Narrative,” p. 5.

[136] Methodist Magazine, 1797, p. 253.

[137] Smith’s History of Methodism, vol. i., p. 394.

[138] “Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 237.

[139] This was probably “The Consequence Proved,” to be noticed shortly.

[140] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 127.

[141] Shirley’s “Narrative,” p. 8.

[142] Ibid. p. 10.

[143] Charles Wesley’s name is not in the list: a further proof that, strangely enough, he was not at this most important conference.

[144] This is the word in Shirley’s “Narrative”; but in the Gospel Magazine for August, 1771, the word “justification” is used instead; and there can be little doubt, that this was the reading of the original declaration. The difference at first seems slight, but, in reality, it is of great importance, as the readers of Fletcher’s “Checks” will easily perceive.

[145] Whitehead’s Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 349.

[146] Shirley’s “Narrative.”

[147] “Second Check,” 1st Edit., p. 40.

[148] See Sir Richard Hill’s Life, p. 191.

[149] There was also published, at this period, a smartly written rebuke of Toplady, and a defence of Wesley, entitled, “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Augustus Toplady, written in great part by himself, relative to part of his printed Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley.” 8vo, 21 pages.

[150] Manuscript letter.

[151] As a curiosity, and as tending to show that, in this season of excitement, all men were not Wesley’s enemies, we give an extract from a review of this section of Wesley’s Journal, published in _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, for January 20, 1772:--“In this interval, between May 27, 1765, and May 5, 1768, this zealous and truly laborious missionary of the Methodists, who seems to consider the three kingdoms as his parochial cure, twice traverses the greater part of Ireland and Scotland, from Londonderry to Cork, from Aberdeen to Dumfries, visiting and confirming the churches, besides making a progress, chiefly on horseback (in many places more than once), through great part of Wales, and almost all the counties in England, from Newcastle to Southampton, from Dover to Penzance. Those who expect to find in this Journal only the peculiar tenets of Methodism will be agreeably disappointed, as they are intermixed with such occasional reflections on men and manners, on polite literature, and even on polite places, as prove that the writer is endued with a taste well cultivated both by reading and observation; and above all with such a benevolence and sweetness of temper, such an enlarged, liberal, and truly protestant way of thinking towards those who differ from him, as clearly show that _his heart_, at least, is right, and justly entitle him to that candour and forbearance, which, for the honour of our common religion, we are glad to find he now generally receives.”

1772. Age 69

Wesley’s first journey from London, in 1772, was on the 16th of January, when he came to Luton, and preached in the parish church. The friendly clergyman, who gave him this permission, was the Rev. Mr. Copleston, whose son afterwards became a Methodist local preacher, and was driven from Luton by the iron hand of persecution, and then, after preaching for a while at St. Albans, introduced Methodism into Leighton Buzzard, where he died, in 1835, at the age of seventy, having been an earnest Methodist more than fifty years.[152]

In a visit to Dorking, Wesley read Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey,” and writes, “Sentimental! What is that? It is not English; he might as well say continental. It is not sense. It conveys no determinate idea; yet one fool makes many, and this nonsensical word (who would believe it?) is become a fashionable one! However, the book agrees full well with the title; for one is as queer as the other. For oddity, uncouthness, and unlikeness to all the world beside, I suppose the writer is without a rival.” This was a bold criticism on Laurence Sterne, and his recently published book, which was now immensely popular. On his return from Dorking, on February 12, Wesley writes: “I read a very different book, published by an honest quaker, on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the slave trade. I read of nothing like it in the heathen world, whether ancient or modern; and it infinitely exceeds, in every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in Mahommedan countries.”

This is a remarkable utterance. It was in this very year that Granville Sharpe, the first of the English antislavery advocates, began to take up the subject; and it was not until fifteen years after this, that the “Society for the Suppression of the Slave Trade” was founded, of which, besides Sharpe, two of the chief members were Thomas Clarkson, a young graduate of Cambridge, and William Wilberforce, who was then M.P. for the county of York. The book which Wesley read was probably written by Anthony Benezet, a French protestant, who, after being educated in England, became a quaker in Philadelphia; and, in 1762, published the work which first attracted the attention of this country[153] to the inhuman traffic, which Wesley so justly designates “that execrable sum of all villanies.” Let it be noted that, besides all his other honours, John Wesley, the poor, persecuted Methodist, was one of the first advocates on behalf of the enthralled African that England had, and that, sixty years before slavery was abolished in the dominions of Great Britain, he denounced the thing in the strongest terms it was possible to employ.

Before we accompany Wesley on his long northern tour, three other facts, belonging to this period, may be briefly mentioned.

Ten years ago, Thomas Maxfield had dishonourably forsaken his old friend, and had set up a rival church in the neighbourhood of Moorfields. For some reason, he now seemed to desire a reunion. Wesley was not the man to repel an overture even from one whose behaviour had been ungrateful and treacherous. He met Maxfield; but writes: “He only seemed to desire a reunion; for when we explained upon the head, I found he meant just nothing.”

Wesley was now close upon the age of threescore years and ten. His life had been a scene of unparalleled activity; and, though still possessed of amazing vigour, he had not the energy he had been wont to have. His friends in London saw this; and hence the following entry in his journal. “1772. Feb. 21.--I met several of my friends, who had begun a subscription to prevent my riding on horseback, which I cannot do quite so well, since a hurt which I got some months ago. If they continue it, well; if not, I shall have strength according to my need.”

Wesley’s last act before leaving London was to open a new chapel at Poplar. He writes: “1772. Feb. 28--I opened the new preaching house in Poplar: one might say, consecrated it; for the English law (notwithstanding the vulgar error) does not require, nay, does not allow, any other consecration of churches than by performing public service therein.”

Up to this period, the preaching at Poplar had been in private dwellings, and in the workhouse, the mistress of which was a Methodist. Now a wooden building was erected in High Street, which was long called, out of derision, “the pantile shop.” One of the first members was Benjamin King, who previous to this attended Gravel Lane chapel, Wapping, one of the oldest Methodist meeting-houses in London, but which was long since demolished for the making of the London Docks. For many a year, Methodism at Poplar had a struggle for existence, and often was Wesley importuned to give up the preaching there; but his constant answer was, “Does the old woman” (Mrs. Clippendale) “who sits in the corner of the long pew, still attend?” “O yes,” was the reply; “she never misses.” “Then for her sake keep going,” was Wesley’s rejoinder. The venerable woman, who was thus the means of perpetuating Methodist preaching at Poplar, was a native of Swalwell, near Newcastle, and, at twelve years of age, received her first society ticket, in 1745, from the hands of Wesley. Four years later, she came to London, and continued a faithful Methodist for above seventy years.[154]

Strangely enough, it was now currently reported that Wesley was about to leave England for America. The following refers to this.

“NEW YORK, April 1, 1772.

“REVEREND SIR,--By a letter from Mr. Lloyd, of London, we are informed that you incline to visit America. Mr. Whitefield’s preaching was of unspeakable use to many; but he preached mostly in the seaport towns, and the most populous parts of the provinces, where the gospel was known, though not preached in power. In the back parts, which are now grown populous, the inhabitants are still in a state of deplorable ignorance. If some zealous and able teachers would engage heartily in the work of their conversion, how soon might rivers spring forth in the desert, and these owls and dragons of the wilderness give honour to God. No doubt, many in England and elsewhere, who abound in wealth, would contribute towards erecting schools to teach the children, and also towards the support of preachers, if such an undertaking was properly set on foot. But who is qualified for this work? I know none except yourself.

“But, dear sir, what concerns me more than all is the unhappy condition of our negroes, who are kept in worse than Egyptian bondage. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and all the superfluities we possess, are the produce of their labours; and what do they receive in return? Nothing equivalent; on the contrary, we keep from them the key of knowledge; so that their bodies and souls perish together in our service! If, therefore, you are not too advanced in years, I say to you, in the name of God, come over and help us; in doing which you will greatly oblige many thousands, and, among the rest, your friend and brother,

“JONATHAN BRYAN.”[155]

Did Wesley seriously think of this? We are not sure; but the following characteristic letter to Walter Sellon will be read with interest.

“February 1, 1772.

“DEAR WALTER,--You do not understand your information right. Observe, ‘I am going to America to turn bishop.’ You are to understand it in sensu composito. I am not to be a bishop till I am in America. While I am in Europe, therefore, you have nothing to fear. But as soon as ever you hear of my being landed in Philadelphia, it will be time for your apprehensions to revive. It is true, some of our preachers would not have me stay, so long; but I keep my old rule, Festina lente.

“I am, dear Walter, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[156]

Previous to his leaving London, Wesley commenced a long correspondence, which extended over the next two years, with Samuel Sparrow, Esq., a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, who had published a volume, entitled “Family Prayers and Moral Essays,” a copy of which was presented to Wesley by the author. The writer has before him the correspondence that ensued; and perhaps the following extracts, from some of Wesley’s letters, will be acceptable.

“To the questions which you propose I answer: (1) I think that if a hundred, or a hundred thousand, sincere, honest, humble, modest, self diffident men were, with attention and care, to read the New Testament, uninfluenced by any but the Holy Spirit, nine in ten of them, at least, if not every one, would discover that the Son of God was ‘adorable,’ and one God with the Father; and would be immediately led to ‘honour Him even as they honoured the Father.’

“(2) Give a fair, impartial reading to that account of mankind in their present state, which is contained in the book on original sin. It is no play of imagination, but plain, clear fact. We see it with our eyes, and hear it with our ears daily. Heathens, Turks, Jews, Christians of every nation, are such men as are there described. Such are the tempers, such the manners, of lords, gentlemen, clergymen in England, as well as of tradesmen and the low vulgar. No man in his senses can deny it: and none can account for it, but upon the supposition of original sin.

“On Scripture and common sense I build all my principles; and just so far as it agrees with these, I regard human authority.

“There is too ‘just ground for charging the preachers both at Blackfriars church, the chapel at the Lock,[157] and the Tabernacle, with grievous want of charity; for most of them flatly maintain, ‘all who do not believe as they believe, are in a state of damnation;’ all who do not believe the absolute decree of election, which necessarily infers absolute reprobation. My brother and I set out on two principles: (1) None go to heaven without holiness of heart and life; (2) Whoever follows after this, whatever his opinions be, is my brother; and we have not swerved a hair’s breadth from either the one or the other to this day.”

On the 1st of March Wesley set out on his northern visitation, and did not return to London until seven months afterwards. It was now that he preached his first sermon in the town of Leek, where Thomas Hanby, eighteen years before, had formed a society at the peril of his life. “Kill him, kill him,” bawled the mob, as they pelted him with showers of stones; but the young evangelist, then only in the twenty-first year of his age, mercifully escaped; and the rabble, headed by a lawyer, had to content themselves with merely burning him in effigy.[158]

Wesley writes: “March 27, 1772.--While I was dining at Leek, some gentlemen of the town sent to desire I would give them a sermon. As it seemed to be a providential call, I did not think it right to refuse. A large congregation quickly ran together, and were deeply attentive.”

A society had recently been gathered at Nantwich, of which Mr. Salmon, an eccentric Christian gentleman, and some of his sisters, were members; and hence Nantwich was now added to the places which Wesley had to visit. This was probably the Mr. Salmon who was to have gone with the Wesleys to Georgia, but who was forcibly detained in his Cheshire home by his father and mother, who were distracted at the thought of their son leaving them. Joseph Whittingham Salmon had a good heart, but muddy head. Soon after this, he began to preach,[159] and, at the death of his wife, in 1785, published a long rigmarole funeral sermon, 8vo, 39 pages, which he preached in Barker Street chapel, Nantwich, and which is strongly spiced with the mystical delusion into which he had fallen. It is scarcely too much to say, that the weak mind of this well meaning man henceforth lost its balance, and that mystic pride and cacoethes scribendi were the chief features that distinguished the close of a lengthened but lustreless life. His wife, however, and several of the Misses Salmon were intelligent and earnest Methodists, and were among the earliest friends of Hester Ann Roe, afterwards Mrs. Rogers.[160]

There was another gentleman of note, near Nantwich, Sir Thomas Broughton, of Doddington Hall, who had a chapel in his park, and who, though not a Methodist, himself read or preached to the congregation the whole of Wesley’s sermons from first to last.[161] Salmon tells us, that this “reverend baronet,” as he calls him, at the death of his lady, called together his eleven children and his thirty servants, at eleven o’clock at night, and then, as they stood round the corpse, amid midnight silence and the dim radiance of lighted tapers, engaged in prayer, previous to the interment, the whole forming a scene not easily forgotten.

These were Methodism’s auxiliaries in the town of Nantwich; but, for long years, it had to struggle with adversity, its members worshipping in an old hired baptist chapel until the year 1808, when, chiefly through the help of Mr. Withinshaw, a new chapel was erected, and Nantwich was made a circuit town.[162]

On the 5th of April, Wesley reached Bolton and Manchester. In reference to the former town he writes: “How wonderfully has God wrought in this place! John Bennet, some years ago, reduced this society from sevenscore to twelve; and they are now risen to a hundred and seventy.” At Manchester, Wesley “drank tea at Am. O.;” probably Adam Oldham’s, and remarks: “But how was I shocked! The children that used to cling about me, and drink in every word, had been at a boarding school. There they had unlearned all religion, and even seriousness; and had learned pride, vanity, affectation, and whatever could guard them against the knowledge and love of God. Methodist parents, who would send your girls headlong to hell, send them to a fashionable boarding school!”

Proceeding by way of Whitehaven and Carlisle, Wesley came to Glasgow on April 18, and, a week later, arrived at Perth, where he was the provost’s guest, and received an honour which fell to him only once again in his long lifetime. He shall tell his own story.

“1772. April 28, Tuesday. We walked through the Duke of Athol’s gardens, in which was one thing I never saw before,--a summerhouse in the middle of a greenhouse, by means of which one might, in the depth of winter, enjoy the warmth of May, and sit surrounded with greens and flowers on every side.

“In the evening I preached once more at Perth, to a large and serious congregation. Afterwards they did me an honour I never thought of,--presented me with the freedom of the city. The diploma ran thus:--

“‘Magistratuum illustris ordo et honorandus senatorum cætus inclytæ civitatis Perthensis, in debiti amoris et affectuum tesseram erga Johannem Wesley, immunitatibus præfatæ civitatis, societatis etiam et fraternitatis ædilitiæ privilegiis donarunt. Aprilis die 28, anno Sal. 1772.’

“I question whether any diploma from the city of London be more pompous, or expressed in better Latin.”

Eight days afterwards, the magistrates of Arbroath conferred on Wesley a similar mark of their respect.

While in this part of Scotland, Wesley read two Scotch authors, upon whom his criticisms are too racy to be omitted. He writes:

“In my way to Perth, I read over the first volume of Dr. Robertson’s ‘History of Charles the Fifth.’ I know not when I have been so disappointed. It might as well be called the History of Alexander the Great. Here is a quarto volume of eight or ten shillings’ price, containing dry verbose dissertations on feudal government, the substance of all which might be comprised in half a sheet of paper! But ‘Charles the Fifth!’ Where is Charles the Fifth?

‘Leave off thy reflections, and give us thy tale!’”

“May 5. I read over, in my journey to Arbroath, Dr. Beattie’s ingenious ‘Inquiry after Truth.’ He is a writer quite equal to his subject, and far above the match of all the minute philosophers, David Hume in particular, the most insolent despiser of truth and virtue that ever appeared in the world. And, yet, it seems some complain of this doctor’s using him with too great severity! I cannot understand how that can be, unless he treated him with rudeness (which he does not), since he is an avowed enemy to God and man, and to all that is sacred and valuable on earth.”

On the 9th of May, Wesley reached Edinburgh, where his state of health was made the subject of an important medical examination. It has been already stated that, before he left London, his friends there, perceiving signs of age and debility, had contributed to provide him a carriage in which to pursue his extensive and laborious journeys. Since then, in less than ten weeks, he had travelled, in his chaise and on horseback, from London to Bristol, and thence to Birmingham, Nottingham, Macclesfield, Chester, Liverpool, Manchester, Whitehaven, Carlisle, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, preaching there, and at a great number of intervening towns and villages, sometimes as many as four sermons in a day. He had had to encounter winter storms, to wade mid-leg deep in snow, and to travel roads so execrably bad, that sometimes he was literally bogged. Not unfrequently he preached in the midst of piercing winds in the open air; and yet, there is not a single entry in his journal indicative of failing health. Never, in his life, was he more intent upon the prosecution of his great work than now. Writing to his brother from Congleton, and again from Perth, he says:

“I find almost all our preachers, in every circuit, have done with Christian perfection. They say, they believe it; but they never preach it, or not once in a quarter. What is to be done? Shall we let it drop, or make a point of it? Oh what a thing it is to have curam animarum! You and I are called to this; to save souls from death; to watch over them as those that must give account! If our office implied no more than preaching a few times in a week, I could play with it; so might you. But how small a part of our duty (yours as well as mine) is this! God says to you, as well as me, ‘Do all thou canst, be it more or less, to save the souls for whom My Son has died.’ Let this voice be ever sounding in our ears; then shall we give up our account with joy. Eia age, rumpe moras! I am ashamed of my indolence and inactivity. Your business, as well as mine, is to save souls. When we took priests’ orders we undertook to make it our one business. I think every day lost, which is not (mainly at least) employed in this thing. Sum totus in illo.

“I am glad you are to be at Bristol soon. To whom shall I leave my letters and papers? I am quite at a loss. I think Mr. Fletcher is the best that occurs now. Adieu!”[163]

Wesley was too busy to think of being ill. He was not alarmed; but his friends were. Hence, the following addressed to Charles Wesley.

“SHOREHAM, April 18, 1772.

“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,--I doubt not, but we both join in constant petitions, at the throne of grace, for the life and health of our dear absent friend, thy brother. By all accounts, his valuable health is in a precarious state; and unless God provides (as I doubt not but He will), for His people, they will have abundant reason to mourn. May God give thee a double portion of His Spirit, that thou mayest stand in the gap, and prevent the flock being led by any who have not true gospel light in the head, and great integrity in the heart! My love to thy dear brother; the same attends thee and my dear sister, and all thy family. The Divine blessing be with all of us!

“Thine, most affectionately,

“VINCENT PERRONET.”[164]

Probably it was the request of his friends, rather than his own anxiety, which induced Wesley, at Edinburgh, to submit to a medical examination.

At this period, Dr. James Hamilton was a young man of about two-and-thirty, and was practising medicine in his native town of Dunbar, where he also had joined the Methodists. Afterwards he removed to Leeds, and then to London, where he was elected physician to the London Dispensary, and rose to eminence in the medical profession. He died in Finsbury Square, April 21, 1827, at the age of eighty-seven, having been a Methodist upwards of sixty years, and nearly as long a highly acceptable and useful local preacher.

Dr. Alexander Monro was a few years older. Such was his ability, that, at the age of twenty-two, he was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery to the University of Edinburgh; and is said, by the excellence of his lectures, to have materially assisted in raising it to the highest celebrity as a school of medicine.

Dr. James Gregory was now a young man in his twentieth year; but, two years later, was appointed professor of the theory of physic, and rose to such eminence in his profession as to draw pupils from all parts of the world.

These were the three physicians who attended Wesley. He writes: “May 18--Dr. Hamilton brought with him Dr. Monro and Dr. Gregory. They satisfied me what my disorder was; and told me there was but one method of cure. Perhaps but one natural one; but I think God has more than one method of healing either the soul or the body.”

Wesley’s disease was hydrocele.[165] A few months later, he writes: “I am almost a disabled soldier. I am forbid to ride, and am obliged to travel mostly in a carriage.”[166]

That Wesley’s health was seriously affected there cannot be doubt. Lloyd’s Evening Post, for June 15, remarks: “By accounts from Scotland, we learn that the Rev. Mr. Wesley has had a dangerous fit of illness, in which he was attended by three of the most eminent of the faculty there, who gave him over; but some younger gentlemen in practice have been luckily assistant to him, and they have now hopes that he may continue his ministry many years longer.”

Wesley doubtless was amused with this. During his ten days’ stay in Edinburgh, he preached at least about half-a-dozen times; and, on the very day when the medical men met, he opened a new chapel at Leith, and two days later started for Newcastle, preaching on his way at Dunbar, Alnwick, and Morpeth.

Reaching Newcastle on May 25, he spent the remainder of the week in the town and neighbourhood, preaching, on the Sunday, three times out of doors, to immense and attentive congregations.

The first four days in the month of June were occupied with what he calls “a little tour through the dales”; and, in this brief period, besides travelling scores of miles over “the horrid mountains,” and examining societies, he preached at least eight sermons. He writes: “from the top of an enormous mountain we had a view of Weardale. It is a lovely prospect. The green, gently rising meadows and fields, on both sides of the little river, clear as crystal, were sprinkled over with innumerable little houses; three in four of which, if not nine in ten, are sprung up since the Methodists came hither. Since that time, the beasts are turned into men, and the wilderness into a fruitful field.”

Six months before this, Weardale had been blessed with a remarkable religious revival, the penitent prayer-meetings often continuing till ten or eleven o’clock at night, and sometimes till four in the morning. On one occasion, four young men, seeking pardon, remained on their knees for five hours together. Among others who found mercy was an old woman, who, twenty-three years before, was the first in Weardale to receive the Methodists into her house. Sometimes as many as half-a-dozen “lay on the ground together, roaring for the disquietude of their hearts.” Chiefly through the instrumentality of Jane Salkeld, a schoolmistress, thirty children were converted, including Phœbe Featherstone, Hannah Watson, and others whom Wesley mentions.

Not only does Wesley give, at great length, the details of this revival; but he compares it with that at Everton thirteen years before. His remarks are worth quoting.

“It resembled the work at Everton in many respects, but not in all.

“It resembled that work--(1) In its unexpected beginning; no such work had ever been seen before either at Everton or in Weardale. (2) In the swiftness of its progress, I mean in the persons affected; many of whom were in one day, or even two or three hours, both convinced of sin (without any previous awakening), and converted to God. (3) In the number of persons both convinced and converted, which was greater in a few months than it had been in Weardale from the first preaching there, or in Everton for a century. (4) In the outward symptoms which have attended it: in both, the sudden and violent emotions of mind affected the whole bodily frame; insomuch that many trembled exceedingly, many fell to the ground, many were violently convulsed, and many seemed to be in the agonies of death. (5) In most of the instruments whom God employed: these were plain, artless men, simple of heart, but without any remarkable gifts; men who, almost literally, knew ‘nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’

“In these respects, the work of God in Weardale nearly resembled that at Everton; but, in other respects, they were widely different. For--(1) That was the first work of God, of the kind, which had ever been in those parts in the memory of man; this was only a revival of a work, which had continued for many years. Now these circumstances are common at the dawn of a work, but afterwards very uncommon. I do not remember to have seen the like anywhere in the three kingdoms, unless at the beginning of a work. (2) Although the former work was swift, the latter was far swifter. In general, persons were both awakened and justified in a far shorter time. (3) A far greater number were converted to God in Weardale than about Everton, although the number of hearers about Everton was abundantly greater than in Weardale. (4) Although the outward symptoms were the same, yet in Weardale there were none of the dreams, visions, and revelations which abounded at Everton; and which, though at first they undoubtedly were from God, yet were afterwards fatally counterfeited by the devil. (5) There was a great difference in the instruments whom God employed. Not one of those in or near Everton had any experience in the guiding of souls. None of them were more than ‘babes in Christ,’ if any of them so much. Whereas, in Weardale, not only the three preachers were, I believe, renewed in love, but most of the leaders were deeply experienced in the work of God. Hence, (6) we may easily account for the grand difference, namely, that the one work was so shallow, and the other so deep. Many children here have had far deeper experience, and more constant fellowship with God, than the oldest man or woman at Everton which I have seen or heard of.”

Such were Wesley’s moralisings on the Weardale revival, in 1772, in which less than a hundred people were converted, and concerning which he says: “upon the whole, we may affirm, such a work of God as this has not been seen before in the three kingdoms.” If this was so, who will say that the former times were better than these? How many thousands of aged Methodists can easily call to mind far more remarkable revivals of the work of God than even that in Weardale! And, further, how was it that, at Wesley’s visit two years after, the results of this revival were almost reduced to nothing, except that, in consequence of the backslidings, “the preachers were discouraged; and jealousies, heart burnings, and evil surmisings, were multiplied more and more”?

Wesley returned from Weardale to Newcastle on the 5th of June, and here, and in the immediate neighbourhood, he spent the next ten days. In the Newcastle society, there were fewer members than he had found two years before. “This,” says he, “I can impute to nothing but the want of visiting from house to house; without which the people will hardly increase, either in number or grace.” This was a sharp thrust at some of the most distinguished preachers of the day, namely, Peter Jaco, Joseph Cownley, Thomas Hanby, Matthew Lowes, Thomas Tennant, William Thompson, and Thomas Simpson, all of them appointed to Newcastle at this period.

On June 15, Wesley left Newcastle, and spent the next week in preaching at Durham, Stockton, Yarm, Thirsk, Osmotherley, Hutton Rudby, Stokesley, Castleton, Whitby, Robinhood’s Bay, and Scarborough. This was pretty well, for a man afflicted as Wesley was, and at the age of seventy.

Eighteen months before this, his termagant wife had abruptly left him, and gone to her house at Newcastle. Now that his health was so endangered, she was returning with him, whether to his comfort or otherwise we are not informed; but, at all events, she had in Wesley’s chaise the undeserved luxury of a summer’s ride through the most beautiful scenes of Yorkshire.[167]

From Scarborough he proceeded to Bridlington, Driffield, Beverley, Hull, York, Tadcaster, Pateley Bridge, Otley, Heptonstall, Keighley, Haworth, Bingley, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Morley, Birstal, Doncaster, Sheffield, Epworth, Brigg, Horncastle, Louth, Grimsby, Pontefract, Horbury, Wakefield, and other places, preaching at all of them, until, on August 2, he got to Leeds, for the purpose of holding his annual conference. This was enormous labour for any man, and especially for an old man, suffering from a severe and painful malady. To all this must be added, cottage accommodation, hard beds, and often hard living; and, though brutal persecution had considerably abated, Wesley was not entirely exempt from this; for, at Halifax, on July 8, a ruffian struck him most violently on the face, when, with tears starting from his eyes, the venerable saint acted upon the precept of his Master: “Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”; a display of heroic meekness which cowed the brutal coward, and made him slink away into the ignoble crowd.[168] Yet, in the midst of all this, there is not a single syllable, in his journal, concerning either persecution, hardship, debility, or disease.

He writes: “On Tuesday, August 4, our conference began. Generally, during the time of conference, as I was talking from morning to night, I had used to desire one of our brethren to preach in the morning; but, having many things to say, I resolved, with God’s help, to preach mornings as well as evenings. And I found no difference at all; I was no more tired than with my usual labour; that is, no more than if I had been sitting still in my study from morning to night.”

One of Wesley’s sermons, preached to an immense congregation, in a field behind the chapel, was from Isaiah lxvi. 8, 9: “Who hath heard such a thing?” etc.; in which he dwelt upon the great work which God had wrought among the Methodists, discoursing on its rapidity, depth, extensiveness, and its growing character. “It was,” says good old Thomas Rutherford, “marrow and fatness to my soul.”[169]

Wesley, in needful cases, was a brave defender of his preachers. The following, addressed to Mr. Alexander Clark, of Dublin, and written at this period, will be read with interest.

“SHEFFIELD, August 10, 1772.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Now the hurry of conference is over, I get a little time to write. When I chose you to be steward in Dublin, you both loved and esteemed your preachers; but I find you have now drunk in the whole spirit of Pat. Geoghegan. O beware! You are exceedingly deceived. By this time, I should be some judge of man; and if I am, all England and Ireland cannot afford such a body of men, number for number, for sense and true experience, both of men and things, as the body of Methodist preachers. Our leaders in London, Bristol, and Dublin are by no means weak men. I would not be ashamed to compare them with a like number of tradesmen in every part of the three kingdoms. But I assure you, they are no more than children compared to the preachers in conference, as you would be thoroughly convinced, could you but have the opportunity of spending one day among them. Mr. Jaco will make a fair trial whether he can supply Dublin alone; if he cannot, he shall have another to help, for he must not kill himself to save charges. But I dare not stint him to £20 a year. He will waste nothing; but he must want nothing. You will make his stay among you, in every respect, as comfortable as you can.

“I am your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[170]

No sooner was the conference ended, than Wesley again started on his itinerancy of mercy. On his way to Burslem, his chaise broke down; but, notwithstanding his disease, rather than disappoint the people, he mounted a horse and rode two-and-twenty miles, arriving just in time for preaching.

On reaching Trevecca, on August 14, he met his old friend, Howel Harris, who, while almost all others of his class had imbibed the most bitter feelings, still remained faithful. “I have borne,” said the honest Welshman, “with these pert, ignorant young men, vulgarly called students, till I cannot, in conscience, bear any longer. They preach barefaced reprobation, and so broad antinomianism, that I have been constrained to oppose them to the face, even in the public congregation.” This was no great compliment to the students of the Countess of Huntingdon, especially as coming from a Calvinist. Wesley, almost as an apology, adds to this: “It is no wonder that they should preach thus. What better can be expected from raw lads, of little understanding, little learning, and no experience?”

It is pleasing to add, that Howel Harris was not the only one of Whitefield’s friends who still stood true to Wesley, though differing from his views. Hence the following, addressed to him by Cornelius Winter.

“BRECON, August 10, 1772.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--Do you ask what I have been about? I answer, preaching Christ wherever a door has been opened to me. Sometimes I have cast a handful of seed on your ground; and should it ever come to a harvest you are welcome to it: it will become Jesus’s property at last. What melancholy consequences from late productions! They forbid me to be any longer an idle hearer or a careless reader. I have been obliged, from conscience, to make a stand against dear Mr. Fletcher’s groundless arguments and most bitter invectives.[171] Many things, he has said, are a proper antidote applied wrong, and to improper objects, and thereby become poison, whereas they might have been a healing medicine. But I must say no more on this subject; I am writing to one who will give it little attention.

“Dr. Owen’s ‘Death of Death’ has been my favourite study of late; and, in consequence of embracing the doctrine therein contained, I must agree to disagree with Mr. Fletcher’s thoughts, and dear Mr. Wesley’s friendly pen. Excuse my frank acknowledgments, and give me leave to differ and love. God bless you to your latest period, and make your last days your best! So prays, reverend and dear sir, yours most respectfully and affectionately, in our dear Lord Jesus,

“CORNELIUS WINTER.”[172]

From Trevecca, Wesley proceeded to Bristol, and here, and in the neighbourhood, he employed the next seven weeks. In Bristol itself, he “visited the whole society from house to house, taking them from west to east.” He not unfrequently preached in the open air, and strikingly remarks: “to this day field preaching is a cross to me; but I know my commission, and see no other way of preaching the gospel to every creature.” The children at Kingswood, and at Miss Owen’s school at Publow, were almost all converted. He writes: “I suppose such a visitation of children has not been known in England these hundred years!”[173] “Publow is now what Leytonstone was once. Here is a family indeed. Such mistresses, and such a company of children, as I believe all England cannot parallel!”

Leaving Bristol on October 5, and preaching on his way at Shaftesbury, Salisbury, Winchester, and Portsmouth, he came to London on October 10. He had been seven months from home, if indeed he had a home! and yet, after spending only one day in London, he again set out on his usual preaching tour in the counties of Bedford and Northampton. Returning to London, where he spent another day, he started on his visitation in Oxfordshire. Returning again to London, and again spending a single day, he went off, on October 26, to Norfolk, where he employed a fortnight. Except making a journey into Kent, and another to Hertfordshire, the remainder of the year was passed in the metropolis.

Here he again began expounding, chiefly in the mornings, “that compendium of all the Holy Scriptures, the first epistle of St. John.” Now, for the first time in his life, he saw the chapel at Snowsfields full. He opened a new chapel at Dorking, and another in the parish of Bromley. He visited the sick Methodists in London, and “was surprised that they were so few.” And on December 31 he wrote: “Being greatly embarrassed by the necessities of the poor, we spread all our wants before God in solemn prayer; believing that He would sooner ‘make windows in heaven’ than suffer His truth to fail.”

This reference to the poor requires further notice. The long continued war, a succession of inferior harvests, and other unfavourable events, had raised the price of provisions to such an extent, that the distress of the nation had become alarming. In the month of November, the court of common council of London agreed to petition parliament to open the ports of the kingdom for the free importation of all kinds of grain; and one of the members proposed that, in order to prevent the unnecessary consumption of flour, the making of starch should be prohibited. Long letters on the starved condition of the country were published in the newspapers and magazines. Some of them entered into elaborate calculations, showing that, in London only, during the six winter months, twenty thousand sheep and two thousand oxen were used in making soup for taverns, and the tables of the great. When the king opened parliament, on November 26, he referred in his speech to the dearness of corn, and recommended “my lords and gentlemen” to consider a scheme “for alleviating the distresses of the poor.” This was done, and bills were passed, which substantially permitted the importation of foreign grown grain duty free.

In the midst of all this, Wesley was far from being an indifferent spectator; and, among the many letters which appeared in the periodicals of the day, one written by himself was not the least important. This letter, published, either by himself or others, in Lloyd’s Evening Post, for December 21, and in the Leeds Mercury for December 29, and in other newspapers and magazines, is altogether too curious and characteristic to be omitted or abridged. It is as follows.

“To the Editor of ‘Lloyd’s Evening Post.’

“SIR,--Many excellent things have been lately published concerning the present scarcity of provisions. And many causes have been assigned for it; but is not something wanting in most of those publications? One writer assigns one cause, another one or two more, and strongly insists upon them. But who has assigned all the causes that manifestly concur to produce this melancholy effect? at the same time pointing out, how each particular cause affects the price of each particular sort of provision?

“I would willingly offer to candid and benevolent men a few hints on this important subject, proposing a few questions, and adding to each what seems to be the plain and direct answer.

“I. 1. I ask first, Why are thousands of people starving, perishing for want, in every part of England? The fact I know: I have seen it with my eyes, in every corner of the land. I have known those who could only afford to eat a little coarse food every other day. I have known one picking up stinking sprats from a dunghill, and carrying them home for herself and her children. I have known another gathering the bones which the dogs had left in the streets, and making broth of them, to prolong a wretched life. Such is the case, at this day, of multitudes of people, in a land flowing, as it were, with milk and honey; abounding with all the necessaries, the conveniences, the superfluities of life!

“Now why is this? Why have all these nothing to eat? Because they have nothing to do. They have no meat, because they have no work.

“2. But why have they no work? Why are so many thousand people in London, in Bristol, in Norwich, in every county from one end of England to the other, utterly destitute of employment?

“Because the persons who used to employ them cannot afford to do it any longer. Many, who employed fifty men, now scarce employ ten. Those, who employed twenty, now employ one, or none at all. They cannot, as they have no vent for their goods; food now bearing so high a price, that the generality of people are hardly able to buy anything else.

“3. But to descend from generals to particulars. Why is breadcorn so dear? Because such immense quantities of it are continually consumed by distilling. Indeed, an eminent distiller, near London, hearing this, warmly replied: ‘Nay, my partner and I generally distil but a thousand quarters of corn a week.’ Perhaps so. Suppose five-and-twenty distillers, in and near the town, consume each only the same quantity. Here are five-and-twenty thousand quarters a week, that is, above twelve hundred and fifty thousand quarters a year, consumed in and about London! Add the distillers throughout England, and have we not reason to believe that half of the wheat produced in the kingdom is every year consumed, not by so harmless a way as throwing it into the sea; but by converting it into deadly poison--poison that naturally destroys, not only the strength and life, but also the morals of our countrymen!

“‘Well, but this brings in a large revenue to the king.’ Is this an equivalent for the lives of his subjects? Would his majesty sell a hundred thousand of his subjects yearly to Algiers for four hundred thousand pounds? Surely no. Will he then sell them for that sum, to be butchered by their own countrymen?--‘But otherwise the swine for the navy cannot be fed.’ Not unless they are fed with human flesh? not unless they are fatted with human blood? O tell it not in Constantinople, that the English raise the royal revenue by selling the blood and flesh of their countrymen!

“4. But why are oats so dear? Because there are four times the horses kept (to speak within compass), for coaches and chaises in particular, than were some years ago. Unless, therefore, four times the oats grew now as grew then, they cannot be at the same price. If only twice as much is produced, (which perhaps is near the truth,) the price will naturally be double to what it was.

“As the dearness of grain of one kind will always raise the price of another, so whatever causes the dearness of wheat and oats must raise the price of barley too. To account therefore for the dearness of this, we need only remember what has been observed above, although some particular causes may concur in producing the same effect.

“5. Why are beef and mutton so dear? Because most of the considerable farmers, particularly in the northern counties, who used to breed large numbers of sheep or horned cattle, and frequently both, no longer trouble themselves with either sheep, or cows, or oxen; as they can turn their land to far better account, by breeding horses alone. Such is the demand, not only for coach and chaise horses, which are bought and destroyed in incredible numbers; but much more for bred horses, which are yearly exported by hundreds, yea thousands, to France.

“6. But why are pork, poultry, and eggs so dear? Because of the monopolising of farms, as mischievous a monopoly as was ever yet introduced into these kingdoms. The land which was formerly divided among ten or twenty little farmers, and enabled them comfortably to provide for their families, is now generally engrossed by one great farmer. One man farms an estate of a thousand a year, which formerly maintained ten or twenty. Every one of these little farmers kept a few swine, with some quantity of poultry; and, having little money, was glad to send his bacon, or pork, or fowls and eggs, to market continually. Hence, the markets were plentifully served, and plenty created cheapness; but, at present, the great, the gentlemen farmers, are above attending to these little things. They breed no poultry or swine, unless for their own use; consequently they send none to market. Hence, it is not strange, if two or three of these living near a market town occasion such a scarcity of these things, by preventing the former supply, that the price of them will be double or treble to what it was before. Hence, (to instance in a small article,) in the same town where, within my memory, eggs were sold eight or ten a penny, they are now sold six or eight a groat.

Another cause why beef, mutton, pork, and all kind of victuals are so dear, is luxury. What can stand against this? Will it not waste and destroy all that nature and art can produce? If a person of quality will boil down three dozen of neat’s tongues, to make two or three quarts of soup (and so proportionably in other things), what wonder if provisions fail? Only look into the kitchens of the great, the nobility, and gentry, almost without exception (considering withal that the toe of the peasant treads upon the heel of the courtier), and when you have observed the amazing waste which is made there, you will no longer wonder at the scarcity, and consequently dearness, of the things which they use so much art to destroy.

“7. But why is land so dear? Because, on all these accounts, gentlemen cannot live as they have been accustomed to do, without increasing their income, which most of them cannot do but by raising their rents. The farmer, paying a higher rent for his land, must have a higher price for the produce of it. This again tends to raise the price of land. And so the wheel runs round.

“8. But why is it, that not only provisions and land, but well-nigh everything else is so dear? Because of the enormous taxes which are laid on almost everything that can be named. Not only abundant taxes are raised from earth, and fire, and water; but, in England, the ingenious statesmen have found a way to tax the very light! Only one element remains, and surely some man of honour will, ere long, contrive to tax this also. For how long shall the saucy air blow in the face of a gentleman, nay, a lord, without paying for it?

“9. But why are the taxes so high? Because of the national debt. They must be, while this continues. I have heard that the national expense, in the time of peace, was, sixty years ago, three millions a year. Now the bare interest of the public debt amounts to above four millions. To raise which, with the other expenses of government, those taxes are absolutely necessary.

“II. Here is the evil. But where is the remedy? Perhaps it exceeds all the wisdom of man to tell. But it may not be amiss to offer a few hints, even on this delicate subject.

“1. What remedy is there for this sore evil? Many thousand poor people are starving. Find them work, and you will find them meat. They will then earn and eat their own bread.

“2. But how shall their masters give them work, without ruining themselves? Procure vent for it, and it will not hurt their masters to give them as much work as they can do; and this will be done by sinking the price of provisions; for then people will have money to buy other things too.

“3. But how can the price of wheat be reduced? By prohibiting for ever that bane of health, that destroyer of strength, of life; and of virtue, distilling. Perhaps this alone will answer the whole design. If anything more be needful, may not all starch be made of rice, and the importation of this, as well as of wheat, be encouraged?

“4. How can the price of oats be reduced? By reducing the number of horses. And may not this be effectually done--(1) by laying a tax of ten pounds on every horse exported to France; (2) by laying an additional tax on gentlemen’s carriages. Not so much for every wheel, (barefaced, shameless partiality!) but ten pounds yearly for every horse. And these two taxes alone would nearly supply as much as is now given for leave to poison his majesty’s liege subjects.

“5. How can the price of beef and mutton be reduced? By increasing the breed of sheep and horned cattle. And this would be increased sevenfold, if the price of horses was reduced; which it surely would be half in half, by the method above mentioned.

“6. How can the price of pork and poultry be reduced? First, by letting no farms of above a hundred pounds a year. Secondly, by repressing luxury, either by example, by laws, or both.

“7. How may the price of land be reduced? By all the methods above named, all which tend to lessen the expense of housekeeping; but especially the last, restraining luxury, which is the grand source of poverty.

“8. How may the taxes be reduced? By discharging half the national debt, and so saving at least two millions a year.

“How this can be done the wisdom of the great council of the land can best determine.

“I am, sir, your humble servant,

“JOHN WESLEY. “DOVER, December 9, 1772.”

This was not the only thing that Wesley and the Methodists did, to contribute to the happiness of the starving poor. It was now that there was organised a band of pious Methodists, who made it their duty and their pleasure to visit the inmates of London workhouses, and, by prayer, and reading, and exhortation, to lead them to Him who is alone the great Comforter. That organisation has uninterruptedly existed down to the present time; and though, for the last twenty years, it has ceased to be a purely Methodist society, its chief workers bear the Methodistic name.[174] From the ninety-fifth annual report of what is now called “The Christian Community,” we learn that this society was “established under the patronage of the Rev. John Wesley, in 1772;” and that its agents, all labouring gratuitously, are regularly visiting the workhouses of Shoreditch, St. Luke’s, Clerkenwell, St. George’s in the East, and Bethnal Green, in eighty-eight halls and wards of which they hold religious services every week; and that, besides this, they have three services weekly in Cambridge Heath female refuge; visit between twenty and thirty low lodging houses, in Spitalfields, every Sunday night; and, during the year, hold about 463 services in the open air, deliver nearly 1400 addresses,[175] and distribute almost a quarter of a million of religious tracts. Not fewer than 124 visitors and exhorters are employed, nearly the whole of whom have appointments every week.

Into such a society has been developed the small band of godly Methodists, sent forth by Wesley, in 1772, to visit London paupers and London vagabonds. Its work is little known, and its agents scarcely recognised; but here, in the very heart of London, are 124 home missionaries, toiling to convert the lowest of the low to the faith of Christ, receiving not a farthing for their services, and carrying on their extensive machinery of tract distribution, tent preaching, and a circulating library, at the small expense of about £200 a year. Success to this unpretending and almost unknown society. May the God of heaven prosper it, in its great work, more and more! “It is a shame,” wrote Wesley to Joseph Benson, on December 11, 1772, “It is a shame for any Methodist preacher to confine himself to one place. We are debtors to all the world. We are called to warn every one, to exhort every one, if by any means we may save some. I love prayer-meetings, and wish they were set up in every corner of the town.”[176]

Such is a bird’s eye view of the work done, in 1772, by an old man, acutely suffering from the disease already mentioned. Writing to his brother in November, and again in December, Wesley says:

“I have just made my tour through Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex; but Kent, Sussex, and Hertfordshire still remain to be visited; only the visitation of the London classes, a fortnight’s work, must come between.

“If we only join faith and works in all our preaching, we shall not fail of a blessing. But of all preaching, what is usually called gospel preaching is the most useless, if not the most mischievous: a dull, yea, or lively harangue on the sufferings of Christ, or salvation by faith, without strongly inculcating holiness. I see, more and more, that this naturally tends to drive holiness out of the world.”

“I have scarce had a day yet” (December 15) “in London, except Sundays, and the time of visiting the classes. Dr. Ford has never come near me. I am afraid, evasit, erupit. I have wrote to Mr. Fletcher to-day. As Mr. Hill is to fall upon me next, Mr. Fletcher will have a little time to breathe; and probably a little more while Mr. Hill is digesting my reply; for whom I think we shall, between us, find work for some time.

“You will not set shoulder to shoulder, or you could say something about the Church. Two are better than one. If we live till August, stand by me, and we will put the matter home.

“I often cry out, Vitæ me redde priori! Let me be again an Oxford Methodist. I am often in doubt whether it would not be best for me to resume all my Oxford rules, great and small. I did then walk closely with God, and redeem the time. But what have I been doing these thirty years? My love to all. Adieu!--JOHN WESLEY.”[177]

The concluding sentences of these extracts sound strangely. Did afflicted Wesley, amid the London fog of a dark December day, really think, that the last thirty years had been comparatively wasted, and that he was more pious when almost a cloistered monk within the walls of Oxford, than he was now, a veteran evangelist, flying through the three kingdoms, and preaching the gospel of God his Saviour? His medical adviser came not near him; Sir Richard Hill was wantonly assailing him; his brother, except as a localised pastor in London and in Bristol, was of no use to him; his wife,--bah! Is it surprising, that even Wesley had seasons of depression; and that, like others, he was sometimes “in heaviness through manifold temptations”?

But it is time to turn to the Calvinian controversy, which we left raging in 1771. Wesley rarely mentions it, either in his journal or in his letters, and yet it continued with undiminished fury.

Fletcher, of Madeley, again entered the field of battle, by publishing “A Third Check to Antinomianism,” in a letter to Sir Richard Hill, 12mo, 114 pages. This was not only a defence of Wesley, but a triumphant answer to the “Five Letters” of the baronet, and is written in a style exceedingly beautiful and Christian. Before the year was out, it reached a second edition.

Fletcher’s other publication, in 1772, was “Logica Genevensis; or, a Fourth Check to Antinomianism: in which St. James’s pure religion is defended against the charges, and established upon the concessions, of Mr. Richard and Mr. Rowland Hill. In a Series of Letters to those Gentlemen.” 12mo, 237 pages.[178]

It is no part of our present plan to give even the briefest analysis of these masterly productions. Suffice it to say, that, for sound scriptural argument, able exposition, lively imagination, elegance of style, polished irony, and Christian temper, they have no superiors. The two brothers, notwithstanding their goodness, their learning, their genius, and their pluck, were but pigmies in the grasp of a Goliath.

Rowland Hill, a young man of twenty-seven, had experienced the mortification of being refused ordination by not fewer than six bishops, and was a roving evangelist, preaching with great success in Whitefield’s London Tabernacle, in Bristol, Bath, and all over the west of England. At the commencement of the controversy, Berridge wrote to him thus: “The late contest at Bristol seems to turn upon this hinge, whether it shall be Pope John or Pope Joan. My dear friend, keep out of all controversy, and wage no war but with the devil.”[179] Unfortunately for himself, the young preacher did not follow the counsel of the vicar of Everton, but, in 1772, issued an octavo pamphlet of 71 pages, entitled “Friendly Remarks occasioned by the Spirit and Doctrines contained in the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication, and more particularly in his Second Check to Antinomianism, to which is added a Postscript, occasioned by his Third Check.” The production is what might be expected from YOUNG Rowland Hill. Fletcher is accused of using “tartness of style,” “banter,” “contempt,” “numberless sneers, taunts, and sarcasms;” “infernal terms of darkness,” “bravado,” “slander,” “high flown metaphors,” “frothy declamation,” “odious appellations,” “glaring inconsistencies,” “palpable mistakes.” He says, “Wesley has been a proverb for his contradictions for above thirty years.” The “Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love,” “formerly sent forth from the Foundery,” are stigmatised as “certain godly lampoons of famous memory.” This was pretty strong to come from a stripling not yet ordained.

His brother also was not a laggard. Without loss of time, he published an octavo volume of 151 pages, with the following gigantic title: “A Review of all the Doctrines taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley; containing a full and particular Answer to a Book entitled ‘A Second Check to Antinomianism.’ In six Letters to the Author of that Book; wherein the Doctrines of a twofold Justification, Free Will, Man’s Merit, Sinless Perfection, Finished Salvation, and Real Antinomianism are particularly discussed, and the Puritan Divines vindicated from the Charges brought against them of holding Mr. Wesley’s Doctrines. To which is added, a Farrago of Hot and Cold Medicines. By the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, Author of the ‘Preservative against Unsettled Notions in Religion.’ Extracted from his own Publications.”

Richard Hill’s scurrility is quite equal to his brother’s. He writes: “O my dear sir, I never could have supposed that sneer, banter, and sarcasm, yea, notorious falsehoods, calumny, and gross perversions, would have appeared under the sanction of your venerable name.” He tells Fletcher that he “dips his pen in gall,” and “maintains his cause by artful insinuations.” “In your first letter,” says he, “I really cannot find many lines together free from gross misrepresentations and perversions, and hardly one single paragraph exempt from cutting sneers and low sarcasms.” “Your pages,” he adds, “are as totally void of solid Scripture argument as they are replete with calumny, gross perversions and equivocations.” Wesley is treated with the same bitterness as Fletcher. “His opinions” are said to be “a mixture of Pelagianism, semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, popery, mysticism, and quakerism.” Such quotations might be multiplied ad nauseam; but the reader has had enough. Suffice it to add, that, before the year 1772 was ended, the public was blessed with “a second, corrected and enlarged edition” of this loving effusion of the Salopian baronet.

Besides all this, Sir Richard published, in 1772, another octavo pamphlet of 16 pages, with the title, “Some Remarks on a Pamphlet entitled A Third Check to Antinomianism,” a production brief, but, like the rest, far too rancorous. Scurrility is almost a sure sign of feeble arguments and a defenceless cause.

The two Hills were not Wesley’s only antagonists. Toplady issued his “More Work for Mr. John Wesley; or, a Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamations of a late printed paper, entitled ‘The Consequence Proved.’” 8vo, 104 pages: 1772.[180]

In his advertisement, Toplady tells his readers, that he bears not the least ill will to Wesley; and that his manuscript had lain by him for several weeks, “merely with a view of striking out, from time to time, whatever might savour of undue asperity and intemperate warmth.” The following extracts will show how far Toplady succeeded in his pious and loving wish.

“Mr. Wesley has as much of the insidious in his composition, as he has of the acid; and it would be difficult to say which predominates.” “He is for adding the lion to the fox. He wishes not only to wheedle, but to thunder the Church out of her Calvinism. He is, like Mahommed, for propagating his religion by the sword. Peals of anathemas are issued, and torrents of the lowest calumny are thrown out, against all who abide by the thirty-nine articles. Pope John’s authority may have some weight with such men as Messrs. Walter Sellon, Haddon Smith, and Thomas Olivers; but not an inch beyond the purlieus of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition will his dictatorship extend.” “His mode of phraseology is as pregnant with craft as his conduct is destitute of honour. He first hatches blasphemy, and then fathers it on others.” “His forehead must be petrified, and quite impervious to a blush.” “He sits down, and deliberately writes a known, wilful, palpable lie to the public.” “He is a pitiful nibbler at the file he cannot bite.” “Thomas Olivers, a journeyman shoemaker, retained by Mr. Wesley as a lay preacher at the rate of £10 per annum, is his bully in chief. In chief, did I say? I had forgot the Rev. Mr. Walter Sellon; prunella claims precedency of leather; Thomas is only second in commission. Mr. Wesley skulks for shelter under a cobbler’s apron.” “Has Tom, the shoemaker, more learning, or more integrity, than John the priest?” “Without the least heat or emotion, I plainly say, Mr. Wesley lies.”[181]

The following is part of Mr. Toplady’s concluding paragraph.

“One word to Mr. Wesley himself, and I have done. Time, sir, has already whitened your locks; and the hour must shortly come, which will transmit you to the tribunal of that God, on whose sovereignty a great part of your life has been one continued assault. At that bar I too must hold up my hand. Omniscience only can tell, which of us shall first appear before the Judge of all. I shortly may, you shortly must. The part you have been permitted to act in the religious world will, sooner or later, sit heavy on your mind. Depend upon it, a period will arrive when the Father’s electing mercy and the Messiah’s adorable righteousness, will appear in your eyes, even in yours, to be the only safe anchorage for a dying sinner. I mean, unless you are actually given over to final obduration; which, I trust, you are not; and to which, I most ardently beseech God, you never may.”

Poor young Augustus Toplady, now thirty-one years of age, after doing his utmost to purge his pamphlet from offensive expressions, thus, by the electing grace of God, speaks of a man approaching seventy. Little did he think, that within seven years he himself would stand before that bar with which he threatened Wesley; and that the hoary headed man, who he thought might be “given over to final obduration,” would be his survivor nearly thirteen years.

Besides all this public annoyance, Wesley and Fletcher had sent to them anonymous letters of the vilest description. Two may suffice as specimens. Both have Birmingham post mark, and both were addressed to Fletcher. Both are in the same handwriting; the orthography of one is correct, but of the other purposely otherwise. In the first are ink sketches of Wesley and Fletcher in two pulpits, and pelting each other with Bibles. In the other, Wesley is represented as being hanged, and Fletcher is shooting him after he is dead. Take an extract from the first, which, though bad enough, is not the worst that it contains.

“I HAVE sent you a short poem upon parson Wesley.

‘There wos a man, Hold Wesley by name, I rother think yo’ll bee thee same, From every porsun he gets tuppence a week-- I wish hee was hear, and I’d give him a kick. He open’d a meeting Inn this town, And all the benchees dyd fall doun, I was in the meeting at the same tyme, But O I cannot find a rheime. You preach’d a Charrity sermun wonce, And sat in the pulpit like old Punch.’”

What had Wesley done to deserve all this? Literally nothing, except publishing the brief and imperfect minutes of a conversation he had with his itinerant preachers in 1770, on the subject of Calvinism; and, further, three small tracts, one an abridgment of Toplady’s Zanchius; another an answer to the question, “What is an Arminian?” and the third, “The Consequence Proved.” This was absolutely the sum total of his offence so far as the public was concerned. The minutes fill little more than an octavo page, and contain not the slightest reflection upon any one under heaven. The description of an Arminian occupies only eight pages 12mo, and merely states, in the most temperate terms, the difference between the Arminian and Calvinistic creeds. From first to last, the name of no living man is mentioned, except the name of Wesley himself. The abridgment of Toplady’s Zanchius fills only twelve pages 12mo, and is honestly and fairly made. The only thing in it, that can, with any degree of fairness, be considered personal, is the summing up of the principles of Zanchius, which occupy half-a-dozen lines, and to which Wesley appended the words, characteristic enough of the young predestinarian whose translation he was abridging, “Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand, A---- T----.” Then, in reference to the third tract, “The Consequence Proved,” the printed matter fills just eight pages 12mo, and there is absolutely nothing in it but what is fair argument, except that Wesley calls Toplady “a young, bold man,” and says he will leave him “to be farther corrected by one that is full his match, Mr. Thomas Olivers.” This is all, literally all; the first and last; the substance and the details of Wesley’s offending. The two Hills, one of them not yet forty, and the other not yet thirty years of age, are never mentioned, or in the least alluded to, in any of Wesley’s publications just named. And yet, because an old man, who, for more than thirty years, had been incessantly traversing the three kingdoms to preach the gospel of God his Saviour, happens to express, in the most temperate language, an opinion contrary to the Calvinian creed, he becomes the butt of the disgraceful abuse, specimens of which have been given in the previous pages. For many a long year, Wesley was lampooned in newspapers and magazines, and in tracts and pamphlets written by two different classes of literary men--Samuel Foote, the comedian, the representative of one, and George Lavington, the merryandrew bishop, the representative of the other: but now these were silent; and, in their stead, we have another set of opponents, far more angry than the former ones, animated by a spirit quite as bitter, and using opprobrious epithets almost more offensive; men believing themselves to be among God’s elect, called, and converted; loud religious professors, and adepts in the art of railing; profound admirers of the dead Whitefield, but perfect haters of Whitefield’s surviving friend, Wesley. In turn, Wesley had encountered mobs and men of letters, drunken parsons, furious papists, honest infidels, and others; but, of all his enemies, his last were his bitterest and worst, Calvinistic Christians!!

Some will blame the writer for furnishing modern readers with specimens of the foul mouthed language used, respecting Wesley, by some of the most flaming professors of Christ’s religion a hundred years ago. His answer is, the task is far from pleasant; but without a knowledge of Wesley’s unmerited and unparalleled persecutions, who can have a just conception of Wesley’s character? The result of such exposures, it is true, is not only to enhance the fame of Wesley, but to blot the history of his opponents. This no one regrets more deeply than the present writer; but he cannot help it. Besides, it is a fact, which cannot be denied, that there are some sins which, even though repented of, and pardoned, are, in the present world, always punished. A man rails, and God forgives him; but even forgiveness cannot prevent his railing injuring his character. Injured fame, in such a case, is a penalty unavoidable, reasonable, and right.

We have furnished specimens of the foolish and disgraceful ravings of Richard and Rowland Hill. What was Wesley’s reply? There is a quiet irony in one of the entries in his journal, which is worth quoting: “1772. July. 11--I was presented with Mr. Hill’s Review, a curiosity in its kind. But it has nothing to do either with good nature or good manners; for he is writing to an Arminian. I almost wonder at his passionate desire to measure swords with me. This is the third time he has fallen upon me without fear or wit. Tandem extorquebis ut vapules.”

Accordingly, Wesley prepared and published “Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s ‘Review of all the Doctrines taught by Mr. John Wesley.’” This is the tartest of Wesley’s publications, and not without reason. He writes:

“Mr. Fletcher imagined that his opponents would have received his words in the same spirit wherein they were spoken; but they turn them all into poison. He not only loses his sweet words, but they are turned into bitterness, are interpreted as mere sneer and sarcasm! A good lesson for me! I had designed to have transcribed Mr. Fletcher’s character of Mr. Hill,[182] and to have added a little thereto, in hope of softening his spirit; but I see it is in vain; as well might one hope to soften

‘Inexorable Pluto, king of shades!’

“Since he is capable of putting such a construction, even upon Mr. Fletcher’s gentleness and mildness, what will he not ascribe to me? I have done, therefore, with humbling myself to these men,--to Mr. Hill and his associates; I have humbled myself to them for these thirty years, but will do it no more. I have done with attempting to soften their spirits; it is all lost labour. Upon men of an ingenuous temper I have been able to fix an obligation. Bishop Gibson, Dr. Church, and even Dr. Taylor, were obliged to me for not pushing my advantage. But it is not so with these; whatever mercy you show, you are to expect no mercy from them. ‘Mercy,’ did I say? Alas! I expect no justice; no more than I have found already. As they have wrested and distorted my words from the beginning, so I expect they will do to the end. Mr. Hill’s performance is a specimen. Such mercy, such justice, I am to expect! For forty or fifty years, I have been a little acquainted with controversial writers; some of the Romish persuasion, some of our own Church, some Dissenters of various denominations; and I have found many among them as angry as he; but one so bitter I have not found. As a writer, his name is Wormwood.”

This was unsheathing the sword, and casting away the scabbard.

Wesley proceeds, in most trenchant style, to defend himself against Hill’s grand objection, self inconsistency. Our space renders it impossible to give an outline of Wesley’s answers to the charges, so recklessly brought against him. The following is a part of his conclusion:

“I now look back on a train of incidents that have occurred for many months last past, and adore a wise and gracious Providence, ordering all things well! When the circular letter was first dispersed throughout Great Britain and Ireland, I did not conceive the immense good which God was about to bring out of that evil. But no sooner did Mr. Fletcher’s first Letters appear than the scene began to open; and the design of Providence opened more and more, when Mr. Shirley’s Narrative, and Mr. Hill’s Letters, constrained him to write his Second and Third Checks to Antinomianism. It was then indisputably clear, that neither my brother nor I had borne a sufficient testimony to the truth. For many years, from a well meant, but ill judged, tenderness, we had suffered the reprobation preachers (vulgarly called ‘gospel preachers’) to spread their poison, almost without opposition. But, at length, they have awakened us out of sleep: Mr. Hill has answered for all his brethren, roundly declaring, that ‘any agreement with election doubters is a covenant with death.’ It is well: we are now forewarned and forearmed. We look for neither peace nor truce with any who do not openly and expressly renounce this diabolical sentiment. But since God is on our side, we will not fear what man can do unto us. We never before saw our way clear, to do any more than act on the defensive. But since the circular letter has sounded the alarm, has called forth all their hosts to war; and since Mr. Hill has answered the call, drawing the sword, and throwing away the scabbard; what remains, but to own the hand of God, and make a virtue of necessity? I will no more desire any Arminian, so called, to remain only on the defensive. Rather chase the fiend, reprobation, to his own hell, and every doctrine connected with it. Let none pity or spare one limb of either speculative or practical antinomianism, or of any doctrine that naturally tends thereto; only remembering that, however we are treated by men, who have a dispensation from the vulgar rules of justice and mercy, we are not to fight them at their own weapons, to return railing for railing. Those who plead the cause of the God of love are to imitate Him they serve; and, however provoked, to use no other weapons than those of truth and love, of Scripture and reason.”

Thus did Wesley accept the challenge; and it is not hazarding too much to make the assertion, that Fletcher’s almost inimitable polemical productions, and Wesley’s own sermons, together with his Arminian Magazine, started six years afterwards, did what Wesley wished, namely drove the fiendish doctrine of reprobation to its “own hell,” and gave a blow to the Calvinian theory, which has been felt from that time to this.

Wesley’s other publications, in 1772, were the following.

1. A revised and enlarged edition of the minutes of his conferences.

2. The issue of eleven volumes of his revised and collected works, making a little more than 3900 printed 12mo pages.

3. Two political tracts: one entitled, “Thoughts upon Liberty”; the other, “Thoughts concerning the Origin of Power.” The disturbed state of the nation, at this period, has been already sketched. Junius and John Wilkes were the arch agitators of the day, and well-nigh drove the nation into rebellion. Hampson states that, when the Letters of Junius appeared, Wesley offered his services to the government, and proposed to answer them, saying, “I will show the difference between rhetoric and logic.”[183] We have no means of either substantiating or contradicting this; but Wesley’s “Thoughts upon Liberty” fully show that Wilkes, the demagogue, was no favourite of his, and that King George had no truer or more loyal subject than the leader of the Methodists.

In his second tract, Wesley combats the theory, that the people of a nation are the “origin of power.” He shows that, if this were true, every man, woman, and child ought to possess the electoral franchise, and to be allowed to take a part in constituting parliaments and governmental cabinets. He taunts, with withering sarcasm, the advocates of such a theory, on the ground, that they themselves resist the facts their theory implies, because they allowed none to vote except freeholders of forty shillings yearly value, and not even them unless they had arrived at the age of twenty one. “Worse and worse,” he writes: “after depriving half the human species of their natural rights for want of a beard; after depriving myriads more for want of a stiff beard, for not having lived one-and-twenty years; you rob others of their birthright for want of money! Yet not altogether on this account either; for here is an Englishman who has money enough to buy the estates of fifty freeholders, and yet he must not be numbered among the people because he has not two or three acres of land.”

Having shown the absurdities which, as he thinks, the theory involves, he then concludes: “Common sense brings us back to the grand truth, ‘There is no power but of God.’”

Wesley’s tract is little known; but the radical politicians of the present age would be none the worse for studying the principles to which it summarily adverts.[184]

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Methodist Magazine, 1835, p. 804.

[153] “Encyclopædia Britannica,” article “Slavery.”

[154] Manuscript; and Methodist Magazine, 1835, p. 494.

[155] Methodist Magazine, 1785, p. 167.

[156] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 43.

[157] Messrs. Romaine and Madan.

[158] Methodist Magazine, 1780, p. 546.

[159] Methodist Magazine, 1788, p. 217.

[160] Mrs. Rogers’ manuscript journal.

[161] Manuscript.

[162] Methodist Magazine, 1842, p. 728.

[163] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 129.

[164] Methodist Magazine, 1785, p. 169.

[165] Wesley’s Works, vol. iii., p. 449.

[166] Ibid. vol. xii., p. 369.

[167] “Memoir of Mrs. Mortimer,” p. 37; and Wesley’s Works, vol. iii., p. 449.

[168] “Methodism in Halifax,” p. 121.

[169] Methodist Magazine, 1808, p. 482.

[170] Irish Evangelist, April, 1864.

[171] Wesley justly appends a note to this: “Let the unbiased reader judge, whether Mr. Fletcher has made use of groundless arguments or bitter invectives.”

[172] Methodist Magazine, 1785, p. 336.

[173] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 357.

[174] Mr. George Mackie has the credit of founding this society. He died in 1821, after being a member of the Methodist society more than fifty years, and a zealous and respected local preacher for forty.--(Methodist Magazine, 1821, p. 939.) The rules of the Christian Community, published in 1811, required, that, “in order to admission, every candidate must have been a member of the late Rev. John Wesley’s society twelve months; a man of strict piety and irreproachable character; and having a gift for prayer and exhortation.”

[175] The number of services held, indoors and out, during the year 1867, was 6558, and the number of addresses given 7524.

[176] Wesley’s Works, vol. vii., p. 390.

[177] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., pp. 130, 131.

[178] Toplady writes, November 27, 1772: “I am informed, that inveterate troubler in Israel, Mr. John Wesley, has lately published a fourth squib against Mr. Hill. What a mercy it is, that the enemies of the gospel, amidst all their plenitude of malice, have little skill and less power! Mr. Wesley, considered as a reasoner, is one of the most contemptible writers that ever set pen to paper!” (Toplady’s Posthumous Works, 8vo, 1780, p. 330.)

[179] Rowland Hill’s Life, p. 428.

[180] Besides the above, there were also published, at this period, the two following pamphlets, by Jonathan Warne, of Southwark: “Arminianism, the Back Door to Popery:” price one shilling. And “The Downfall of Arminianism; or Arminians tried and cast, before the Right Honourable the Lord Chief Justice Truth, for holding and propagating false opinions concerning the five following points, viz.: (1) Absolute election; (2) Particular redemption; (3) The efficacy of God’s grace in conversion; (4) The impotency of man’s will in conversion; (5) The final perseverance of the regenerate.” 8vo, 145 pages.

[181] The italic words are emphasized in the original.

[182] Sir Richard Hill did not obtain his title till the death of his father, in 1783.

[183] Life of Wesley, vol. iii., p. 160.

[184] To understand some of the allusions, in these two political tracts, it is necessary to remember that, in 1772, a petition was presented to parliament, signed by about 250 of the clergy, and a considerable number of the members of the professions of civil law and physic, praying to be relieved from the necessity of subscribing to the thirty-nine articles of the Established Church; and that a bill was passed, in the House of Commons, annulling that part of the Act of Toleration which authorised the infliction of heavy penalties upon the ministers, schoolmasters, and private tutors of Dissenters, unless they subscribed to all the doctrinal parts of the thirty-nine articles. The bill passed the Commons triumphantly; the Lords, by a large majority, rejected it!

1773. Age 70

The year 1773 will always be memorable in English annals. It was now that the embryo rebellion in the American colonies broke out into overt acts. Insults were offered to the British flag; a British ship of war was boarded and burnt; and the cargoes of tea, which Lord North had allowed to be exported from England, duty free, were seized by rioters and sham Indians, and were discharged into the ocean with the utmost jubilation. Endless debates took place in the English parliament; and fearful fights were fought on the coasts, and in the wilds and prairies of America. George Washington was made commander in chief; and “The Congress of the Thirteen United Colonies” was organised. For long years, the one great absorbing care of the British parliament was the war in the western world.

Wesley’s health was still seriously affected; and, hence, he spent his leisure hours, in the beginning of 1773, in examining his letters and other manuscripts, so as to determine what he should leave behind him. He writes: “I made an end of revising my letters; and could not but make one remark,--that, for above these forty years, of all the friends who were once the most closely united, and afterwards separated from me, every one had separated himself! He left me, not I him. And from both mine and their own letters, the steps whereby they did this are clear and undeniable.”

We have already seen, that Wesley thought of making Fletcher of Madeley his literary executor; but he now did more than this. Hence the following letter, sent to Fletcher in January 1773, and written at Shoreham, doubtless at the venerable Perronet’s, with whom Wesley had gone to take counsel.

“DEAR SIR,--What an amazing work has God wrought in these kingdoms, in less than forty years! And it not only continues, but increases, throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland; nay, it has lately spread into New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina. But the wise men of the world say, ‘When Mr. Wesley drops, then all this is at an end!’ And so surely it will, unless, before God calls him hence, one is found to stand in his place. For Ουκ αγαθον πολυκοιρανια. Εις κοιρανος εστω. I see, more and more, unless there be one προεστως, the work can never be carried on. The body of the preachers are not united; nor will any part of them submit to the rest; so that, either there must be one to preside over all, or the work will indeed come to an end.

“But who is sufficient for these things? qualified to preside both over the preachers and people? He must be a man of faith and love, and one that has a single eye to the advancement of the kingdom of God. He must have a clear understanding; a knowledge of men and things, particularly of the Methodist doctrine and discipline; a ready utterance; diligence and activity, with a tolerable share of health. There must be added to these, favour with the people, with the Methodists in general. For unless God turn their eyes and their hearts toward him, he will be quite incapable of the work. He must, likewise, have some degree of learning; because there are many adversaries, learned as well as unlearned, whose mouths must be stopped. But this cannot be done, unless he be able to meet them on their own ground.

“But has God provided one so qualified? Who is he? Thou art the man! God has given you a measure of loving faith; and a single eye to His glory. He has given you some knowledge of men and things; particularly of the whole plan of Methodism. You are blessed with some health, activity, and diligence; together with a degree of learning. And to all these He has lately added, by a way none could have foreseen, favour both with the preachers and the whole people. Come out, then, in the name of God! Come to the help of the Lord against the mighty! Come while I am alive and capable of labour! Come, while I am able, God assisting, to build you up in faith, to ripen your gifts, and to introduce you to the people! Nil tanti. What possible employment can you have, which is of so great importance?

“But you will naturally say, ‘I am not equal to the task; I have neither grace nor gifts for such an employment.’ You say true; it is certain you have not. And who has? But do you not know Him who is able to give them? Perhaps not at once, but rather day by day; as each is, so shall your strength be.

“‘But this implies,’ you may say, ‘a thousand crosses, such as I feel I am not able to bear.’ You are not able to bear them now; and they are not now come. Whenever they do come, will He not send them in due number, weight and measure? And will they not all be for your profit, that you may be a partaker of His holiness?

“Without conferring, therefore, with flesh and blood, come and strengthen the hands, comfort the heart, and share the labour of your affectionate friend and brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[185]

This was a momentous proposal. Why was it not made to Wesley’s brother? We cannot tell; but the following is Fletcher’s answer.

“MADELEY, February 6, 1773.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--I hope the Lord, who has so wonderfully stood by you hitherto, will preserve you to see many of your sheep, and me among the rest, enter into rest. Should Providence call you first, I shall do my best, by the Lord’s assistance, to help your brother to gather the wreck, and keep together those who are not absolutely bent upon throwing away the Methodist doctrine or discipline. Every little help will then be necessary; and, I hope, I shall not be backward to throw in my mite.

“In the meantime, you stand sometimes in need of an assistant to serve tables, and occasionally to fill up a gap. Providence visibly appointed me to that office many years ago; and, though it no less evidently called me here, yet I have not been without doubt, especially for some years past, whether it would not be expedient that I should resume my place as your deacon; not with any view of presiding over the Methodists after you, (God knows!) but to save you a little in your old age, and be in the way of receiving, and perhaps of doing, more good. I have sometimes considered how shameful it was that no clergyman should join you, to keep in the Church the work which the Lord had enabled you to carry on therein; and, as the little estate I have in my native country is sufficient for my maintenance, I have thought I would, one day or other, offer you and the Methodists my free services.

“While my love of retirement, and my dread of appearing upon a higher stage than that I stand upon here, made me linger, I was providentially called to do something in Lady Huntingdon’s plan; but, being shut out there, it appears to me, I am again called to my first work.

“Nevertheless, I would not leave this place, without a fuller persuasion that the time is quite come. Not that God uses me much now among my parishioners, but because I have not sufficiently cleared my conscience from the blood of all men, especially with regard to ferreting out the poor, and expostulating with the rich, who make it their business to fly from me. In the meantime, it shall be my employment to beg the Lord to give me light, and make me willing to go anywhere or nowhere, to be anything or nothing.

“I have laid my pen aside for some time; nevertheless, I resumed it last week, at your brother’s request, to go on with my treatise on Christian perfection. I have made some alterations in the sheets you have seen, and hope to have a few more ready for your correction, against the time you come this way. How deep is the subject! What need have I of the Spirit, to search the deep things of God! Help me by your prayers, till you can help me by word of mouth.

“I am, reverend and dear sir, your willing, though unprofitable, servant in the gospel,

“JOHN FLETCHER.”[186]

At the beginning of July, Wesley had an interview with Fletcher at Madeley, and, on reaching London, sent him the following hitherto unpublished letter.

“LEWISHAM, July 21, 1773.

“DEAR SIR,--It was a great satisfaction to me, that I had the opportunity, which I so long desired, of spending a little time with you. And I really think it would answer many gracious designs of Providence were we to spend a little more time together. It might be of great advantage both to ourselves and the people, who may otherwise soon be as sheep without a shepherd. You say indeed, ‘whenever it pleases God to call me away, you will do all you can to help them.’ But will it not then be too late? You may then expect grievous wolves to break in on every side; and many to arise from among themselves, speaking perverse things. Both the one and the other stand in awe of me, and do not care to encounter me; so that I am able, whether they will or no, to deliver the flock into your hands. But no one else is. And it seems, this is the very time when it may be done with the least difficulty. Just now the minds of the people in general are, on account of the Checks, greatly prejudiced in your favour. Should we not discern the providential time? Should we stay till the impression is worn away? Just now, we have an opportunity of breaking the ice, of making a little trial. Mr. Richardson is desirous of making an exchange with you, and spending two or three weeks at Madeley. This might be done either now, or in October, when I hope to return from Bristol. And till something of this kind is done, you will not have that στοργη for the people which alone can make your labour light in spending and being spent for them. Methinks ’tis pity we should lose any time; for what a vapour is life!

“I am, dear sir, your affectionate friend and brother,

JOHN WESLEY.”

So the matter ended, though Wesley was far from satisfied. He writes: “I can never believe it was the will of God, that such a burning and shining light should be hid under a bushel. No; instead of being confined to a country village, it ought to have shone in every corner of our land. He was full as much called to sound an alarm through all the nation as Mr. Whitefield himself; nay, abundantly more so; seeing he was far better qualified for that important work. He had a far more striking person; equal good breeding; an equally winning address; together with a richer flow of fancy; a stronger understanding; a far greater treasure of learning, both in languages, philosophy, philology, and divinity; and, above all, a more deep and constant communion with the Father, and with the Son Jesus Christ.”[187]

No wonder that Wesley was anxious for a suitable successor to take his place. The work of which, in the hand of God, he was the principal supporter, had not only spread throughout the three kingdoms, but was rapidly extending beyond the Atlantic. Already he had four of his itinerants in America; and, aged and feeble in health though he was, he still entertained the thought of visiting that distant continent.[188] Among others, the Rev. Mr. Jarratt wrote him, from Virginia, telling him that they had ninety-five parishes in the colony, all, excepting one, supplied with clergymen, but that ninety-three out of the ninety-four ministers appeared to be without “the power and spirit of vital religion.” He thanks him for sending his preachers to America, two of whom, Messrs. Pilmoor and Williams, were now labouring in Virginia; but asks, “What can two or three preachers do in such an extended country as this? Cannot you do something more for us? Cannot you send us a minister of the Church of England, to be stationed in the vacant parish? I wish you could see how matters are among us. This would serve instead of a thousand arguments, to induce you to exert yourself in this affair.”[189]

Even this was not all. During the year, Francis Gilbert wrote to him from Antigua, telling him that “almost the whole island seemed to be stirred up to seek the Lord.” There were large congregations and constant preaching in his brother’s house; and they had, at St. John’s, a society of twenty whites and forty blacks. “Here,” says Mr. Gilbert, “is work enough for three preachers; as almost the entire island seems ripe for the gospel; yet, I cannot desire you to send them yet, seeing the people are not at present able to bear the expenses; for the fire, the hurricane, and the severe droughts have, I suppose, ruined two thirds of the inhabitants.”[190]

Affairs in Scotland were scarcely to Wesley’s mind. Writing to John Bredin, at Aberdeen, he says:

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Observe and enforce all our rules exactly as if you were in England, or Ireland. By foolish complaisance our preachers, in Scotland, have often done harm. Be all a Methodist; and strongly insist on full salvation to be received now by simple faith.

“I am yours affectionately,

JOHN WESLEY.”[191]

Joseph Benson had been urged to go to America; but Wesley deemed it desirable to send him across the Tweed to put things right in the northern part of the kingdom. “God,” says he, “has made practical divinity necessary, and the devil controversial. Sometimes we must write and preach controversially; but the less the better. I think we have few, if any, of our travelling preachers, that love controversy; but there will always be men whose mouth it is necessary to stop; antinomians and Calvinists in particular. By our long silence, we have done much hurt, both to them and the cause of God. The more you preach abroad, the better; keep to the plain, old Methodist doctrine, laid down in the minutes of the conference. At Trevecca, you were a little warped from this; but it was a right hand error. You will be buried in Scotland, if you sell your mare and sit still. Keep her, and ride continually. Sit not still, at the peril of your soul and body! Billy Thompson never satisfied me on this head, not in the least degree. I say still, we will have travelling preachers in Scotland, or none. Our preachers shall either travel there, as in England, or else stay in England.”[192]

Such were some of the difficulties which this veteran evangelist had to meet. No wonder that he wished for help.

Chapel debts, also, still pressed heavily upon him. Hence the following to Mr. Hopper.

“February 6, 1773.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--I agreed last year, though contrary to my judgment, that we would have no more weekly subscriptions. I purposed, likewise, in my own mind, to concern myself with the debt no more. But, upon reflection, it seemed to me, there was one way still, namely, not to apply to the poor at all, (though I would not reject any that offered,) but to take the burden on myself, and try my personal interest with the rich. I began at London, where about £500 are subscribed. Afterwards, I wrote to many in the country. Liverpool circuit has subscribed about £100; Bradford circuit £130. It must be now or never. I do not know that I shall concern myself with this matter any more. Till now we never had a rational prospect of clearing the whole debt in one year. Now it may be done. It certainly will, if our brethren, in other circuits, do as these above mentioned have done. What I desire of you is to second the letters I have wrote, encouraging each man of property in your circuit to exert himself; at least, to send me an answer: this, you know, is but common civility. Now do what you can; and show that you, my old friend, are not the last and least in love towards your affectionate friend and brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[193]

It is now time to trace Wesley’s wanderings in 1773.

On Sunday evening, March 7, he set out from London to Ireland, taking, for the first time, his carriage with him, which, however, he was deprived of the opportunity of using. He writes: “March 30--I was a little surprised to find the commissioners of the customs would not permit my chaise to be landed, because, they said, the captain of a packet boat had no right to bring over goods. Poor pretence! However, I was more obliged to them than I then knew; for had it come on shore, it would have been utterly spoiled.”

The result was, that Wesley had to hire a chaise instead of riding in his own; a vehicle which at Ballibac ferry went overboard, and, with difficulty, was recovered; and which, on another occasion, it took five hours to drag less than a dozen miles; which, in a third instance, was disabled by the breaking of the hinder axletree; and which, more than once, was in danger of being dashed to pieces by furious mobs.

Everywhere his congregations were large. In many instances, he had whole troops of soldiers to hear him; and nowhere did he meet with any serious disturbance, except at Waterford, where the papists created a riot, in which heavy blows were given; and at Enniskillen, where a mob again and again fell upon the unfortunate carriage, cut it with stones in several places, smashed its windows, and well-nigh covered it with sludge.

Three months were spent in itinerating the sister kingdom. Scores of towns and villages, between Dublin and Galway, Belfast and Cork, were favoured with his ministry; and diversified were the incidents with which he met. At Eyrecourt, the crowd gave him a loud huzza as he passed into the market place to preach. At Clare, for want of other accommodation, he was glad to accept a bed in the soldiers’ barracks. At Castlebar, on finding the “Charter school a picture of slothfulness, nastiness, and desolation; and all the children, not only dirty, but with their stockings hanging about their heels, and in a most disreputable plight, he reported the facts to the trustees at Dublin, with the hope of effecting a reformation.” At Limerick, William Myles, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, was one of Wesley’s hearers, began to meet in class, and, five years afterwards, became an itinerant preacher.[194] At Armagh, he wrote his invaluable sermon “On Predestination,” preached it at Londonderry, and, at the request of several of the clergy, published it.[195] At Armagh, also, he heard what he had not heard for fifty years,--an anthem in a church. At Lisburn, all his spare time was taken up by poor patients, who came to him for physic. He writes: “What has fashion to do with physic? Why, in Ireland almost as much as with headdress. Blisters, for anything or nothing, were all the fashion when I was in Ireland last. Now the grand fashionable medicine, for twenty diseases, is mercury sublimate! Why is it not a halter, or a pistol? They would cure a little more speedily.”

On the 5th of July, Wesley started for England, having to hold his annual conference in London. He says: “About eleven we crossed Dublin bar, and were at Hoylake the next afternoon. This was the first night I ever lay awake in my life, though I was at ease in body and mind. I believe few can say this: in seventy years I never lost one night’s sleep.”

Wesley reached the metropolis on the 17th of July; and, on the 21st, made the following entry in his journal: “We had our quarterly meeting at London; at which I was surprised to find, that our income does not yet meet our expense. We were again near £200 bad. My private account I find still worse. I have laboured as much as many writers; and all my labour has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred pounds.”

There is some obscurity in this, as will appear from the following correspondence.

“To Messrs. THOMAS BALL and ALEXANDER MATHER.

“LEWISHAM, February 27, 1772.[196]

“THE thing which I desire you to do is this, to see that an exact account be kept of all the books in Great Britain and Ireland, printed and sold on my account. You comprehend how many particulars are contained under this general. To do this accurately will require much thought. But you will bear that burden for God’s sake, and for the sake of your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

(Reply.)

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--I beg to lay before you Mr. Mather’s account, sent me by letter of the 18th past, of the gross value of your books, taken in February and March, 1773; viz.:--

£ s. d. “In London, etc. 3754 4 0 Bristol 4253 4 8 Country 2716 1 8 Cash 183 2 1 Debts 23 2 1 -------------- 10929 15 4 Stock in February, 1772 8833 0 7 -------------- £2096 14 9 --------------

“Supposed to be owing in March last to printers, binders, etc., £500.

“I am, reverend sir, your most obedient and dutiful servant,

“THOMAS BALL.

“Examined 21st September, 1773:--THOMAS MARRIOTT, RICHARD KEMP.”[197]

According to the above statement, Wesley was in debt to printers and binders to the amount of £500; but, at the same time, he was possessed of books whose gross value was nearly £11,000. How to reconcile the discrepancy we hardly know. The facts are furnished as we find them. One thing is certain, there was something wrong. Some have supposed that Wesley’s wife had, by means of false keys, obtained access to the book steward’s cash, and helped herself;[198] but of that there is no conclusive proof; and it is certainly neither generous nor just to assert the thing without proving it. All that we know further is, that poor Samuel Franks, the book steward, a man of great uprightness and earnest piety,[199] but naturally of a sensitive disposition, within a fortnight, fell into a fit of insanity, and hanged himself.[200] Without mentioning this, Wesley writes: “October 6--The rest of the week I made what inquiry I could into the state of my accounts. Some confusion had arisen from the sudden death of my bookkeeper; but it was less than might have been expected.”

Here we must leave the matter. On the supposition that Wesley considered his stock of books not his own, but merely held in trust for the general good, it was quite correct, that, as the result of his literary labours, he was in debt to the amount, as he himself says, “of five or six hundred pounds.” In one respect, he was the possessor of a large amount of property; in another, he was actually in debt.

Wesley’s conference began in London on August 3. He writes: “August 3--Our conference began. I preached mornings as well as evenings; and it was all one. I found myself just as strong as if I had preached but once a day.” Good old simple hearted Samuel Bardsley, then an itinerant of five years’ standing, writes, in a manuscript letter now before us: “I never was at a more comfortable conference. We had a deal of love among us. Dear Mr. Wesley laboured hard. I had the pleasure of hearing him preach twelve times. He said, he had not preached so much at a conference these twenty years, and never was more assisted.”

It was now that Joseph Bradford was received on trial; and that Thomas Olivers was appointed to be Wesley’s travelling companion; honest Bradford taking the place of Olivers a year afterwards, and retaining it for the next eight years. Wesley’s effort to extinguish the chapel debts had resulted in a subscription amounting to £2237. Forty-seven preachers were present, and, “in order to lay a foundation for future union,” signed the following agreement.

“WE whose names are underwritten, being thoroughly convinced of the necessity of a close union between those whom God is pleased to use as instruments in this glorious work, in order to preserve this union between ourselves, are resolved, God being our helper,--

“I. To devote ourselves entirely to God: denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily, steadily aiming at one thing, to save our own souls, and them that hear us.

“II. To preach the old Methodist doctrines, and no other, contained in the minutes of the conferences.

“III. To observe and enforce the whole Methodist discipline, laid down in the said minutes.”

Wesley had failed in obtaining the consent of Fletcher to be his successor; and, hence, the drawing up and signing of this conferential compact.

On the first Sunday night, after the conference concluded, Wesley set out, by coach, on his accustomed tour to Cornwall, which occupied the next three weeks.

In returning, he spent a month at Bristol, and among the societies round about. On October 6, he started in his chaise, at two o’clock in the morning, and, in the evening, arrived in London; thus, in one winter’s day, driving in his own conveyance a distance of one hundred and fourteen miles. The rest of October, except the Sundays, was spent in what he calls his “little tours,” through the five counties of Bedford, Northampton, Oxford, Buckingham, and Kent.

Ten days, in November, were spent in Norfolk; then he met the London classes; and afterwards went off to Sussex, and then to Kent. The last entry in his year’s itinerary is: “London: December 25, and on the following days, we had many happy opportunities of celebrating the solemn feast days, according to the design of their institution. We concluded the year with a fast day, closed with a solemn watchnight.” Thus, in observing feast and fast days, ended the year 1773. One of these, of course, was Christmas day, another St. Stephen’s, a third St. John’s, and a fourth the Innocents’ day. To some it may seem strange, that Wesley, the Methodist, should observe such festivals as these; but, in such matters, Wesley was still the Churchman. Besides, throughout life, it was one of his most sacred delights to think, not only of the living, but likewise of the dead. On the 12th of June, in this very year of 1773, he wrote a letter, an extract from which is worth preserving.

“It has, in all ages, been allowed, that the communion of saints extends to those in paradise, as well as those on earth, as they are all one body, united under one Head; and

‘Can death’s interposing tide Spirits one in Christ divide?’

“But it is difficult to say, either what kind, or what degree of union, may be between them. It is not improbable, their fellowship with us is far more sensible than ours with them. Suppose any of them are present, they are hid from our eyes, but we are not hid from their sight. They, no doubt, clearly discern all our words and actions, if not all our thoughts too. For it is hard to think these walls of flesh and blood can intercept the view of an angelic being. But we have, in general, only a faint and indistinct perception of their presence, unless in some peculiar instances, where it may answer some gracious ends of Divine Providence. Then it may please God to permit, that they should be perceptible, either by some of our outward senses, or by an internal sense, for which human language has not a name. But I suppose this is not a common blessing. I have known but few instances of it. To keep up constant and close communion with God is the most likely mean to obtain this also.”[201]

Up to the present, nothing has been said concerning the progress, in 1773, of the Calvinian controversy. Fletcher’s pen was not idle, but the only works he published were: first, “An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense; or, a Rational Demonstration of Man’s Corrupt and Lost Estate,” 12mo, 296 pages; and, secondly, “A Dreadful Phenomenon Described and Improved, being a Particular Account of the Earthquake at Madeley, on May 27, 1773:” 12mo, 104 pages. Neither of these, however, had any immediate bearing on the matters in dispute.

On the other side, good old Berridge, of Everton, brought out his “Christian World Unmasked”; which, if full of faults, is, at all events, free from dulness; a book, like its author, often odd, sometimes coarse, but always pious; full of genius, and full of goodness; seasoned with Calvinism’s highest flavour, but entirely free from the personal scurrility so characteristic of others.

Toplady sent nothing to the press; but his private letters were as full of bitterness as ever. “I am told,” he writes, “that Mr. Fletcher has it in contemplation to make an attack on me. He is welcome. I am ready for him. Tenderness has no effect on Mr. Wesley and his pretended family of love. For my own part, I shall never attempt to hew such millstones with a feather. They must be served as nettles; press them close, and they cannot sting. Cobbler Tom laments publicly, from his preaching tub (misnamed a pulpit), that such an antinomian as myself should have such crowded auditories, while the preachers of the pure gospel (by which he means free will, merit, and perfection) are so thinly attended. The envy, malice, and fury of Wesley’s party are inconceivable. But, as violently as they hate me, I dare not, I cannot hate them in return. I have not so learned Christ. Your idea of Mr. John Wesley and his associates exactly tallies with mine. Abstracted from all warmth, and from all prejudice, I believe him to be the most rancorous hater of the gospel system that ever appeared in England. I except not Pelagius himself. The latter had some remains of modesty, and preserved some appearances of decency; but the former has outlived all pretentions to both.”[202]

Could this impulsive reviler be actually sincere, when he said he durst not, and could not, hate Wesley and his party?

Toplady, so far as printing was concerned, was silent; but Richard Hill begun the year as vigorously as ever, by publishing his “Finishing Stroke; containing some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s pamphlet, entitled, ‘Logica Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism:’” 8vo, 57 pages. This characteristic piece is dated January 2, 1773. The author confesses, that he had formed a resolution to be silent; but “Logica Genevensis” was too provoking to be passed in silence. This, however, was to be the real “finishing stroke.” Sir Richard writes: “the unfair quotations you have made, and the shocking misrepresentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will, for the future, prevent me from looking into any of your books, if you should write a thousand volumes. So here the controversy must end; at least, it shall end for me.”

Poor Sir Richard! Such was his resolve; and yet, almost before the printer’s ink was dry, his godly impetuosity sent forth another octavo pamphlet, of the same size as the former one, entitled “Logica Wesleiensis; or the Farrago Double Distilled. With an heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley:” 63 pages. Hill, as usual, is angry and vindictive. He tells his readers, that he had never seen Wesley “above four or five times in his life; once in the pulpit at West Street chapel; once at a friend’s house; and once or twice at his own lodgings in Vine Street.” He writes: “I find it just as easy to catch an eel by the tail, as to lay hold of Mr. Wesley for one single moment. Oh, what quirks, quibbles, and evasions does this gentleman descend to, in order to shift off his own inconsistencies!” As a specimen of the writer’s “heroic poem,” we give the following.

“A choice Preservative I have, The like was never known; With potions, juleps, drops, and pukes, Peculiarly my own.

Help Cobbler Tom, and thou Swiss friend, To lay John Calvin’s ghost; For what with cynics, bigots, bears, I fear the day is lost.

We three shall incantations raise, With thunderings, lightnings, hail; And if the hobgoblin won’t avaunt, I’ll bring my comet’s tail.”

Sir Richard was not content with this. During the year, he published another octavo pamphlet, of 30 pages, with the wordy title, “Three Letters written by Richard Hill, Esq., to the Rev. J. Fletcher, vicar of Madeley, setting forth Mr. Hill’s Reasons for declining any further Controversy relative to Mr. Wesley’s Principles.”

He states, that he has heard that Fletcher “wishes to have done with controversy;” and upon the strength of this, he has written to his London bookseller to stop the sale of his own publications. He begs pardon for “whatever may have savoured too much of his own spirit”; and says, restraint should be put upon several of Wesley’s preachers, “particularly upon one Perronet, of whose superlatively abusive and insolent little piece Charles Wesley had testified his abhorrence from the pulpit.” He wishes Wesley to be made acquainted with the action he has taken, and says: “If I stop the sale of my books, I hope that of the Four Checks will be stopped also.” He adds, that his mother’s death had recently taken place; and then, at the end of his pamphlet, gives “a proposed title” to Fletcher’s works, and also “A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists”; the latter signed by “J. F., J. W., and W. S.”

Such is the substance of the three letters, which, in the first instance, were sent to Fletcher privately, and were not intended for publication. By some means, however, the fact of the letters having been written became bruited abroad, and certain hasty logicians deduced the unauthorised inference, that Sir Richard had recanted his Calvinian doctrines. This was too bitter a pill to be swallowed; and, hence, the writer, who was weary of the war, gave his private letters to the public, and attached to them a preface which had better not been penned.

For instance, he speaks of Thomas Olivers as “a journeyman cordwainer, who had written a pamphlet against him, which, though in itself black of the grain, was afterwards lacquered up, new soled, and heel tapped by his master, before it was exposed to sale.” He adds: “I shall not take the least notice of him, or read a line of his composition, any more than, if I was travelling, I would stop to lash, or even order my footman to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a village, that should come out and bark at me; but would willingly let the contemptible animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven me out of sight.”

He then proceeds to accuse Fletcher of “misrepresenting facts,” and of using “artifices, false glosses, pious frauds, declamation, chicanery, and evasion, to throw dust into the eyes of his readers;” and concludes, by saying, that though he cannot read any more of the productions of Fletcher’s pen, and, therefore, cannot write replies to them, yet, notwithstanding all in his letters to the contrary, he shall still keep on sale his “Paris Conversation”; his “Five Letters”; his “Review of Wesley’s Doctrines”; his “Logica Wesleiensis”; and his “Finishing Stroke.”

Such was the position of Sir Richard Hill in 1773. He wished for peace. Why? Because he was vanquished.

What action did Wesley take? On the 1st of April was published, “Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Farrago Double Distilled. By John Wesley.”[203] 12mo, 44 pages.

Wesley’s “Remarks” are characterised by his wonted keenness, courtesy, wit, and brevity. In conclusion, he writes:

“I beg leave, in my turn, to give you a few advices. 1. Be calm. Do not venture into the field again till you are master of your temper. 2. Be good natured. Passion is not commendable; but ill nature still less. 3. Be courteous. Show good manners, as well as good nature, to your opponent, of whatever kind. 4. Be merciful. When you have gained an advantage over your opponent, do not press it to the uttermost. Remember the honest quaker’s advice to his friend a few years ago: ‘Art thou not content to lay John Wesley upon his back, but thou wilt tread his guts out?’ 5. In writing, do not consider yourself as a man of fortune, or take any liberty with others on that account. Men of sense simply consider what is written; not whether the writer be a lord or a cobbler. 6. Lastly, Remember, ‘for every idle word men shall speak, they shall give an account in the day of judgment.’ Remember, ‘by thy words shalt thou be justified; or by thy words shalt thou be condemned.’”

Wesley’s other publications, in 1773, were nine 12mo volumes of his collected works, making together 3439 pages. In these were included five small works, now first published: namely,--1. “An Extract of Two Discourses on the Conflagration and Renovation of the World: written by James Knight, D.D., late Vicar of St. Sepulchre, London;” in which, by the way, a theory is propounded antagonistic to the millenarian theory, which Wesley countenanced some years before. 2. “An Extract from a Treatise concerning Religious Affections: by the late Rev. Jonathan Edwards.” 3. “A Short Account of John Dillon.” 4. “Instructions for Members of Religious Societies.” 5. “Christian Reflections. Translated from the French.” These “Reflections” are three hundred and thirty-six in number. We give one as a specimen of the rest. “The three greatest punishments which God can inflict on sinners, in this world, are: 1. To let loose their own desires upon them. 2. To let them succeed in all they wish for. And, 3. To suffer them to continue many years in the quiet enjoyment thereof.”

Besides the above, Wesley also published “A Short Roman History.” 12mo, 155 pages.

FOOTNOTES:

[185] Whitehead’s Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 355.

[186] Moore’s Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 259.

[187] Wesley’s Works, vol. xi., p. 288.

[188] Asbury’s Journal, vol. i., p. 72.

[189] Methodist Magazine, 1786, p. 397.

[190] Methodist Magazine, 1786, p. 567.

[191] Wesleyan Times, May 13, 1861.

[192] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., pp. 391, 392.

[193] Wesley’s Works, vol xii., p. 291.

[194] Methodist Magazine, 1831, p. 290.

[195] Ibid. 1782, pp. 505, 565.

[196] Query: ought not this to be 1773?

[197] Methodist Magazine, 1842, p. 1013.

[198] Manuscript.

[199] Methodist Magazine, 1842, p. 1012.

[200] Manuscript.

[201] Methodist Magazine, 1805, p. 520.

[202] Toplady’s Posthumous Works, 1780, pp. 343-346.

[203] Lloyd’s Evening Post, April 2, 1773.

1774. Age 71

References have been made to the state of Wesley’s health. His labours had been undiminished, and yet many of his friends had been anxious and alarmed. John Pawson, in an unpublished letter, dated Bristol, October 14, 1773, remarks: “Mr. Wesley has been with us for some time. He seems to be declining very fast; and I think there is great reason to fear that he will not be with us long.” There was sufficient cause for solicitude. Wesley’s pain, during the last three years, must have been acute; and it is perfectly marvellous how he managed, without a murmur, and without abatement, to do the whole of his accustomed work. At the beginning of 1774, the matter reached its crisis. He writes:

“January 4--Three or four years ago, a stumbling horse threw me forward on the pommel of the saddle. I felt a good deal of pain; but it soon went off, and I thought of it no more. Some months after, I observed testiculum alterum altero duplo majorem esse. I consulted a physician; he told me it was a common case, and did not imply any disease at all. In May twelvemonth, it was grown near as large as a hen’s egg. Being then at Edinburgh, Dr. Hamilton insisted on my having the advice of Drs. Gregory and Munro. They immediately saw it was a hydrocele, and advised me, as soon as I came to London, to aim at a radical cure, which they judged might be effected in about sixteen days. When I came to London, I consulted Mr. Wathen. He advised me--(1) Not to think of a radical cure, which could not be hoped for, without my lying in one posture fifteen or sixteen days; and he did not know whether this might not give a wound to my constitution, which I should never recover. (2) To do nothing while I continued easy. And this advice I was determined to take. Last month, the swelling was often painful. So on this day Mr. Wathen performed the operation, and drew off something more than half a pint of a thin, yellow, transparent water. With this came out, to his no small surprise, a pearl of the size of a small shot; which he supposed might be one cause of the disorder, by occasioning a conflux of humours to the part.”

Such is Wesley’s own simple statement. The disease was unquestionably a serious one; and, yet, it is a surprising fact, that, only a week after the surgical operation, he was again in harness, and as actively employed as ever. Hence the following: “Tuesday, January 11--I began, at the east end of the town, to visit the society from house to house. I know no branch of the pastoral office which is of greater importance than this. But it is so grievous to flesh and blood, that I can prevail on few, even of our preachers, to undertake it.”

Wesley’s zeal for the extension of his Saviour’s kingdom would hardly let him rest when rest was requisite. His long life was an unbroken scene of gigantic action. He worked as though nothing could be done without his working; and yet no man more practically acknowledged, that all his work, without God’s blessing, would amount to nothing. Hence, not only his own ceaseless prayers for the help and co-operation of his great Master, but also his appointment of fast days to be observed by the thousands of his followers. Many of these are mentioned in his journals, but many were observed without being mentioned. One of these occurred at the time of which we are now writing. “Yesterday,” says Samuel Bardsley, on January 25, 1774, “yesterday I got a letter from Mr. Wesley, informing me that the 28th instant is to be observed as a day of fasting and prayer for the prosperity of the gospel.”[204] Numbers of such days were appointed. No wonder Wesley prospered.

The first two months of 1774 were chiefly spent in London; and, on March 6, Wesley set out on his northern visitation, which, as usual, occupied his time till the conference was held in August. This journey has been so often traversed, that we shall no longer follow Wesley step by step; but merely advert to its chief incidents.

At Wolverhampton he was met by his friend Fletcher, of Madeley, and says: “March 22--At five in the morning I explained that important truth, that God trieth us every moment, weighs all our thoughts, words, and actions, and is pleased or displeased with us, according to our works. I see more and more clearly, that there is a great gulf fixed between us and all those, who, by denying this, sap the very foundation both of inward and outward holiness.”

When he had travelled as far as Congleton, he received intelligence which compelled him to retrace his steps, and go back to Bristol. The entry in the journal of this old man of more than seventy is a curiosity. “Wednesday, March 30--I went on to Congleton, where I received letters, informing me that my presence was necessary at Bristol. So, about one, I took chaise, and reached Bristol about half an hour after one the next day. Having done my business in about two hours, on Friday in the afternoon I reached Congleton again, about a hundred and forty miles from Bristol, no more tired (blessed be God!) than when I left it.” This is marvellous. Here we have a septuagenarian, in feeble health, travelling, not by railway, nor yet by coach, but in his own private chaise, in a wintry month, and on roads not macadamised, a distance of two hundred and eighty miles in about eight-and-forty hours, and then quietly sitting down and, without bombast, but with profound gratitude, recording the fact in the language above given. Can biography furnish a parallel to this? We doubt it.

On Easter day, April 3, Wesley writes: “I went on to Macclesfield, and came just in time (so is the scene changed here) to walk to the old church, with the mayor and the two ministers.”

Here we pause, to notice a man, who afterwards, not only distinguished himself by his pen and ministerial labours, but became one of Wesley’s sincerest and warmest friends.

One of the “two ministers,” referred to in this extract, was David Simpson, now a young man of twenty-eight. Born at Ingleby Arncliffe, in Yorkshire, and educated at Northallerton, and at Scorton, he, in 1766, entered St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he became acquainted with Rowland Hill, and a select society of devout collegians, and was converted. On leaving college, he was ordained, and accepted the curacy of Ramsden in Essex. He then removed to Buckingham, where, by his extempore preaching of justification by faith, and the nature and necessity of the new birth, he provoked alike the hostility of the surrounding clergy and the sneers of unconverted laics. About the year 1772, he accepted the invitation of Charles Roe, Esq., to his residence at Macclesfield, and soon became curate of what Wesley calls “the old church,” but which, at that period, was the only church that Macclesfield possessed. Here he married Miss Waldy, of Yarm, a young lady of distinguished excellence and piety, who died within six months after Wesley’s visit, leaving to her young husband the care of an infant daughter. Mr. Simpson’s faithful ministry was as much disliked at Macclesfield as it had been at Buckingham. Complaints of his Methodism were made to his diocesan, and twice he was suspended for preaching doctrines, to which, as a clergyman of the Church of England, he had solemnly subscribed. Expelled from the pulpit of the church, he began to preach in the adjacent towns and villages. Just at this juncture, the prime curacy of the church became vacant, and, the nomination being an appendage to the office of the mayor for the time being, Mr. Gould made him the offer, and had the pleasure of seeing it accepted. To prevent Simpson’s induction, a petition, with seventeen articles of accusation, was transmitted to the bishop of Chester, all of which might be reduced to one, namely, that he was a Methodist. In reply, he says, in a letter to his lordship: “This is true. My method is to preach the great truths of the gospel, in as plain, and earnest, and affectionate a manner as I am able. Some, hereby, have become seriously concerned about their salvation. The change is soon discovered; they meet with one or another, who invite them to attend the meetings of the Methodists, by which their number” (the Methodists) “is increased to a considerable degree. This is the truth. I own the fact. I confess myself unequal to the difficulty. What would your lordship advise?” Such was the conflict. Before it came to an issue, Mr. Roe, at his own expense, erected a church, of which Mr. Simpson became incumbent in 1775, relinquishing, at the same time, the curacy which had been a bone of contention. Here he continued to exercise his successful ministry until 1799, when he peacefully expired.

Among many others, who were benefited by Simpson’s preaching, was a young female, eighteen years of age, who, on the very day of Wesley’s visit, above recorded, found peace with God, at Simpson’s sacramental service, and afterwards became the Hester Ann Rogers, whose journals and letters have been read by myriads.

On leaving Macclesfield, Wesley proceeded to Manchester and other places. At Bury, Methodism had been cradled in a storm. On some occasions, the people were besmeared with the most offensive filth; and on others were disturbed in their devotions by a huntsman blowing the hunter’s horn. Again and again the vicar frustrated their attempts to erect a chapel; but, at length, land at Pitts o’ th’ Moor was bought; the poor Methodists dug the clay and burnt the bricks; some worked by day, and others watched by night; and now, in 1774, the building was completed, and, on the 15th of April, Wesley preached in it.

Leaving Lancashire for Yorkshire, Wesley had, for him, the unusual honour of preaching on April 17 and 18, in three different churches, at Halifax, Huddersfield, and Heptonstall; and, on the Sunday following, he occupied the same position in the church at Haworth. A few days later, we find him in Scotland, preaching “to a people, the greatest part of whom,” says he, “hear much, know everything, and feel nothing.” Here, he tells us, he heard sermons, which unfortunately are too common at the present day,--sermons full of truth, “but no more likely to awaken souls than an Italian opera;” and, hence, he himself began to thunder about death, and judgment, and eternity. At Glasgow, Methodist matters were not at all to his satisfaction. “How is it,” he asks, “that there is no increase in the society here? It is exceeding easy to answer. One preacher stays here two or three months at a time, preaching on Sunday mornings, and three or four evenings in a week. Can a Methodist preacher preserve either bodily health, or spiritual life, with this exercise? And if he is but half alive, what will the people be?”

At Greenock, he found the same fault; and, at Edinburgh, writes: “Here, likewise, the morning preaching had been given up; consequently the people were few, dead, and cold. Things must be remedied, or we must quit the ground.”

Wesley attended a Scotch funeral, with which he was disgusted. “O what a difference,” says he, “is there between the English and Scotch method of burial! The English does honour to human nature; and even to the poor remains, that were once the temple of the Holy Ghost! But when I see in Scotland a coffin put into the earth, and covered up without a word, it reminds me of what was spoken of Jehoiakim, ‘He shall be buried with the burial of an ass!’”

At Perth, he says, the generality of the people were so wise, that they needed no more knowledge, and so good, that they needed no more religion; and, hence, he gave them three thundering sermons, two of them on hell and the day of judgment.

Wesley’s great difficulty in Scotland was the objection to itinerancy. “I have written,” says he, in a letter dated October 16, 1774, “to Dr. Hamilton, that Edinburgh and Dunbar must be supplied by one preacher. While I live, itinerant preachers shall be itinerants: I mean, if they choose to remain in connection with me. The society at Greenock are entirely at their own disposal: they may either have a preacher between them and Glasgow, or none at all. But more than one between them they cannot have. I have too much regard both for the bodies and souls of our preachers, to let them be confined to one place any more. I have weighed the matter, and will serve the Scots as we do the English, or leave them.”[205]

The above was addressed to Joseph Benson, at this time stationed in Scotland, and who has left a memento of Wesley’s visit which is worth quoting. “I was,” says he, “constantly with him for a week. I had an opportunity of examining narrowly his spirit and conduct; and, I assure you, I am more than ever persuaded, he is a none such. I know not his fellow, first, for abilities, natural and acquired; and, secondly, for his incomparable diligence in the application of those abilities to the best of employments. His lively fancy, tenacious memory, clear understanding, ready elocution, manly courage, indefatigable industry, really amaze me. I admire, but wish in vain to imitate, his diligent improvement of every moment of time; his wonderful exactness even in little things; the order and regularity wherewith he does and treats everything he takes in hand; together with his quick dispatch of business, and calm, cheerful serenity of soul. I ought not to omit to mention, what is very manifest to all who know him, his resolution, which no shocks of opposition can shake; his patience, which no length of trials can weary; his zeal for the glory of God and the good of man, which no waters of persecution or tribulation have yet been able to quench. Happy man! Long hast thou borne the burden and heat of the day, amidst the insults of foes, and the base treachery of seeming friends; but thou shalt rest from thy labours, and thy works shall follow thee!”[206]

On the 10th of June, Wesley reached Newcastle, and, on the day after, set out for Wolsingham and the dales. Returning to Newcastle, he and his wife’s daughter, and two grandchildren, had a marvellous escape from danger and death, in which Wesley believed that angels, both good and bad, took part. The narrative cannot be given in fewer or better words than in his own. We merely premise, that Horsley is a village a few miles west of Newcastle; and that Mr. Smith had married Mrs. Wesley’s daughter. Wesley writes:

“Monday, June 20--About nine, I set out for Horsley, with Mr. Hopper and Mr. Smith. I took Mrs. Smith, and her two little girls, in the chaise with me. About two miles from the town, just on the brow of the hill, on a sudden both the horses set out, without any visible cause, and flew down the hill, like an arrow. In a minute, John fell off the coach box. The horses then went on full speed, sometimes to the edge of the ditch on the right, sometimes on the left. A cart came up against them; they avoided it as exactly as if the man had been on the box. A narrow bridge was at the foot of the hill. They went directly over the middle of it. They ran up the next hill with the same speed; many persons meeting us, but getting out of the way. Near the top of the hill was a gate, which led into a farmer’s yard. It stood open. They turned short, and run through it, without touching the gate on one side, or the post on the other. I thought, ‘The gate which is on the other side of the yard, and is shut, will stop them’; but they rushed through it, as if it had been a cobweb, and galloped on through the cornfield. The little girls cried out, ‘Grandpapa, save us!’ I told them, ‘Nothing will hurt you: do not be afraid’; feeling no more fear or care than if I had been sitting in my study. The horses ran on, till they came to the edge of a steep precipice. Just then Mr. Smith, who could not overtake us before, galloped in between. They stopped in a moment. Had they gone on ever so little, he and we must have gone down together!”

This was one of the narrowest escapes from death that Wesley ever had; and his remarks upon it are worth adding.

“I am persuaded, that both evil and good angels had a large share in this transaction: how large we do not know now; but we shall know hereafter. I think some of the most remarkable circumstances were: (1) Both the horses, which were tame and quiet as could be, starting out in a moment, just at the top of the hill, and running down full speed. (2) The coachman’s being thrown on his head with such violence, and yet not hurt at all. (3) The chaise running again and again to the edge of each ditch, and yet not into it. (4) The avoiding the cart. (5) The keeping just the middle of the bridge. (6) The turning short through the first gate, in a manner that no coachman in England could have turned them, when in full gallop. (7) The going through the second gate as if it had been but smoke, without slackening their pace at all. This would have been impossible, had not the end of the chariot pole struck exactly on the centre of the gate; whence the whole, by the sudden impetuous shock, was broke into small pieces. Lastly, that Mr. Smith struck in just then: in a minute more we had been down the precipice. ‘Let those give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed, and delivered from the hand of the enemy!’”

Newcastle was one of Wesley’s favourite haunts. However cruelly his wife treated him, her daughter and her son in law, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, always seem to have shown him kindness; and, hence, he always appeared to quit Newcastle with reluctance. He writes: “June 27--I took my leave of this lovely place and people.” The next day was his birthday, which he celebrated as follows: “This being the first day of my seventy-second year, I was considering, How is this, that I find just the same strength as I did thirty years ago? that my sight is considerably better now, and my nerves firmer, than they were then? that I have none of the infirmities of old age, and have lost several I had in my youth? The grand cause is, the good pleasure of God, who doeth whatsoever pleaseth Him. The chief means are: (1) My constantly rising at four, for about fifty years. (2) My generally preaching at five in the morning; one of the most healthy exercises in the world. (3) My never travelling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles a year.”

Some will smile at this; but those who think, will hardly doubt, that the three things mentioned, so far from injuring health and shortening life, were among the likeliest of all likely things to be the means of preserving the one, and extending the other.

It is scarcely necessary to follow Wesley, in his wanderings through Durham, through the three ridings of the county of York, and through Lincolnshire; and then right away through Madeley, Worcester, and Cheltenham, to Bristol, where he arrived on August 6. The reader can easily find all this in his journal; we here prefer to give a few extracts from his letters.

Reference has just been made to Wesley’s vigour. We incline to think that, on his birthday, in the bright month of June, he was sometimes more jubilant than facts warranted. At all events, the following extract from a letter to his brother, written within two months before his birthday came, is scarcely in harmony with what was written then.

“WHITEHAVEN, May 6, 1774.

“DEAR BROTHER,--Duty is all I consider. Trouble and reproach I value not. And I am by no means clear, that I can, with a good conscience, throw away what I think the providence of God has put into my hands. Were it not for the chancery suit, I should not hesitate a moment.

“My complaint increases by slow degrees, much the same as before. It seems, I am likely to need a surgeon every nine or ten weeks. Mr. Hey, of Leeds, vehemently advises me, never to attempt what they call a radical cure.

“I never said a word of ‘publishing it after my death.’[207] I judged it my duty to publish it now; and I have as good a right to believe one way as any man has to believe another. I was glad of an opportunity of declaring myself on the head. I beg Hugh Bold to let me think as well as himself; and to believe my judgment will go as far as his. I have no doubt of the substance, both of Glanvil’s and Cotton Mather’s narratives.[208] Therefore, in this point, you that are otherwise minded, bear with me. Veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. Remember, I am, upon full consideration, and seventy years’ experience, just as obstinate in my opinion as you in yours. Do not you think, the disturbances in my father’s house were a Cock Lane story? Peace be with you and yours!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[209]

Such was Wesley’s reply to his brother’s remonstrance against the publication of his opinions on witchcraft and apparitions. The next letter, addressed to a lady in Ireland, refers to two important matters,--the Calvinian controversy, and Wesley’s method of dealing with contumacious Methodists.

“LEEDS, May 2, 1774.

“MY DEAR SISTER,--Until Mr. Hill and his associates puzzled the cause, it was as plain as plain could be. The Methodists always held, and have declared a thousand times, the death of Christ is the meritorious cause of our salvation; that is, of pardon, holiness, and glory: loving, obedient faith is the condition of glory. This Mr. Fletcher has so illustrated and confirmed, as, I think, scarcely any one has done before since the apostles.

“When Mr. W. wrote me a vehement letter concerning the abuse he had received from the young men in Limerick, and his determination to put them all out of society, if they did not acknowledge their fault, I much wondered what could be the matter, and only wrote him word, ‘I never put any out of our society for anything they say of me.’

“Your ever affectionate

“JOHN WESLEY.”[210]

The ensuing letters have relation to a book, an abridgment of which Wesley afterwards published, and concerning which some of his admirers have felt puzzled, and others pained. This is not the place for a disquisition on novels and novel reading; but it is a curious fact, that Wesley, the earnest and untiring evangelist, found time, not only to read a novel, but to print it.

Henry Brooke, Esq., an Irish barrister, was the son of an Irish rector; and, besides a number of plays and poems, in four volumes, 8vo, was the author of two novels, “The Fool of Quality,” and “Juliet Grenville.”[211] His nephew, Henry, was a devoted Methodist, a friend of Fletcher, and one of Wesley’s correspondents. “The Fool of Quality” was first published, in five vols., in 1766, and was thus criticised in the Monthly Review of that period. “A performance enriched by genius, enlivened by fancy, bewildered with enthusiasm, and overrun with the visionary jargon of fanaticism. We wish the author would give us an abridgment, cleared from the sanctimonious rubbish by which its beauties are so much obscured. In its present state, it will be a favourite only with Behmenites, Herrnhutters, Methodists, Hutchinsonians, and some of the Roman Catholics.”

This was the book which Wesley read, and concerning which he wrote to Henry Brooke, the author’s nephew.

“HULL, July 8, 1774.

“DEAR HARRY,--When I read over, in Ireland, ‘The Fool of Quality,’ I could not but observe the design of it, to promote the religion of the heart, and that it was well calculated to answer that design; the same thing I observed, a week or two ago, concerning ‘Juliet Grenville.’ Yet, there seemed to me to be a few passages, both in the one and the other, which might be altered for the better; I do not mean, so much with regard to the sentiments, which are generally very just, as with regard to the structure of the story, which seemed here and there to be not quite clear. I had, at first, a thought of writing to Mr. Brooke himself, but I did not know whether I might take the liberty. Few authors will thank you, for imagining you are able to correct their works. But, if he could bear it, and thinks it would be of any use, I would give another reading to both these works, and send him my thoughts without reserve, just as they occur. I am, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[212]

The answer to this was as follows.

“DUBLIN, August 6, 1774.

“REVEREND SIR,--My uncle’s health is greatly impaired.[213] A kind of vertigo continues not only to enfeeble his limbs, but to interrupt his study and writing. However, I trust, as his outward man decays, his inward man is renewed daily.

“He is deeply sensible of your very kind offer, and most cordially embraces it. He has desired me to express the warmth of his gratitude in the strongest terms, and says he most cheerfully yields the volumes you mention, to your superior judgment, to prune, erase, and alter as you please. He only wishes, they could have had your eye before they appeared in public. But it is not yet too late. A second edition will appear with great advantage, when they have undergone so kind a revisal. But he is apprehensive, your time is so precious, that it may be too great an intrusion upon it, unless made a work of leisure and opportunity. Yet, as you have proffered it, he will not give up the privilege; but hopes leisure may be found for so friendly and generous a work.

“I am, reverend sir, your most affectionate friend and brother,

“H. BROOKE.”[214]

Perhaps there have been published as many portraits of Wesley as of any man that ever lived. The year 1774 was, in this respect, remarkable. At its commencement, Wesley writes: “I was desired by Mrs. Wright, of New York, to let her take my effigy in waxwork. She has that of Mr. Whitefield and many others; but none of them, I think, comes up to a well drawn picture.” Query, what has become of this waxwork effigy? Besides the waxwork figure, there were others. From the manuscript letters of Samuel Bardsley, we learn that, already, the potters of Staffordshire had printed his likeness on their crockery; and Mr. Voyes of Corbridge had had it engraved on the seals he sold.

These are little facts; but they indicate Wesley’s growing popularity. The people ask for the portraits of public men only. A man must be notorious before the masses wish to see him. Thus it was in the case of Wesley. For five-and-thirty years, he had been before the public. No man had been more bitterly persecuted by his enemies; and no man was more ardently beloved by his friends. His fame had spread throughout the three kingdoms; and all sorts of artists began to use him for their own advantage.

Wesley was not fond of sitting for his portrait, though this was often done. On one occasion, while dining with a friend, in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars, an eminent artist offered him ten guineas as a bribe, to induce him to allow a cast of his face to be taken. “No,” said Wesley, “keep your money, and urge me no further.” “Sir,” said the artist, “I will not detain you more than three minutes.” Wesley consented; the cast was taken; and so also was the money: but no sooner was Wesley out of doors, than he saw an agitated crowd, surrounding an auctioneer, who was about to sell, not only the furniture of a poor debtor, but the bed upon which he was actually dying. In an instant, Wesley rushed into the throng, seized the arm of the auctioneer, and cried, “What’s the debt?” “Ten guineas,” was the answer. “Take it,” said Wesley, “and let the poor man have his furniture again;” and, then turning to John Broadbent, who was with him, he quietly observed, “Brother Broadbent, I see why God sent me these ten guineas.”[215]

Methodism in America has been mentioned. The work there was now greatly growing. Twelve months before, Wesley had sent out one of his favourite preachers, Thomas Rankin, to act as a sort of generalissimo. Perhaps a wiser selection might have been made. At all events, Rankin’s honest hearted brusqueness sometimes gave offence. Boardman and Pilmoor, and Asbury, were all predecessors in point of time; but they and four other itinerants had now to recognise Rankin as their chief. In age and ministerial standing, they were nearly equal; but Rankin, by Wesley’s favour, had the preeminence. Asbury winced, but was too good a man to raise rebellion. He writes: “1774, May 25--Our conference began at Philadelphia. The overbearing spirit of a certain person had excited my fears. My judgment was stubbornly opposed for a while, and, at last, submitted to. But it is my duty to bear all things with a meek and patient spirit. Our conference was attended with great power, and all acquiesced in the future stations of the preachers. If I were not deeply conscious of the truth and goodness of the cause in which I am engaged, I should, by no means, stay here. Lord, what a world is this! yea, what a religious world!”[216]

Within two years, the entire band were scattered by the colonial rebellion, and apostolic Asbury was the only one remaining. Meanwhile, Rankin sent to Wesley an account of the first Methodist conference in America, and Wesley replied to him as follows.

“EPWORTH, July 21, 1774.

“DEAR TOMMY,--In yours of May the 30th, you give me an agreeable account of your little conference in Philadelphia. I think G. Shadford and you desire no novelties, but love good old Methodist discipline and doctrine. I have been lately thinking a good deal on one point, wherein, perhaps, we have all been wanting. We have not made it a rule, as soon as ever persons were justified, to remind them of going on to perfection. Whereas, this is the very time preferable to all others. They have then the simplicity of little children; and they are fervent in spirit, ready to cut off the right hand, or to pluck out the right eye. But, if we once suffer this fervour to subside, we shall find it hard enough to bring them again to this point.

“I am, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[217]

Before passing from America, it is worth recording, that it was in the year 1774 that Methodism was introduced into another part of Newfoundland. In the month of March in that year, John Hoskins, a London Methodist, and his son, a lad of about sixteen years of age, embarked at Poole in Dorsetshire, and landed in Newfoundland five weeks afterwards. The intention of Hoskins was to work there till he had obtained money enough to take him to New England, where he wished to begin a school. He landed at Trinity penniless, and utterly unknown, and found himself in a “rocky, desolate country,” and surrounded by a “few, low, mean huts, built of wood.” He entered one to make inquiries as to how he might obtain subsistence; the good woman of the hut gave him some seal and bread to eat; and the minister of the place advised him to open a school at Old Perlican, where about fifty families resided. Away he went, a distance of one-and-twenty miles; the people received him gladly; and his school was opened. Here there was literally no religious worship whatever; but the schoolmaster began to read the Church prayers, and Wesley’s sermons; the people standing at a distance and looking at him as if he had been a monster. He then proceeded to give extempore exhortations; a few began to be serious; some helped him to sing; sixteen became penitent, and were formed into a class; and two or three soon found peace with God. Just at this juncture, Mr. Arthur Thomy, an Irish merchant, visited the place on business, and preached twice or thrice, confirming what Hoskins had said, and the society increased to forty members, and the believers to eight.

Thus was Methodism begun at Old Perlican. It soon spread. Island Cove had a society of thirty, and was the first to build a chapel. At Harbourgrace and Carbonear, where Mr. Coughlan had laboured, Calvinism and antinomianism were rampant, and Methodism had dwindled to almost nothing. The movement at Old Perlican was a new beginning; and Hoskins, the schoolmaster, and Thomy, the Irish merchant, were the chief actors. Thomy often travelled as far as fifty miles to preach; and sometimes met with brutal treatment. The Irish were his bitterest enemies, and, on one occasion, came with their shillalahs to kill him. Hoskins, also, had his share of persecution. Once he was daubed all over with tar, and was further threatened to be stuck with feathers. The work, however, prospered; and, in 1785, Newfoundland became one of the circuits in Wesley’s minutes.

The conference, at Bristol, was opened on August 9. Wesley writes: “The conference, which begun and ended in love, fully employed me on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; and we observed Friday, 12th, as a day of fasting and prayer for the success of the gospel.”

Thomas Taylor, who was present, says: “August 9--Most of the day was taken up in temporal matters, which is dry business. August 10--This morning our characters were examined, and that closely. The afternoon was chiefly spent in taking in new preachers. In the evening, Mr. Wesley gave us but an indifferent sermon. August 11--We spent this day pretty profitably in considering some things of importance; especially how to prevent levity, idleness, and evil speaking. At night, Mr. Wesley gave us a profitable discourse on brotherly love.”[218]

Miss March, in an unpublished letter, dated August 23, 1774, observes:

“Our conference is now ended. I promised myself a jubilee, a time of holy rejoicing, but found it rather a season of hurry and dissipation. Mr. Wesley opened the conference with a plan of great and necessary business. His preaching was chiefly to the preachers,--of the searching, reproving kind. The preachers said there was much concord amongst them, and one observed, Mr. Wesley seemed to do all the business himself. Friday was the best time, and the evening sermon, from Matthew vii. 24, was the prettiest and most simple discourse I ever heard on that text. Mr. Wesley left us on Monday for Wales. When he first came he looked worn down with care and sorrow; but he left us well and lively.”

It was at this conference that Samuel Bradburn and James Rogers were admitted on trial; and that Joseph Pilmoor, for some reason, deserted Thomas Rankin in America, and desisted from travelling.

No sooner was the conference over, than Wesley again set out on his evangelistic travels. The next twelve days were spent in Wales. He returned to Bristol for the Sunday services on August 28; and, on the day following, started off to Cornwall. He came back to Bristol on September 9, and employed the next month in the city and its neighbourhood. Being the time of a parliamentary election, he met the Bristol society, and advised those of them who had votes:--“1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy. 2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against. 3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”

Wesley came to London on October 15, and spent the remainder of the year in his usual winter journeys.

Norwich was again a trouble. He writes: “Never was a poor society so neglected as this has been for the year past. The morning preaching was at an end; the bands suffered all to fall in pieces; and no care at all taken of the classes, so that, whether they met or not, it was all one; going to church and sacrament were forgotten; and the people rambled hither and thither as they listed. I met the society, and told them plain, I was resolved to have a regular society or none. I then read the rules, and desired every one to consider whether he was willing to walk by these rules or no. Those, in particular, of meeting their class every week, unless hindered by distance or sickness; and being constant at church and sacrament. I desired those who were so minded to meet me the next night, and the rest to stay away. The next night we had far the greater part. I spoke to every leader, concerning every one under his care, and put out every person whom they could not recommend to me. After this was done, out of 204 members, 174 remained. And these points shall be carried, if only fifty remain in society.”

On his return to London, he visited Ely and St. Ives, and met with an adventure which was strange, even in his experience. Approaching Ely, Mr. Dancer met him with a chaise. For a mile and a half, the road was inundated. “How must foot people come to Ely?” he asked. “Why,” replied simple Mr. Dancer, “they must wade.” The farther he went, the more difficult and dangerous was the way. Between Ely and St. Ives, snow fell in great abundance, and, at considerable peril, Wesley’s borrowed chaise was piloted by Mr. Tubbs, who trudged along, at the horse’s head, and, up to his knees in mud and water, naively said, “We fen men don’t mind a little dirt.” For four miles, Wesley was dragged through this “slough of despond,” when further progress, for the vehicle, became impossible. He tried to proceed on horseback; but this also was soon impracticable, the whole district being one wide waste of water. “Here, therefore,” says he, “I procured a boat, full twice as large as a kneading trough. I was at one end, and a boy at the other, who paddled me safe to Erith; where Miss L---- waited for me with another chaise, which brought me safe to St. Ives.”

Wesley concluded the year’s itinerary thus: “December 25--During the twelve festival days, we had the Lord’s supper daily; a little emblem of the primitive church.”

Was this a lingering remnant of Wesley’s high churchism? What would be said of the Methodists of the present day, were they to imitate the example of their founder?

The Calvinian controversy still proceeded. The Gospel Magazine told its readers, that Arminianism “is a system founded in ignorance, supported by pride, and will end in delusion.” The Hon. and Rev. W. B. Cadogan, a young man of twenty-three, and, though not yet ordained, already presented to the living of St. Giles, Reading, burned Wesley’s works in his kitchen, saying “he was determined to form his opinions from the Bible alone.”[219] The two Hills were silent, with the exception of Mr. Richard’s “Lash at Enthusiasm, in a Dialogue founded upon real Facts.” The principal Calvinistic work, published at this period, was Toplady’s “Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England,” in two volumes, 8vo, with an Introduction, most lamentably virulent. The subject is repulsive; but, rightly to understand Wesley’s provocations and patience, it is necessary to give extracts from this scandalous production of a conceited but clever man, who acted as though the Almighty had elected him to revile his neighbours, without either sense or reason.

“Mr. John Wesley and Mr. Walter Sellon are a pair of insignificant adversaries, who have arraigned, tried, and condemned the Church of England. In general, they are so excessively scurrilous and abusive, that contending with them resembles fighting with chimney sweepers, or bathing in a mud pool.” “Mr. Walter Sellon is Mr. John Wesley’s retainer general and whitewasher in ordinary. Arminianism is their mutual Dulcinea del Toboso. High mounted on Pine’s Rosinante, forth sallies Mr. John from Wine Street, Bristol, brandishing his reed, and vowing vengeance against all, who will not fall down and worship the Dutch image which he has set up. With an almost equal plenitude of zeal and prowess, forth trots Mr. Walter from Ave Maria Lane, low mounted on Cabe’s halting dapple. The knight and the squire having met at the rendezvous appointed, the former prances foremost, and, with as much haste as his limping steed will permit, doth trusty Walter amble after his master.” Sellon is Wesley’s “understrapper”; the “junto are Parthians aiming their arrows at the sun; and wolves exhausting their strength by howling at the moon.” Sellon “dips his pen in the common sewer”; and Wesley “scatters firebrands.” “The world has long seen, that unmixed politeness can no more soften Mr. Wesley’s rugged rudeness, than the melody of David’s harp could lay the north wind.” Sellon was “a small body of Pelagian divinity, bound in calf, neither gilt nor lettered”; “the meanest, and most rancorous Arminian priest that ever disgraced a surplice.” “We would advise his Arminian holiness of Rome to cashier the image of St. Austin from serving any longer as a support to his easy chair; and to procure an effigy of Mr. Walter Sellon, to serve--not, indeed, upon due recollection, as a stay to his holiness’s throne--nor even as a prop to his footstool; but as a leg to a certain convenience (a sella perforata, though not the sella porphyretica), whereon, I presume, his holiness deigns, occasionally, to sit.” Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament are “a wretched bundle of plagiarisms”; and he himself “drives a larger traffic in blunders and blasphemies than any other blunder merchant this island has produced.”

Such are a few of the mild and merciful oracular utterances of the elect Augustus Toplady; who says he blamed himself “for handling Wesley too gently, and for only giving him the whip when he deserved a scorpion.”

Fletcher, during 1774, published:--(1) “The Fictitious and the Genuine Creed; being ‘A Creed for Arminians,’ composed by Richard Hill, Esq.; to which is opposed a Creed for those who believe that Christ tasted death for every man.” 12mo, 52 pages. (2) “Logica Genevensis continued; or, the first part of the Fifth Check to Antinomianism, containing an Answer to ‘The Finishing Stroke’ of Richard Hill, Esq.; in which some remarks upon Mr. Fulsome’s Antinomian Creed, published by the Rev. Mr. Berridge, are occasionally introduced.” 12mo, 48 pages. (3) “Logica Genevensis continued; or, the second part of the Fifth Check to Antinomianism, containing a Defence of ‘Jack o’ Lanthorn,’ and ‘The Paper Kite,’ i. e. sincere obedience; and of the ‘Cobweb,’ i. e. the evangelical law of liberty; and of the ‘Valiant Sergeant, J. F.,’ i. e. the conditionality of perseverance, attacked by the Rev. Mr. Berridge, in his book called ‘The Christian World Unmasked.’” 12mo, 44 pages. (4) “The First Part of an Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism.” 12mo, 264 pages. (5) “Zelotes and Honestus reconciled; or, an Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism continued: being the first part of the Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth. With a Preface containing some Strictures upon the Three Letters of Richard Hill, Esq., which have been lately published.” 12mo, 175 pages.

The whole of these publications, extending to nearly 600 pages, are full of the greatest truths, and, like all Fletcher’s writings, are entirely free from personal abuse, and are worthy of a gentleman, a scholar, and a Christian.

We can hardly say as much of another work, published in 1774: “A Scourge to Calumny, in two parts, inscribed to Richard Hill, Esq. Part the First, demonstrating the Absurdity of that Gentleman’s Farrago. Part the Second, containing a full Answer to all that is material in his Farrago Double Distilled. By Thomas Olivers.” 12mo, 168 pages. Richard Hill deserved all he got; but Fletcher would have hesitated before charging him, as is done by Olivers, “with wilful untruth.” At the same time, it is impossible not to have a feeling of admiration for the sturdy Welshman, when he says to the wealthy squire, who had rudely called him Tom the cobbler: “Permit me to tell you, sir, that my name is as sacred to me, as yours is to you. If you were the greatest peer of the realm, and I the poorest peasant, the laws of God and of my country would authorise me to call you to an account, for every insult offered to my character, either as a fellow creature, or as an Englishman. You have no more authority, either from reason or religion, to call me Tom, than I have to call you Dick.”

Having hurled a lance in his own defence, he then proceeds to defend Wesley, telling Mr. Hill, that the man he had maligned was one who had published a hundred volumes, who travelled yearly about five thousand miles, preached yearly about a thousand sermons, visited as many sick beds as he preached sermons, and wrote twice as many letters; and who, though now between seventy and eighty years of age, “absolutely refused to abate, in the smallest degree, these mighty labours; but might be seen, at this very time, with his silver locks about his ears, and with a meagre, worn out, skeleton body, smiling at storms and tempests, at such labours and fatigues, at such difficulties and dangers, as, I believe,” says Olivers, “would be absolutely intolerable to you, sir, in conjunction with any four of your most flaming ministers.”

Wesley’s own publications, in 1774, were not many.

First of all, there was the fifteenth number of his Journal, already mentioned: 12mo, 112 pages. Then there was “An Extract from Dr. Cadogan’s Dissertations on the Gout, and all Chronic Diseases,” already referred to on page 111. 12mo, 49 pages. This was a bold stroke. Dr. Cadogan’s work had not been more than ten years published; it had been extremely popular, and had run through several editions; the doctor himself was now at the zenith of his fame, and did not die for three-and-twenty years afterwards; and, yet, Wesley takes upon himself, not to publish the work itself, but an extract from it, and to write a preface to it, in which he objects to the doctor’s wholesale condemnation of “smoked and salted meats, of pickles, of wine, and of flesh, thoroughly roasted or boiled.” Wesley says: “I recommend the book as the most masterly piece upon the subject, which has yet appeared in the English language.”

Another of Wesley’s publications was “Thoughts upon Necessity,” 12mo, 33 pages. This was one of his most thoughtful and able tracts. Its purport may be gathered from a sentence in his preface,--“I cannot believe the noblest creature in the visible world to be only a fine piece of clockwork.”

To the above must be added his “Thoughts on Slavery,” 8vo, 53 pages. It ought never to be forgotten, that John Wesley was one of the very first of England’s philanthropists to denounce the infamous evil of slavery. Statues, and other honours, declarative of a nation’s homage, have been justly awarded to Wilberforce; but Wesley’s record is on high; and the day has yet to come when the influence of his advanced views will be duly and gratefully recognised. Even some of Wesley’s friends were strangely blinded to a system that he boldly denounced as the “execrable sum of all villanies”; and Whitefield himself, only four years before, had died the possessor of a large number of human beings, who, in his will, were classed among his goods and chattels, and whom he unceremoniously bequeathed to “that elect lady, the Right Honourable Selina, Countess Dowager of Huntingdon.” Wesley’s pamphlet was no sooner issued than it brought upon him vindictive opposition, in a two shilling book, entitled “A Supplement to Mr. Wesley’s ‘Thoughts upon Slavery’”; in which the writer does his utmost to make the leader of the Methodists ridiculous. Wesley had counted the cost, and expected this. In America it was otherwise. There, at Philadelphia, Mr. Anthony Benezet republished Wesley’s tract at his own expense, and sent to him a friendly salutation, by William Dillwyn, “my old pupil,” says Benezet, “a valuable, religiously minded person, who is going a voyage to your country”;[220] and who, thirteen years afterwards, in 1787, became one of the founders of the Society for the Suppression of Slavery.

Wesley still continued the publication of his collected works; and, in 1774, seven additional volumes were issued, making the entire number thirty-two. The last seven, with the exception of three small tracts, consisted exclusively of his journals, coming down to September 1, 1770.

Perhaps there ought to be added another publication, which, though not printed by Wesley, was his production: “A Sermon preached at the opening of the new Meeting-house at Wakefield, on the 28th of April, 1774, by the Rev. John Wesley: taken down in shorthand, at the time of delivery, by Mr. Williamson, a teacher of that art, and published at the request of many of the hearers. Leeds: 1774. Sold by all Booksellers, price threepence.” 8vo, 12 pages. The text is 1 Corinthians i. 23, 24. The sermon, perhaps properly, has never been published in any edition of Wesley’s works. Though it contains nothing remarkable, it would enrich the Methodist Magazine, and would be gratefully welcomed by thousands of readers, who, without a reissue, will never see it.

FOOTNOTES:

[204] Manuscript letter.

[205] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 395.

[206] Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 386.

[207] The following probably refers to the ghost stories, in Wesley’s Journal, under date May 25, 1768. The fifteenth number of his journal, containing these accounts, was published in this same year, 1774.

[208] Glanvil, the author of “Some Considerations touching the being of Witches and Witchcraft”; and Mather, the author of “The Wonders of the Invisible World, or the Trials of Witches.”

[209] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 131.

[210] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 373.

[211] Mr. Brooke was three years the junior of Wesley, and, about the time when Methodism had its birth, was the honoured friend of many of the most distinguished personages in London society. Swift prophesied wonders of him; Pope received him with open arms; Pitt paid him marked attention; and the Prince of Wales presented him with valuable tokens of his friendship. The publication however of his tragedy, “Gustavus Vasa,” offended the government, and he retired to Ireland, and devoted his fine genius wholly to the muses. He was a man of rare ability, and an earnest Christian.

[212] Life of Mr. Henry Brooke, p. 90.

[213] He died in 1783, three years after Wesley published his revised and abridged edition in two vols., 12mo.

[214] Methodist Magazine, 1787, p. 160.

[215] Christian Miscellany, 1846, p. 93.

[216] Asbury’s Journal, vol. i., p. 112.

[217] Palmer’s “Four Years in the Old World,” p. 260.

[218] Taylor’s manuscript journal.

[219] Memoirs of Cadogan, p. 37.

[220] Methodist Magazine, 1787, p. 44.

1775. Age 72

According to his custom, Wesley spent the first two months of 1775 in London, and in short preaching excursions to Northamptonshire and other places.

The nation, at this period, was in a state of the highest excitement. On February 9, the two houses of parliament presented an address to King George III., stating that the British colonists in America had risen in rebellion, and begging his majesty to “take the most effectual measures to enforce obedience to the laws and authority of the supreme legislature.” His majesty’s reply was affirmative; and parliament was requested to increase both the naval and military forces.

Wesley was not the man to be silent in great emergencies. He writes: “Sunday, January 29--Finding many were dejected by the threatening posture of public affairs, I strongly enforced our Lord’s words, ‘Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?’” Three weeks later, he preached at the Foundery, what the Westminster Journal described as, “an awful sermon, on the horrid effects of a civil war”; observing “that, of all scourges from God, war was the most to be deprecated, because it often swept away all traces of religion, and even of humanity.” The text was Daniel iv. 27: “Let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.”

Both England and America were terribly excited; but space prevents our entering into details. Suffice it to say, that the alleged grievance of the American colonists was their being taxed, without their consent, by the English parliament. Dr. Johnson was known to be a great hater as well as a great genius. “Sir,” said he, concerning the miscellaneous and mongrel colonists across the Atlantic, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.” No wonder that the English government, already at their wits’ end, applied to Johnson to assist them with his powerful pen. He did so, by the publication, in 1775, of his famous pamphlet, entitled, “Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.”[221] No sooner was it issued, than, with or without leave, Wesley abridged it, and, without the least reference to its origin, published it as his own, in a quarto sheet of four pages, with the title, “A Calm Address to our American Colonies. By the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, M.A. Price one penny.”

This was an injudicious and unwarrantable act, except on the supposition that there was some secret understanding between him and Johnson; and even then the thing had too much the aspect of plagiarism to be wise. Johnson greatly reverenced Patty Hall, Wesley’s unfortunate sister, and always treated her as one of his confidential friends. For Wesley himself he also entertained great respect, and was only vexed that he was not able to secure more of his company. “John Wesley’s conversation,” said he, “is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do.”[222] There was unquestionably a friendship between the two; and it is possible that Wesley had Johnson’s consent to his publication of the abridgment of Johnson’s pamphlet. In a letter to Wesley, dated February 6, 1776, Johnson wrote: “I have thanks to return for the addition of your important suffrage to my argument on the American question. To have gained such a mind as yours may justly confirm me in my own opinion. What effect my paper has had upon the public I know not; but I have no reason to be discouraged. The lecturer was surely in the right who, though he saw his audience slinking away, refused to quit the chair while Plato stayed.”[223] This certainly gives some countenance to the supposition we have ventured to suggest. Still, there can be no doubt that Wesley fairly exposed himself to acrimonious attack by publishing the brochure as his own.

Wesley was now one of the most conspicuous men in England; and, perhaps, no ecclesiastical personage of the realm swayed a wider influence over the masses, on questions involving religious interests. Hence, the publication of his “Calm Address” produced an unparalleled sensation; and this was the greater, because it was known that, up to this period, Wesley had sympathised with the colonists rather than otherwise. Indeed, he had declared five years before, in his “Free Thoughts on Public Affairs”: “I do not defend the measures which have been taken with regard to America; I doubt whether any man can defend them, either on the foot of law, equity, or prudence.” Of course, Wesley had a perfect right to change his opinions, which he says he did on reading Johnson’s “Taxation no Tyranny”; but when a public man like Wesley does that, he can hardly escape criticism of an unfriendly nature. The world dislikes changelings, and hesitates to trust them. Wesley, in the teeth of former sentiments, now made Johnson’s sentiments his own, contending not only that the English parliament had power to tax the American colonies, but also that it was a reasonable thing for the colonists to reimburse the mother country for some part of the large expense that had been incurred in defending the colonial rights, and that the whole of the present agitation was promoted by a few men in England, who were determined enemies to monarchy, and who wished to establish a republican form of government, which, of all others, was the most despotic. The result was, Wesley was at once pounced upon as a plagiarist and a renegade of the worst description. Countless pamphlets were published, only a few of which can be noticed here.

One of his principal antagonists was the Rev. Caleb Evans, then a baptist minister at Broadmead, Bristol, and in the thirty-seventh year of his age,--a man of good sense, a diligent student, a faithful pastor, and extensively useful; but a rampant advocate of what was called liberty, and, therefore, a well wisher to the republican rebellion across the Atlantic.

Evans’s first publication was “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, occasioned by his ‘Calm Address’”: 12mo, 24 pages. He taunts Wesley with having so suddenly changed his opinions; with having, at the late election, advised the Bristol Methodists to vote for the “American candidate”; and with having, at no remote period, recommended a book entitled, “An Argument in Defence of the exclusive right claimed by the Colonies to tax themselves.”

Wesley’s reply to this was the republication of his “Calm Address,” with a preface prefixed, in which he acknowledges that the “Address” was an extract “of the chief arguments from ‘Taxation no Tyranny,’” with “an application” of his own “to those whom it most concerned.” In a page and a half he answers Evans’s objections, and says that all “the arguments in his tract may be contained in a nutshell.”

Another attack on Wesley, which, before the year was out, reached a second edition, was “A Cool Reply to a Calm Address, lately published by Mr. John Wesley. By T. S.” 12mo, 33 pages. What this production lacked in argument it made up in scurrilous innuendo. Wesley is told that his “religious principles are a species of popery,” and that he is in quest of “a mitre”; though he “ought to sit in sackcloth and pour dust upon his head.”

Evans also, before the expiration of 1775, issued a new edition of his letter, 12mo, 32 pages, in the preface to which he waxes angry, in exposing what he calls “the shameful versatility and disingenuity of this artful man;” and does his utmost to fasten upon Wesley a deliberate falsehood, because Wesley had denied that he had ever seen the book which Evans had accused him of recommending, though both William Pine, his own printer, and the Rev. James Roquet, his friend, were both prepared to attest on oath that he had recommended the book to them.

Here then was a direct personal issue between them. Thomas Olivers, in his “Full Defence of the Rev. John Wesley,” 12mo, 24 pages, published in 1776, gives the explanation. Wesley’s denial was not owing to untruthfulness, but forgetfulness. “Mr. Wesley,” says Olivers, “is now an old man, and yet has such a variety and multiplicity of business as few men could manage, even in the prime of life. There are few weeks in which he does not travel two or three hundred miles; preach and exhort in public between twenty and thirty times, and often more; answer thirty or forty letters; speak with as many persons in private, concerning things of deep importance; and prepare, either in whole or in part, something for the press. Add to all this, that often, in that short space of time, a variety of tracts on different subjects pass through his hands, particularly as he travels, and that if any tract does not immediately relate to his office as a divine, though he may give it a cursory reading, yet he does not think it necessary to charge his memory with its contents: I say, when all these things are considered, no one will think it strange that his memory should often fail.”

This was a reasonable explanation of an awkward discrepancy; but Wesley, who was incapable of falsehood, hardly needed the defence of his ingenious friend Olivers. He had already written the following to Mr. Roquet himself.

“November 12, 1775.

“DEAR JAMES,--I will now simply tell you the thing as it is. As I was returning from the Leeds conference, one gave me the tract which you refer to, part of which I read on my journey. The spirit of it I observed to be admirably good; and I then thought the arguments conclusive. In consequence of which, I suppose, (though I do not remember it,) I recommended it both to you and others; but I had so entirely forgotten it, that even when it was brought to me the other day, I could not recollect that I had seen it.

“I am, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[224]

Besides the pamphlets already mentioned, there were published, in 1775: “A Second Answer to Mr. John Wesley. By W. D.” 12mo, 22 pages. Also, “A Wolf in Sheep’s Cloathing; or an Old Jesuit Unmasked. Containing an account of the wonderful apparition of Father Petre’s Ghost, in the form of the Rev. John Wesley. By Patrick Bull, Esq.” 12mo, 24 pages: a vile production in which Wesley is branded as “a chaplain in ordinary to the Furies, or minister extraordinary to Bellona, goddess of war;” and is said to have “solicited to be made bishop of Quebec;” but who, for “the jacobitical doctrines contained in his ‘Calm Address,’ deserves to be presented, not with lawn sleeves, but with a hempen neckcloth; and, instead of a mitre, ought to have his head adorned with a white nightcap drawn over his eyes.”

Toplady was not likely to allow such an opportunity to pass without embracing it to vent his venom. Hence the publication of his 12mo tract of 24 pages, entitled, “An Old Fox Tarr’d and Feather’d”; with a fox’s head, in canonicals, for a frontispiece. The opening sentence is characteristic of the whole effusion. “Whereunto shall I liken Mr. John Wesley? and with what shall I compare him? I will liken him unto a low and puny tadpole in divinity, which proudly seeks to disembowel a high and mighty whale in politics.” He then proceeds to say, that, “both as to matter and expression Wesley’s ‘Calm Address’ is a bundle of Lilliputian shafts, picked and stolen out of Dr. Johnson’s pincushion. If Mr. Wesley had the least spark of shame remaining, the simple detection of such enormous literary theft would be more terrible to his feelings than an English pumping or an American tarring and feathering.”

Another pamphlet, issued in the same year, was “A Constitutional Answer to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to the American Colonies’”: 12mo, 23 pages. The last sentence is as follows: “As I have formerly seen you, with pleasure, in the character of a Christian minister, doing some good in the moral world; so it is with regret I now see you in the character of a court sycophant, doing much more mischief in the political world; injuring, perhaps irreparably injuring, your country.”

“Americus,” also, in the Gentleman’s Magazine,[225] had his fling against the poor Methodist. One sentence from his polished quiver must suffice, as a specimen of others: “And now, Mr. Wesley, I take my leave of you. You have forgot the precept of your Master, that God and mammon cannot be served together. You have one eye upon a pension, and the other upon heaven,--one hand stretched out to the king, and the other raised up to God. I pray that the first may reward you, and the last forgive you!”

These extracts might be multiplied almost ad infinitum. We only add, that Fletcher, as well as Olivers, came to the defence of Wesley. The former published his “Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address’: in some Letters to Mr. Caleb Evans.” 12mo, 70 pages. This evoked from Evans an unworthy acrimonious “Reply,” 12mo, 103 pages, in which the angry baptist not only rakes up the whole story respecting Wesley, Roquet, and Pine, but finishes by telling the loving and accomplished Fletcher, that he is “the most verbose, and most unmeaning and unfair disputant, that ever took up the polemical gauntlet.”

Hampson and Whitehead censure Wesley for turning a politician. This is a point upon which opinions will differ. Certain it is, however, that the political part which Wesley took made him as many enemies as his caveat against Calvinism had done. Within three weeks, forty thousand copies of his “Calm Address” were printed and put into circulation; and excited so much anger among the English friends of the revolted colonists, that they would willingly have burnt both him and his Address together. To accuse him of mercenary motives was an unfounded, base, malignant fabrication. It is true, that the government were so pleased with his little tract that copies were ordered to be distributed at the doors of all the metropolitan churches; and it is said that one of the highest officers of state waited upon him, asking whether government could in any way be of service to either himself or his people. Wesley replied that he “looked for no favours, and only desired the continuance of civil and religious privileges.” The nobleman pressed the question, but again received the same answer. In retiring, he observed: “In all probability, sir, you have some charities which are dear to you; by accepting £50 from the privy purse, to appropriate as you may deem proper, you will give great pleasure to those for whom I act.” This was accepted; but “Mr. Wesley,” says Dr. Clarke, who related the story, “expressed himself to me as sorry that he had not requested to be made a royal missionary, and to have the privilege of preaching in every church.[226]”

This might be true; but, in conclusion, we must add to it Wesley’s own account, as published at the time, in Lloyd’s Evening Post.

“SIR,--I have been seriously asked,--From what motive did you publish your ‘Calm Address to the American Colonies’?

“I seriously answer, Not to get money. Had that been my motive, I should have swelled it into a shilling pamphlet, and have entered it at Stationers’ Hall.

“Not to get preferment for myself, or my brother’s children. I am a little too old to gape after it myself; and if my brother or I sought it for them, we have only to show them to the world.

“Not to please any man living, high or low. I know mankind too well. I know they that love you for political service, love you less than their dinner; and they that hate you, hate you worse than the devil.

“Least of all, did I write with a view to inflame any; just the contrary. I contributed my mite toward putting out the flame which rages all over the land. This I have more opportunity of observing than any other man in England. I see with pain to what a height this already rises, in every part of the nation. And I see many pouring oil into the flame, by crying out, ‘How unjustly, how cruelly, the king is using the poor Americans; who are only contending for their liberty, and for their legal privileges!’

“Now there is no possible way to put out this flame, or hinder its rising higher and higher, but to show that the Americans are not used either cruelly or unjustly; that they are not injured at all, seeing they are not contending for liberty,--this they had even in its full extent, both civil and religious; neither for any legal privileges, for they enjoy all that their charters grant. But what they contend for is the illegal privilege of being exempt from parliamentary taxation,--a privilege this which no charter ever gave to any American colony yet; which no charter can give, unless it be confirmed both by king, lords, and commons; which, in fact, our colonies never had; which they never claimed till the present reign; and probably they would not have claimed it now, had they not been incited thereto by letters from England.

“This being the real state of the question, without any colouring or aggravation, what impartial man can either blame the king, or commend the Americans?

“With this view, to quench the fire, by laying the blame where it was due, the ‘Calm Address’ was written.

“As to reviewers, newswriters, London Magazines, and all that kind of gentlemen, they behave just as I expected they would. And let them lick up Mr. Toplady’s spittle still; a champion worthy of their cause.

“Sir, I am your humble servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

Thus things proceeded. England was flooded with political pamphlets; the houses of parliament echoed with the sonorous periods of senatorial oratory; and the hill sides and river banks of America rang with sharp and dissonant peals of musketry. Blood had been shed at Lexington; and, at the bungling battle at Bunker Hill, the English had lost 1050 men, in killed and wounded. In the month of November, Wesley says: “I was desired to preach, in Bethnal Green church, a charity sermon for the widows and orphans of the soldiers that were killed in America. Knowing how many would seek occasion of offence, I wrote down my sermon.” The discourse was immediately published, with the title, “A Sermon preached at St. Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, on Sunday, November 12, 1775. By John Wesley, M.A. For the benefit of the widows and orphans of the soldiers who lately fell near Boston, in New England.” 8vo, 33 pages. Wesley speaks of the terrible distress from which the nation was suffering. Thousands were totally unemployed. He had seen not a few of them “standing in the streets, with pale looks, hollow eyes, and meagre limbs.” He says, he had “known families, who, a few years ago, lived in an easy, genteel manner,” driven to the necessity of repairing to the fields “to pick up the turnips which the cattle had left: and which they boiled, if they could get a few sticks for that purpose, or otherwise ate them raw.” Thousands had “screamed for liberty till they were utterly distracted, and their intellects quite confounded.” “In every town, men, who were once of a calm, mild, friendly temper, were now mad with party zeal, foaming with rage against their quiet neighbours, ready to tear out one another’s throats, and to plunge their swords into each other’s bowels.” He then proceeds to descant, in withering terms, on the sins of the nation,--money getting, lying, gluttony, idleness, and profanity. The sermon altogether, considering the time and circumstances of its delivery, was one of the boldest he ever preached; and, of course, added to the rage that his “Calm Address” had kindled. The Gospel Magazine, in reviewing it, remarks: “So many barrels of tar have of late been lavished on Mr. Wesley, and so many bags of feathers have been shaken over him, on account of his new political apostasy, that it might seem unmerciful in us, should we add to the anointings and to the powderings, which he has already so plentifully, though not undeservedly, received. We shall therefore, from a principle of compassion, touch his sermon with the tenderer hand, and let the sermoniser himself very lightly off, the enormity of his demerits considered.” And then the tender reviewer, in his unmerited compassion, proceeds to describe “the sermon as being as dry as an old piece of leather that has been tanned five thousand times over”; and the preacher as “a tip-top perfectionist in the art of lying.” All this revives a recollection of “The Old Fox tarred and feathered,”--and of its polite author, the Rev. Augustus Toplady, who had just now become the courteous editor of the misnamed Gospel Magazine.

At the conference of 1774, Wesley had 2204 members of society in America, and seven itinerant preachers, Messrs. Rankin, Asbury, Shadford, Williams, King, Dempster, and Rodda; and to direct these, in the midst of a great rebellion, required more than ordinary wisdom. A few extracts from his letters to Thomas Rankin will not be without interest.

“LONDON, March 1, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--As soon as possible, you must come to a full and clear explanation, both with brother Asbury, and with Jemmy Dempster. But I advise brother Asbury to return to England the first opportunity.

“There is now a probability that God will hear prayer, and turn the counsels of Ahithophel into foolishness. It is not unlikely that peace will be reestablished between England and the colonies. But, certainly, the present doubtful situation of affairs may be improved to the benefit of many. They may be strongly incited now ‘to break off their sins by repentance, if it may be a lengthening of their tranquillity,’

“I add a line to all the preachers:--

“My Dear Brethren,--You were never in your lives in so critical a situation as you are at this time. It is your part to be peacemakers; to be loving and tender to all; but to addict yourselves to no party. In spite of all solicitations, of rough or smooth words, say not one word against one or the other side. Keep yourselves pure: do all you can to help and soften all; but beware how you adopt another’s jar. See that you act in full union with each other; this is of the utmost consequence. Not only let there be no bitterness or anger, but no shyness or coldness, between you. Mark all those who would set one of you against the other. Some such will never be wanting. But give them no countenance; rather ferret them out, and drag them into open day. The conduct of T. Rankin has been suitable to the Methodist plan. I hope all of you tread in his steps. Let your eye be single. Be in peace with each other, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Under the same date, Charles Wesley wrote to Rankin as follows.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--As to public affairs, I wish you to be like-minded with me. I am of neither side, and yet of both; on the side of New England, and of Old. Private Christians are excused, exempted, privileged, to take no part in civil troubles. We love all, and pray for all, with a sincere and impartial love. Faults there may be on both sides; but such as neither you nor I can remedy: therefore, let us, and all our children, give ourselves unto prayer, and so stand still and see the salvation of God.”

The war was not the only thing that gave Wesley trouble. Thomas Rankin and Francis Asbury were not able to agree; and Miss Gilbert had actually written to Asbury, stating that Mr. Gilbert was about to leave Antigua; and wishing him to come, and to take charge of the three hundred Methodists in that island. Asbury was inclined to accept of this invitation; but was deterred by his want of ordination, and therefore, as he thought, want of authority to administer the sacraments of the Christian church. Wesley wished him to return to England. What a disaster, if he had![227] These facts will cast light on the following letters.

“PORTARLINGTON, April 21, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--Brother Asbury has sent me a few lines, and I thank him for them. But I do not advise him to go to Antigua. Let him come home without delay. If one or two stout, healthy young men would willingly offer themselves to that service, I should have no objection; but none should go, unless he was fully persuaded in his own mind. I am afraid, you will soon find a day of trial: the clouds are black both over England and America. It is well if this summer passes over without some showers of blood. And if the storm once begins in America, it will soon spread to Great Britain.

“I am, dear Tommy, etc.,

“JOHN WESLEY.”

“BALLINROBE, May 19, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--I doubt not but brother Asbury and you will part friends; I hope I shall see him at the conference. He is quite an upright man. I apprehend he will go through his work more cheerfully when he is a little distance from me.

“We must speak the plain truth, wherever we are, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. And among our societies we must enforce our rules, with all mildness and steadiness.

“Never was there a time, when it was more necessary for all that fear God, both in England and in America, to wrestle with God in mighty prayer. In all the other judgments of God, the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness; but wherever war breaks out, God is forgotten, if He be not set at open defiance. What a glorious work of God was at Cambuslang and Kilsyth, from 1740 to 1744! But the war that followed tore it all up by the roots, and left scarce any trace of it behind; insomuch that, when I diligently inquired a few years after, I could not find one that retained the life of God!”

“CLARMAIN, June 13, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--I am afraid our correspondence, for the time to come, will be more uncertain than ever, since the sword is drawn; and it is well if they have not, on both sides, thrown away the scabbard. What will the end of these things be, either in Europe or America? It seems, huge confusion and distress, such as neither we nor our fathers had known![228] But it is enough, if all issues in glory to God, and peace and goodwill among men. Never had America such a call to repentance; for, unless general reformation prevent general destruction, what a scene will soon be opened! Ruin and desolation must soon overspread the land; and fair houses be turned into ruinous heaps. But what are those strange phenomena which you speak of? Send me an account of just so much as you can depend on. Should you not appoint in America, as we do in England and Ireland, one or more general days of fasting and prayer?”

“NEAR LEEDS, July 28, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--I rejoice to hear that the work of our Lord still prospers in your hands. If the temple is built even in troublous times, it is not by the power of man. I rejoice too over honest Francis Asbury, and hope he will no more enter into temptation. I know no reason why you should not print the names of the American preachers. You may print an edition of the ‘Christian Pattern,’ and apply the profits of it to the payment of the debt. The societies should pay the passage of the preachers. But you must not imagine, that any more of them will come to America till these troubles are at an end.

“Certainly, this is the point which we should insist upon, in season and out of season. The universal corruption of all orders and degrees of men loudly calls for the vengeance of God; and, inasmuch as all other nations are equally corrupt, it seems God will punish us by one another. What can prevent this, but a universal, or, at least, a general repentance?”

“LONDON, August 13, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--I am not sorry that brother Asbury stays with you another year. In that time, it will be seen what God will do with North America; and you will easily judge whether our preachers are called to remain any longer therein. If they are, God will make their way plain, and give them favour even with the men that delight in war. The clouds do indeed gather more and more; and it seems a heavy storm will follow; certainly it will, unless the prayers of the faithful obtain a longer reprieve.”

“LONDON, October 20, 1775.

“DEAR TOMMY,--I am glad you are going into North Carolina; and why not into South Carolina too? I apprehend, those provinces would bear much fruit, as most parts of them are fresh, unbroken ground. And as the people are further removed from the din of war, they may be more susceptible of the gospel of peace.

“A paper was sent to me lately, occasioned by the troubles in America; but it would not do good. It is abundantly too tart; and nothing of that kind will be of service now. All parties are already too much sharpened against each other; we must pour water, not oil, into the flame. I had written a little tract[229] upon the subject before I knew the American ports were shut up. I think there is not one sharp word therein; I did not design there should. However, many are excessively angry; and would willingly burn me and it together. Indeed it is provoking; I suppose above forty thousand of them have been printed in three weeks, and still the demand for them is as great as ever.

“I am entirely of your mind. I am persuaded, love and tender measures will do far more than violence. And if I should have an interview with a great man, which seems to be not unlikely, I will tell him so, without any circumlocution.

“I am, dear Tommy, your affectionate friend and brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[230]

The “great man” referred to was probably Lord North, the prime minister of the English cabinet, to whom, and to the Earl of Dartmouth, Wesley had, four months before, addressed most important letters, in which he strongly endeavoured to convince the government of the exceedingly critical condition of public matters. No man in the kingdom had suffered more from the violation of English law than Wesley had; and yet now, in England’s extremity, no man evinced a more loyal spirit than was evinced by him. Indeed, his loyalty became, in the eyes of his enemies, a crime, and brought him, not reward, but ruffianly reproach. An extract from the letters to the two ministers of state may fitly, for the present, close these American reminiscences.

“ARMAGH, June 15, 1775.

“MY LORD,--Whether my writing do any good or no, it need do no harm; for it rests with your lordship whether any eye but your own shall see it.

“I do not enter upon the question, whether the Americans are in the right or in the wrong. Here all my prejudices are against the Americans; for I am a high churchman,[231] the son of a high churchman, bred up, from my childhood, in the highest notions of passive obedience and non-resistance; and yet, in spite of all my long rooted prejudices, I cannot avoid thinking, if I think at all, that an oppressed people asked for nothing more than their legal rights, and that in the most modest and inoffensive manner that the nature of the thing would allow.[232] But waiving all considerations of right and wrong, I ask, is it common sense to use force towards the Americans? These men will not be frightened; and it seems, they will not be conquered so easily as was at first imagined. They will probably dispute every inch of ground; and, if they die, die sword in hand. Indeed, some of our valiant officers say, ‘Two thousand men will clear America of these rebels.’ No, nor twenty thousand, be they rebels or not, nor perhaps treble that number. They are as strong men as you; they are as valiant as you, if not abundantly more valiant, for they are one and all enthusiasts,--enthusiasts for liberty. They are calm, deliberate enthusiasts; and we know how this principle ‘breathes into softer souls stern love of war, and thirst of vengeance, and contempt of death.’ We know men, animated with this spirit, will leap into a fire, or rush into a cannon’s mouth.

“‘But they have no experience in war.’ And how much more have our troops? Very few of them ever saw a battle. ‘But they have no discipline.’ That is an entire mistake. Already they have near as much as our army, and they will learn more of it every day; so that, in a short time, if the fatal occasion continue, they will understand it as well as their assailants.[233] ‘But they are divided amongst themselves.’ No, my lord, they are terribly united; not in the province of New England only, but down as low as the Jerseys and Pennsylvania. The bulk of the people are so united, that to speak a word in favour of the present English measures would almost endanger a man’s life. Those who informed me of this are no sycophants; they say nothing to curry favour; they have nothing to gain or lose by me. But they speak with sorrow of heart what they have seen with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears.

“These men think, one and all, be it right or wrong, that they are contending pro aris et focis; for their wives, children, and liberty. What an advantage have they herein over many that fight only for pay! none of whom care a straw for the cause wherein they are engaged; most of whom strongly disapprove of it. Have they not another considerable advantage? Is there occasion to recruit troops? Their supplies are at hand, and all round about them. Ours are three thousand miles off. Are we then able to conquer the Americans, suppose they are left to themselves, suppose all our neighbours should stand stock still, and leave us and them to fight it out? But we are not sure of this. Nor are we sure that all our neighbours will stand stock still. I doubt they have not promised it; and, if they had, could we rely upon those promises? ‘Yet, it is not probable they will send ships or men to America.’ Is there not a shorter way? Do they not know where England and Ireland lie? And have they not troops, as well as ships, in readiness? All Europe is well apprised of this; only the English know nothing of the matter! What if they find means to land but two thousand men? Where are the troops in England or Ireland to oppose them? Why, cutting the throats of their brethren in America! Poor England, in the meantime!

“‘But we have our militia--our valiant, disciplined militia. These will effectually oppose them.’ Give me leave, my lord, to relate a little circumstance, of which I was informed by a clergyman who knew the fact. In 1716, a large body of militia were marching towards Preston against the rebels. In a wood, which they were passing by, a boy happened to discharge his fowling piece. The soldiers gave up all for lost, and, by common consent, threw down their arms, and ran for life. So much dependence is to be placed on our valorous militia.

“But, my lord, this is not all. We have thousands of enemies, perhaps more dangerous than French or Spaniards. As I travel four or five thousand miles every year, I have an opportunity of conversing freely with more persons of every denomination than any one else in the three kingdoms. I cannot but know the general disposition of the people,--English, Scots, and Irish; and I know a large majority of them are exasperated almost to madness. Exactly so they were throughout England and Scotland about the year 1640, and, in a great measure, by the same means; by inflammatory papers, which were spread, as they are now, with the utmost diligence, in every corner of the land. Hereby the bulk of the population were effectually cured of all love and reverence for the king. So that, first despising, then hating him, they were just ripe for open rebellion. And, I assure your lordship, so they are now. They want nothing but a leader.

“Two circumstances more are deserving to be considered: the one, that there was, at that time, a decay of general trade almost throughout the kingdom; the other, there was a common dearness of provisions. The case is the same, in both respects, at this day. So that, even now, there are multitudes of people that, having nothing to do, and nothing to eat, are ready for the first bidder; and that, without inquiring into the merits of the case, would flock to any that would give them bread.

“Upon the whole, I am really sometimes afraid that this evil is from the Lord. When I consider the astonishing luxury of the rich, and the shocking impiety of rich and poor, I doubt whether general dissoluteness of manners does not demand a general visitation. Perhaps the decree is already gone forth from the Governor of the world. Perhaps even now:

‘As he that buys, surveys a ground, So the destroying angel measures it around. Calm he surveys the perishing nation; Ruin behind him stalks, and empty desolation.’

“But we Englishmen are too wise to acknowledge that God has anything to do in the world! Otherwise should we not seek Him by fasting and prayer, before He lets the lifted thunder drop? O my lord, if your lordship can do anything, let it not be wanting! For God’s sake, for the sake of the king, of the nation, of your lovely family, remember Rehoboam! Remember Philip the Second! Remember King Charles the First!

“I am, with true regard, my lord, your lordship’s obedient servant,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[234]

Whatever may be thought of the principle advocated in Wesley’s “Calm Address to the American Colonies,” namely, that taxation without representation is no tyranny, there can be no doubt that his letters to the premier and to the colonial secretary are full of warnings and foresight which were terribly fulfilled; and, for fidelity, fulness, terseness, in short, for multum in parvo, were perhaps without a parallel in the correspondence of these ministers of state.

Much space has been occupied with these American affairs. If an apology were needed, the reader might be courteously reminded (1) that John Wesley’s “Calm Address” threw, not Methodism only, but the nation, into a fever of excitement, and, directly and indirectly, gave birth to scores of pamphlets on the same subject; (2) that the American rebellion is one of the greatest events in English history; and (3) that, in consequence of the great majority of the clergy of the English Church fleeing from the colonies, when the colonies most needed them, Methodism, under the sagacious management of the apostolic Asbury, took the place which had hitherto been occupied by Anglican episcopacy; and, henceforth, literally became the predominant religion of what is likely to be the greatest and most prosperous country in the world.

We must now return to Wesley in a more private capacity.

The reader has long lost sight of Peter Bohler. In 1739, after the conversion of the two Wesleys, Bohler went to Georgia, and his life, since then, had been spent in unwearied Christian work, partly in America and partly in Europe. His labours now were nearly ended; and, on April 27, 1775, he peacefully expired, in London, at the age of sixty-three. For years past, correspondence seems to have ceased between Wesley and his early Moravian friend. Within three months of Bohler’s death, it was renewed. Wesley wrote to him on the 5th of February, and Bohler, in a beautifully Christian letter, responded. A few days later, Wesley wrote again, as follows.

“February 18, 1775.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--When I say, ‘I hope I shall never be constrained to speak otherwise of them’ (the Moravians), I do not mean, that I have any expectation this will ever happen. Probably it never will. I never did speak but when I believed it was my duty so to do. And, if they would calmly consider what I have spoken from March 10, 1736, and were open to conviction, they might be such Christians as are hardly in the world besides. I have not lost sight of you yet. Indeed, I cannot, if you are ‘a city set upon a hill.’

“Perhaps no one living is a greater lover of peace, or has laboured more for it, than I; particularly, among the children of God.[235] I set out, near fifty years ago, with this principle, ‘Whosoever doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ But there is no one living that has been more abused for his pains, even to this day. But it is all well. By the grace of God, I shall go on, following peace with all men, and loving your Brethren beyond any body of men upon earth, except the Methodists.

“Wishing you every gospel blessing, I remain your very affectionate brother, “JOHN WESLEY.”[236]

Thus ended Wesley’s intercourse with Bohler, till it was renewed in heaven.

Eleven days after the above was written, Wesley left London for Ireland, proceeding, as usual, by way of Bristol and the midland counties. Nothing remarkable occurred in his journey to Liverpool. Of course, he was preaching continually, and, winter though it was, sometimes out of doors. While doing so, at Newcastle under Lyne, “a buffoon,” he says, “laboured to interrupt him; but, as he was bawling, with his mouth wide open, some arch boys gave him such a mouthful of dirt as quite satisfied him.”

At Dublin, at the request of “the good old dean,” he assisted in administering the Lord’s supper in St. Patrick’s. At Maryborough, he complied with the wish of the clergyman, and preached in the parish church. The Methodist chapel at Waterford he describes as “a foul, horrid, miserable hole.” For the first time, he preached at Clones, using, as his church, an old Danish fort. Here Methodism had been introduced about the year 1768. The papists were furious, and magistrates refused to interfere; but, just when the place was about to be given up, a military pensioner, an old presbyterian, took his stand in the centre of the market, and, shouldering his musket, declared that he would shoot the first man that attempted to disturb the preacher. The rioters were frightened; and the rough old soldier mounted guard every sabbath afternoon, until opposition ceased.[237]

At Londonderry, Wesley accepted the bishop’s invitation to dinner; the prelate remarking, “I know you do not love our hours, and will therefore order dinner to be on the table between two and three o’clock.” “We had,” says Wesley, “a piece of boiled beef, and an English pudding. This is true good breeding.”

At Castle Caulfield, writes Wesley, with the utmost sang froid, “the rain came plentifully, through the thatch, into my lodging room; but I found no present inconvenience, and was not careful for the morrow.”

Six days afterwards, Wesley was seized with illness, which nearly proved fatal; but for three days more, though in a burning fever, he continued travelling and preaching almost as usual. He had now reached the town of Lurgan, where, four years previously, a society had been formed, one of the first members being Isaac Bullock, an old soldier, who had been at the capture of several islands in the West Indies, and was one of sixty, called “the forlorn hope,” who, in 1762, first entered the breach at the storming of Havannah, only six of the sixty escaping with their lives. The house of this sturdy veteran was the preaching place of the Lurgan Methodists.[238] Here Wesley was obliged to succumb to fever. He sent for a physician, who told him he must rest. Wesley replied, he could not, as he “had appointed to preach at several places, and must preach as long as he could speak.” The doctor gave him medicine, and off he went to Tanderagee, and then to a gentleman’s seat, three miles beyond Lisburn, where nature sank, and the conquered evangelist was compelled to take his bed. Strength, memory, and mind entirely failed. For three days, he lay more dead than alive. His tongue was black and swollen. He was violently convulsed. For some time his pulse was not discernible. Hope was almost gone; when Joseph Bradford, his travelling companion, came with a cup, and said, “Sir, you must take this.” Wesley writes: “I thought, ‘I will, if I can swallow, to please him; for it will do me neither harm nor good.’ Immediately it set me a vomiting; my heart began to beat, and my pulse to play again; and, from that hour, the extremity of the symptoms abated.” Six days afterwards, to the astonishment of his friends, and, as he says, “trusting in God,” he set out for Dublin, where, within a week, he was preaching as usual.

This was a memorable epoch, even in Wesley’s eventful life. The house in which he lay so dangerously ill was the hospitable dwelling of Mr. Gayer, of Derryaghey,[239] a devoted Methodist of great respectability, who had built a chapel in the village, and, for the accommodation of the preachers, a room, which went by the name of “the prophet’s chamber.” His daughter, afterwards Mrs. Wolfenden, was now a converted girl, sixteen years of age, and, with her mother, was Wesley’s nurse. Great anxiety was felt for Wesley’s life, and, while a few select friends were praying that, as in the case of Hezekiah, God would add to his days fifteen years, Mrs. Gayer suddenly rose from her knees, and cried, “The prayer is granted!” Marvellously enough, Wesley’s recovery immediately commenced, and he survived, from June 1775 to March 1791, a period of just fifteen years, and a few months over.

But even this was not all the wonder. Alexander Mather, at the time, was at Sheerness, in Kent, where he read, in the newspapers, that Wesley was actually dead. Mather says, he was not able to give credence to this; and, before he went to preach, he opened his Bible on the words, “Behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years” (Isa. xxxviii. 5); and away he went to the chapel, and began to pray that the promise, made to Hezekiah, might be fulfilled in the case of Wesley.[240] These are striking facts. We give them as we find them. The sceptic will sneer; but the Christian will exercise an unfaltering faith in the glorious text, which, in the history of the church, has been confirmed in instances without number: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

The news of Wesley’s dangerous illness created the utmost consternation among his friends. The following is a letter, hitherto unpublished, addressed by Charles Wesley to Joseph Bradford, Wesley’s faithful companion.

“BRISTOL, June 29, 1775.

“DEAR JOSEPH,--Be of good cheer. The Lord liveth, and all live to Him. Your last is just arrived, and has cut off all hope of my brother’s recovery. If he could hold out till now, that is, ten days longer, he might recover; but I dare not allow myself to hope it, till I hear from you again. The people here, and in London, and every place, are swallowed up in sorrow. But sorrow and death will soon be swallowed up in life everlasting. You will be careful of my brother’s papers, etc., till you see his executors. God shall reward your fidelity and love. I seem scarce separated from him whom I shall so very soon overtake. We were united in our lives, and in our death not divided. Brethren, pray a very little longer for your loving servant--CHARLES WESLEY.

“Thursday Evening.

“Yours of the 20th, I have this moment received. It only confirms my fears. My brother, soon after you wrote, in all probability, entered into the joy of his Lord. Yet write again, and send me the particulars. I have not, and never more shall have, strength for such a journey. The Lord prepare us for a speedy removal to our heavenly country!

“CHARLES WESLEY.”

The tidings of Wesley’s recovery produced corresponding joy. His old friend and former itinerant, now the Rev. Dr. John Jones, of Harwich, wrote to him as follows.

“HARWICH, July 29, 1775.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--I cannot express what I felt when I was informed that you were both senseless and speechless. It was like life from the dead when I heard you were out of danger and able to sit up. It gave me some hope, that God has not yet given up these sinful nations, and that He will strive with us a little longer. Time was when you would have taken my advice, at least, in some things. Let me entreat, let me beseech you, to preach less frequently, and that only at the principal places. You must be satisfied with directing others, and doing less yourself. You yourself do not know of how great importance your life is. Far be it from me to desire you not to travel; I only beg you not to go beyond your strength.

“JOHN JONES.”[241]

Another friend, in London, wrote the following.

“LONDON, July 8, 1775.

“REVEREND SIR,--God, who comforteth those who are cast down, hath comforted us by graciously restoring you to us again. The prayer of faith has saved the sick. The voice of joy and gladness is now found in the dwellings of the righteous; where eight days past there were mourning, lamentation, and woe. Every social repast was embittered, and we literally mingled our drink with our tears. Could you, from the bed of sickness, have cast your eyes on the congregation, the first sabbath in the month, and beheld distress in every face, keen anguish in every heart, your generous soul would have been willing to have tarried awhile, absent from your Lord, to return to comfort those mourners in Sion. The tidings of your recovery was received with melting gratitude and joyous tears. O sir, what a week of suspense and anguish! You will not surely blame us, that our prayers helped to detain you in the vale below. Forgive your weeping friends if they have brought you back from the skies: surely, in the end, you will be amply recompensed! O yes! being longer employed in the work of faith, and labour of love, your crown will be the brighter.”[242]

These are specimens of the loving congratulations of Wesley’s friends.[243] His illness was sharp, though short. The only lasting effect was, it stripped him, at all events for months afterwards, of his beautiful head of hair.[244]

Having spent three weeks in Dublin, and regained his strength, he, on July 23, embarked for England, having in the morning of that day again assisted in administering the Lord’s supper in St. Patrick’s cathedral. Landing at Parkgate, he proceeded to Leeds to meet his conference, preaching, as he travelled, with as much zest as ever; except that he spent a day or two at Miss Bosanquet’s, making conference preparations. Notwithstanding the warnings and entreaties of his friends, his labours were unabated. Referring to his illness and recovery, he wrote, in 1781: “From this time” (1775) “I have, by the grace of God, gone on in the same track, travelling between four and five thousand miles a year, and, once in two years, going through Great Britain and Ireland; which, by the blessing of God, I am as well able to do now as I was twenty or thirty years ago. About a hundred and thirty of my fellow labourers are continually employed in the same thing. We all aim at one point, not at profit, any more than at ease, or pleasure, or the praise of men; but to spread true religion through London, Dublin, Edinburgh, and, as we are able, through the three kingdoms. This is our point. We leave every man to enjoy his own opinion, and to use his own mode of worship, desiring only, that the love of God and his neighbour be the ruling principle in his heart, and show itself in his life by a uniform practice of justice, mercy, and truth. And, accordingly, we give the right hand of fellowship to every lover of God and man, whatever his opinion or mode of worship be, of which he is to give an account to God only.”[245]

Dr. Jones’s advice to Wesley was lost labour. Wesley’s life was a perpetual motion. Work seemed to be essential to its continuance. There are but few who can sincerely sing the lines, which he, from his inmost heart, sang so often:

“Oh that, without a lingering groan, I may the welcome word receive, My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live!”

Wesley, however, could give advice, though it was not always that he took it. The following extract from a letter to his brother, written at this period, contains an example of this, besides referring to his publishing affairs and the movements of his miserable wife.

“LONDONDERRY, June 2, 1775.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I thought it strange, that poor Samuel Franks should leave me £900 in debt. But it is stranger still, that John Atlay should have paid £1600 out of nine; and that I am £160 in debt notwithstanding!

“Mr. Walthen’s method of radical cure I shall hardly try.[246] I am very easy, and that is enough.

“Has my friend taken a house at Bristol? Is Noah with her? What are they doing?

“Preach as much as you can, and no more than you can. You never will be much stronger till you add change of air to exercise; riding two or three hundred miles point blank forward. Now you have an opportunity. Meet me at Leeds with honest John Murlin. When you are tired you may change places with him. You would return a stout, healthy man.

“Peace be with you and yours! Adieu!

“JOHN WESLEY.”[247]

Another instance of advice giving is too racy to be omitted. The letter was addressed to John King, one of his preachers in America.

“NEAR LEEDS, July 28, 1775.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Always take advice or reproof as a favour: it is the surest mark of love.

“I advised you once, and you took it as an affront; nevertheless I will do it once more.

“Scream no more, at the peril of your soul. God now warns you by me, whom He has set over you. Speak as earnestly as you can; but do not scream. Speak with all your heart; but with a moderate voice. It was said of our Lord, ‘He shall not cry’: the word properly means, He shall not scream. Herein, be a follower of me, as I am of Christ. I often speak loud, often vehemently; but I never scream; I never strain myself. I dare not: I know it would be a sin against God and my own soul. Perhaps one reason why that good man, Thomas Walsh, yea, and John Manners too, were in such grievous darkness before they died, was, because they shortened their own lives.

“O John, pray for an advisable and teachable temper! By nature you are very far from it: you are stubborn and headstrong. Your last letter was written in a very wrong spirit. If you cannot take advice from others, surely you might take it from your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[248]

The above characteristic letter was written at Miss Bosanquet’s, Cross Hall, Morley, where Wesley had arranged to have if possible, a few days’ retirement, before he met his conference, at Leeds. In a letter to that lady, dated May 29, 1775, and therefore previous to his illness, he writes: “The last day of June, I hope to be in Dublin, and the end of July in England. If I have a ready passage, probably I may have an opportunity of hiding myself a day or two with you; but I do not desire any of the preachers to come to me till I send for them. If they do, I shall run away; I will not be in a crowd.”[249]

One or two days’ retirement was not much for an old man to wish; but it was more than he could get. The preachers would not be prevented seeing him; and who can blame them? If the magnet attracts the needle, the magnet has no right to censure the needle for yielding to its own attractive influence. An extract from an unpublished letter, written, at this period, by simple hearted, loving Samuel Bardsley, will illustrate what we mean. “I never was at a better conference. The Lord was with us of a truth. Had you seen us, and our dear, aged father and friend in the midst of us, and beheld the freedom and harmony there were among us, you would have blessed God on our behalf. We seemed to be determined to live and preach the gospel more than ever. On the Thursday before the conference began, Mr. Oliver and I had the pleasure of drinking tea and supping with dear Mr. Wesley, at Miss Bosanquet’s, where we stopped all night. We were there when he arrived from Ireland, and I need not tell you with what joy and thankfulness we received the man of God, and especially as he appeared with his usual cheerfulness, and as well as we had seen him for some years. I had the pleasure of being with him alone, and desired him not to send me far from home. If he had proposed Worcester to me, I would have gone; but, as he did not, I thought it best to leave it to him where to send me; so he fixed me in this circuit (Haworth), which I shall love, if I have health, and live near to God.”

The conference at Leeds opened on August 1, and concluded, its sittings two days afterwards. It was the largest that had assembled for many years, and was unexampled for its free discussion.[250] Wesley writes: “Having received several letters, intimating that many of the preachers were utterly unqualified for the work, having neither grace nor gifts sufficient for it, I determined to examine the weighty charge with all possible exactness. In order to this, I read those letters to all the conference; and begged, that every one would freely propose and enforce whatever objection he had to any one. The objections proposed were considered at large; in two or three difficult cases, committees were appointed for that purpose. In consequence of this, we were all fully convinced, that the charge advanced was without foundation; that God has really sent those labourers into His vineyard, and has qualified them for the work; and we were all more closely united together than we had been for many years.”

The very day after the conference concluded, Wesley again set out on his blessed wanderings, and preached at Bradford and Great Horton. He then took coach to London; spent five days there; and then went off to Wales, Bristol, and Cornwall; and got back to London on October 6. The remainder of the year was spent, partly in the metropolis, and partly in his usual tours through Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk, Kent, and Surrey.

The nation was too much excited, in 1775, to take much interest in the Calvinian controversy; which, however, still proceeded. Fletcher published “The Second Part of the Scripture Scales”: 12mo, 237 pages. Also, “The Last Check 1775 to Antinomianism. A Polemical Essay on the Twin Doctrines of Christian Imperfection and a Death Purgatory.” 12mo, 327 pages. Toplady, likewise, issued “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted; in opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that Subject.”

As usual, Toplady excelled in abusiveness. He tells his readers, that the chief ingredients in Wesley’s tract are “an equal portion of gross heathenism, Pelagianism, Mahometism, popery, Manicheanism, ranterism, and antinomianism, culled, dried, and pulverized, secundum artem; and, above all, mingled with as much palpable atheism as could be possibly scraped together.” Wesley is taunted as a “poor gentleman, who is necessarily an universal meddler; and, as necessarily, an universal miscarrier.” “He paddles in metaphysics, knows a little, presumes a great deal, and so jumps to conclusions.” His “Thoughts on Necessity” are “as crude and dark as chaos.”

This scurrility was a thing to which Wesley had been long accustomed. It was cast upon him by writers of all descriptions. In this same year, 1775, an octavo pamphlet of 35 pages was published, with the title, “A Letter to a Friend on the Subject of Methodism;” in which the anonymous writer, among a multitude of other calumnies, declares that the tendency of Wesley’s system is “to fill parishes with whores, rogues, and bastards”; and defines Methodist preaching as “a ridiculous effusion, delivered with an enthusiastic air, a distorted countenance, a whining, snivelling accent, and a soporific, nasal twang.” Wesley had too much of a gentleman’s self respect to even notice vulgarities like these; and yet they were far from being pleasant, and tend to show that Methodism struggled into its mighty manhood amid the incessant peltings of every kind of pitiless persecution. The storm, during Wesley’s lifetime, from one quarter or another, was perpetual; but, powerless to destroy, it simply made the roots of the tree strike deeper.

Two of Wesley’s publications, in 1775, have been already noticed. The others were:

1. “A Sermon on 1 John v. 7.” Dublin: 12mo, 31 pages.

2. “The Important Question. A Sermon, preached in Taunton, on September 12, 1775. Published at the Request of many of the Hearers, for the Benefit of a Public Charity.” 12mo, 33 pages. This sermon was delivered in the presbyterian chapel, and was made the means of converting Mrs. Stone, in whose house Dr. Coke, shortly after, met Wesley’s preachers, to confer with them about his religious scruples; and where he preached his first sermon outside the precincts of a parish church.[251]

3. “A Concise History of England, from the earliest times to the death of George II.” 12mo, 4 vols. Price, to subscribers, half a guinea. Wesley says, his “volumes contain the substance of the English history, extracted chiefly from Dr. Goldsmith, Rapin, and Smollett; only with various corrections and additions.” Wesley made a profit of £200 by this publication; but gave it all away the week he got it.[252]

For many years, William Pine of Bristol had been Wesley’s chief printer and publisher, and had recently brought out a revised edition of Wesley’s collected works, in thirty-two 12mo volumes. Henceforth, the connection ceased. Pine became a red hot partisan of the rebellious colonists. Wesley disliked this, and wrote as follows to his brother Charles.

“LEEDS, July 31, 1775.

“DEAR BROTHER,--I must not delay answering your important question, ‘What can be done with William Pine?’ If he still, after my earnest warning, ‘every week publishes barefaced treason,’ I beg you would once more warn him, in my name and in your own; and if he slights or forgets this warning, then give him his choice, either to leave us quietly, or to be publicly disowned. At such a time as this, when our foreign enemies are hovering over us, and our own nation is all in a ferment, it is particularly improper to say one word which tends to inflame the minds of the people.”[253]

Thus Wesley’s loyalty to King George severed his connection with William Pine, the weekly publisher of the once popular Felix Farley’s Journal. Mr. Pine died in 1803.[254]

FOOTNOTES:

[221] Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

[222] Ibid.

[223] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1797, p. 455.

[224] Olivers’ “Defence,” p. 19.

[225] Vol. for 1775, p. 561.

[226] Everett’s Life of Dr. A. Clarke.

[227] Asbury’s Journal.

[228] Words fearfully realised, first in America, next in France, and then throughout all Europe.

[229] His “Calm Address.”

[230] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., pp. 302-308.

[231] Did Wesley mean this? That is, did he use it in any sense except that which immediately follows?

[232] This may seem to clash with the tenor of Wesley’s “Calm Address”; but the reader must recollect, that it was not until after the date of this letter that the “Calm Address” was written; and that Wesley’s change of opinions did not occur until after the Leeds conference of 1775. Wesley’s foresight, throughout the whole of this fearful war, was most remarkable.

[233] It is a remarkable fact, that this letter was written within forty-eight hours before the disgraceful and disastrous battle at Bunker Hill, where Wesley’s warnings to the premier and colonial secretary of England were too amply verified. With his itinerants in America, Wesley knew quite as much of American affairs as Lord North, and perhaps a little more.

[234] Smith’s History of Methodism, vol. i., p. 726; and Macmillan’s Magazine for December, 1870.

[235] These were not empty words, though Wesley was almost perpetually in war. In an unpublished letter, to Matthew Lowes, dated March 6, 1759, he writes: “What would one not do, except sin, that brotherly love may continue!”

[236] Methodist Magazine, 1854, p. 691.

[237] Life of Henry Moore.

[238] Methodist Magazine, 1827, p. 800.

[239] Ibid. 1834, p. 413.

[240] York society book.

[241] Methodist Magazine, 1787, p. 444.

[242] Ibid. 1787, p. 552.

[243] A curious 12mo tract, of four pages, was published, with the following title: “Some Verses, occasioned by the severe Illness, much feared Dissolution, and almost miraculous Restoration, of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, at Lisburne, in Ireland, July 2, 1775. London: printed for W. Kent, No. 116, High Holborn: 1775.” These verses were directed to be sung “to the tune of ‘Oliver’s.’”

[244] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 469.

[245] Ibid. vol. xiii., p. 359.

[246] The cure of his hydrocele.

[247] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 132.

[248] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 309.

[249] Ibid. p. 378.

[250] Manuscript letter by Thomas Hanby.

[251] Methodist Magazine, 1824, p. 568.

[252] Ibid. 1845, p. 1168.

[253] Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 133.

[254] J. Pawson’s manuscript letter.

1776. Age 73

Wesley’s first act, in 1776, was to join with eighteen hundred London Methodists in renewing his covenant with God. His next was to go to Bristol, partly to bury his brother-in-law, poor Westley Hall; and partly to restrain some of the Bristol Methodists, who were in danger of turning republicans.

The health of Fletcher of Madeley being seriously affected by a violent cough, accompanied by spitting of blood, Wesley believed nothing was so likely to restore his health as a long journey. “I therefore,” says he, “proposed his taking a journey of some months with me, through various parts of England and Scotland; telling him, ‘when you are tired, or like it best, you may come into my carriage; but remember that riding on horseback is the best of all exercises for you, so far as your strength will permit.’”[255]

Wesley proposed not only this, but more than this, as is evident from Fletcher’s answer, hitherto unpublished.

“MADELEY, January 9, 1776.

“REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,--I received last night the favour of yours from Bristol. My grand desire is to be just what the Lord would have me be. I could, if you wanted a travelling assistant, accompany you, as my little strength would admit, in some of your excursions; but your recommending me to the societies, as one who might succeed you, (should the Lord call you hence before me,) is a step to which I could by no means consent. It would make me take my horse and gallop away. Besides, such a step would, at this juncture, be, I think, peculiarly improper, and would cast upon my vindication of your minutes such an odium as the Calvinists have endeavoured to cast upon your ‘Address.’ It would make people suspect, that what I have done for truth and conscience sake, I have done with a view of being, what Mr. Toplady calls, ‘the bishop of Moorfields.’ We ought to give as little hold to the evil surmising and rash judgments of our opponents as may be. If, nevertheless, Providence throws in your way a clergyman willing to assist us, it would be well to fall in with that circumstance.

“I sent to you in London, by the last post, a manuscript entitled, ‘A Second Check to Civil Antinomianism,’ being an extract from the ‘Homily against Rebellion,’ which I think might be spread at this time to shame Mr. Roquet, and to calm the people’s mind. Whether it is worth publishing you will see. I suppose it will make a threepenny tract.

“What has made me glut our friends with my books is not my love to such publications; but a desire to make an end of the controversy. It is possible, however, that my design has miscarried, and that I have disgusted, rather than convinced, the people. I agree with you, sir, that now is the time to pray,--both for ourselves and our king,--for the Church of England and that part of it which is called the Methodists. I cast my mite of supplication into the general treasure. The Lord guide, support, and strengthen you more and more unto the end!

“I am, reverend and dear sir, your affectionate son and servant in the gospel,

“JOHN FLETCHER.”[256]

Fletcher had overtaxed nature. His day of activity was comparatively over. True, he lived nine years longer; but, for two years, he lived in retirement with his friends, Mr. Greenwood at Newington, and Mr. Ireland of Bristol, with the exception of the time he spent in travelling with Wesley in quest of health; and upwards of three years more were spent in Switzerland; when, returning to England, he was married, on November 12, 1781, to Miss Bosanquet, and died on August 14, 1785.

Wesley writes: “He looked upon my proposal as a call from Providence, and willingly accepted it. He set out, (as I am accustomed to do,) early in the spring of 1776, and travelled, by moderate journeys, suited to his strength, which gradually increased, eleven or twelve hundred miles. When we returned to London, in the latter end of the year, he was considerably better. And, I verily believe, if he had travelled with me, partly in the chaise and partly on horseback, only a few months longer, he would quite have recovered his health. But this those about him would not permit; so, being detained in London by his kind, but injudicious, friends, while I pursued my journeys, his spitting of blood, with all the other symptoms, returned, and rapidly increased, till the physician pronounced him to be far advanced in pulmonary consumption.”[257]

No doubt, Wesley wished to have Fletcher as his coadjutor and successor; but Providence determined otherwise. Fletcher had a great work to do, and did it; but it was not ordained that Fletcher should take Wesley’s place.

It is a remarkable coincidence, that, in the very year when the health of Fletcher failed, Wesley formed an acquaintance with Thomas Coke. Born and educated at Brecon, Coke was now twenty-nine years of age. He had taken his degrees at Oxford, had received episcopal ordination, and, at present, was curate at South Petherton. Mr. Brown, a clergyman near Taunton, lent him the sermons and journals of Wesley, and the “Checks” of Fletcher. In the month of August, 1776, Wesley was Mr. Brown’s guest at Kingston, and Coke went to see him. Wesley writes: “1776, August 13--I preached at Taunton, and afterwards went with Mr. Brown to Kingston. Here I found a clergyman, Dr. Coke, late a gentleman commoner of Jesus college, Oxford, who came twenty miles on purpose to meet me. I had much conversation with him; and a union then began, which, I trust, shall never end.” The doctor expressed his doubts respecting the propriety of confining himself to one congregation. Wesley clasped his hands, and, in a manner peculiarly his own, said: “Brother, go out, go out, and preach the gospel to all the world!”[258] Coke rode back to Petherton pensive, and yet consoled. The tone of his ministry was now more decided than ever. The parish was remodelled, so to speak, into a circuit. On Sundays, after the second lesson, he would read a paper of his appointments for the ensuing week, with the place and time of service. His innovations, in preaching in cottages and barns, took a sort of Methodistic form, by being systematically arranged. The disgust of his opponents in the parish became intense; and, to prevent his having the opportunity of preaching a farewell sermon, his rector, without any previous notice, at the close of a public service, and in the presence of a listening congregation, abruptly announced that Coke was now dismissed. The die was cast. Coke attended Wesley’s conference in Bristol, and, on August 19, 1777, Wesley writes: “I went to Taunton with Dr. Coke, who, being dismissed from his curacy, has bid adieu to his honourable name, and determined to cast in his lot with us.” Henceforth, Thomas Coke was a Methodist itinerant preacher, and became the great organiser of Methodist missions in other lands.

When Wesley enacted rules, he meant them to be observed. Laxity in the enforcement of discipline was to him a thing intolerable. He was a thorough disciplinarian himself, and insisted that his preachers should copy his example. Good as were the first Methodists, they were not perfect. Then, as now, some were defective in their attendance at the weekly class. In certain instances, as we have already seen, some were guilty of the crime of smuggling. Others, in moderation, were addicted to taking drams, and others opium; and it often happened that the oldest societies were the worst offenders. In 1776, both London and Newcastle were thus tainted; and Wesley was determined, with a strong hand, to purge them. Hence the following extracts from letters, addressed, at this period, to Joseph Benson, stationed at Newcastle.

“We must threaten no longer, but perform. In November last, I told the London society, ‘Our rule is, to meet a class once a week; not once in two or three. I now give you warning: I will give tickets to none in February, but those that have done this.’ I have stood to my word. Go you and do likewise, wherever you visit the classes. Begin, if need be, at Newcastle, and go on at Sunderland. Promises to meet are now out of date. Those, that have not met seven times in the quarter, exclude. Read their names in the society; and inform them all, you will the next quarter exclude all that have not met twelve times; that is, unless they were hindered by distance, sickness, or by some unavoidable business. And I pray, without fear or favour, remove the leaders, whether of classes or bands, who do not watch over the souls committed to their care ‘as those that must give account.’”

What would become of Methodist societies if these imperative directions of Methodism’s founder were enforced now?

Benson had expelled a smuggler, and Wesley wrote:

“You did right in excluding from our society so notorious an offender. You have now a providential call to stand in the gap between the living and the dead. Fear nothing. Begin in the name of God, and go through with it. If only six will promise you to sin no more, leave only six in society. But my belief is, a hundred and fifty are now clear of blame; and, if you are steady, a hundred more will amend. You must, at all events, tear up this evil by the roots. The ‘Word to a Smuggler’ should be read and dispersed. And secure your fellow labourers, that you may all speak one thing. Go on, for God is with you! Not only the assistant, but every preacher, is concerned to see all our rules observed. I desire brother Rhodes will give no tickets, either to those who have not constantly met their classes, or to any that do not solemnly promise to deal in stolen goods no more. He and you together may put a stop to this crying sin. If any leader oppose, you see your remedy; put another in his place. Nay, if he does not join heart and hand; for ‘he that gathereth not with you scattereth.’ The ‘Word to a Smuggler’ is plain and home, and has done much good in Kent. Taking opium is full as bad as taking drams. It equally hurts the understanding, and is, if possible, more pernicious to the health, than even rum or brandy. None should touch it, if they have the least regard either for their souls or bodies.”[259]

The year 1776 was a period of great national distress; and, yet, it was now that Wesley started his scheme for the erection of Methodism’s cathedral, the chapel in City Road. Who will write a history of London Methodism? or, which would be more popular, who will give the Methodists a monograph of the memories of Wesley’s “new chapel” in City Road? Much might be said of the episcopal chapel in West Street, Seven Dials, of which Wesley obtained a lease, and which he opened on the 29th of May, 1743, as a Methodist meeting-house, and which was so occupied until 1798, when it was superseded by the purchase of another episcopal chapel, which then stood on part of the site of the present Methodist chapel in Great Queen Street.[260] Then there was the venerable chapel in Spitalfields, erected by the French protestants, and used by Wesley long before that in City Road was built, but which, horresco referens! has given place to the brewery of Truman, Hanbury & Co.; and there is likewise its successor, also originally a French protestant church, and still used for Methodist services, a chapel which has recently had dark days of adversity, but which is rich in religious memories, and has witnessed many a marvellous revival of the work of God. There is Chelsea, whose first Methodist meeting place was an upper room in the house of an elderly woman, Mrs. Day, who resided in Royal Hospital Row; and its next, one of the dancing rooms in the celebrated Ranelagh Gardens, for which a rent was paid of ten guineas per annum; and in which Wesley preached only about two months previous to his death, taking as his text words which his long life had illustrated: “The king’s business requires haste.”[261] There is Lambeth, where, in 1772, good old John Edwards opened his house for preaching; and then converted an adjoining building into a decent chapel; a man of vigorous mind, retentive memory, and fluent speech; for almost forty years an effective local preacher, and who, while on a preaching expedition, died at Irchester, in the county of Northampton, in 1803.[262] In London East, there was the old chapel in Gravel Lane, which, in 1811, was required for the London Docks; and its successor in Back Road, required by the Black wall railway company.[263] There was the schoolroom near Mill Pond Bridge, Rotherhithe, succeeded by the purchased chapel in Albion Street.[264] There was Hoxton chapel, which originally belonged to the Dissenters; and there were the venerable meeting-houses at Wapping, Snowsfields, Peckham, and other places. All these have a history well worth writing, to say nothing of the parent of them all, the old pantile Foundery, Methodism’s honoured cradle; and of which the Methodists retained possession, at least as late as the year 1785, when they received for it, in the shape of rent, £14 per year.[265]

Then how rich the mine of London Methodist biography! Confining ourselves to Wesley’s days, there is--Mary Cheesebrook, originally a kept mistress, converted in West Street chapel, never absent from the Foundery preaching, though, to be in time, she often had to run the distance, and who, every Saturday, after paying her little debts, gave away all the money she had left, leaving the morrow to take thought for the things of itself:--Mrs. Witham, a mother in Israel, an eminent pattern of calm boldness for the truth, of simplicity and godly sincerity, of unwearied constancy in attending all the ordinances of God, of zeal for God and for all good works, and of self denial in every kind:--Elizabeth Langdon, whose trials were severe, and her death tranquil:--Hannah Lee, a model of industry, meekness, and patience:--Mary Naylor, distinguished for her Christian courage, and plainness of speech and of apparel:--Thomas Salmon, a good and useful man:--Joseph Norbury, a faithful witness of Jesus Christ:--William Hurd, a son of affliction, whose end was peace:--John Matthews, who, for some months before his death, was wont to say, “I have no more doubt of being in heaven, than if I was there already”; and of whom Wesley writes: “A man of so faultless a behaviour I have hardly ever been acquainted with. During twenty years, I do not remember his doing or saying anything which I would wish to have been unsaid or undone”:--Ann Wheeler, who, twenty-five years before her death, while attending preaching in Moorfields, was struck in the forehead with a stone, the mark of which her unborn daughter bore to her dying day:--Rebecca Mills, always firm and unmoved, resting on the Rock of ages, and in life and death uniformly praising the God of her salvation:--Elizabeth Duchesne, for near forty years zealous of good works, and who shortened her days by labouring for the poor beyond her strength:--William Osgood, a good man, who began life in poverty, but increased more and more till he was worth several thousand pounds:--Michael Hayes, who lived above a hundred and four years, mostly in vigorous health, and as he lived, so died, praising God:--Mrs. Kiteley, a perfect pattern of true womanhood, a good wife, a good parent, a good mistress, who, after many years of active benevolence, redeemed a poor friendless youth from prison, took the jail distemper, and died:--Heller Tanner, diligent, patient, loving to every man, and zealous of good works:--Bilhah Aspernell, who, for six-and-thirty years, without intermission, walked in the light of God’s countenance, was always in pain, yet always rejoicing, and going about doing good; who on Sunday evening met her class as usual, and the next day sent for her old fellow traveller, Sarah Clay, and said to her, “Sally, I am going.” “Where are you going?” She cheerfully answered, “To my Jesus, to be sure!” and spoke no more:--Thomas Vokins, a man of a sorrowful spirit, who always hung down his head like a bulrush, but who died triumphing over pain and death, and rejoicing with joy full of glory:--Mr. Bespham, many years master of a man of war, whose faith was full of mercy and good fruits:--George Parsons, a flame of fire wherever he went, losing no occasion of speaking or working for God; so zealously, so humbly, so unreservedly devoted to God, that few like him were left behind him:--Eleanor Lee, who lived in the enjoyment of perfect love for sixteen years, and of whom Wesley testified, “I never saw her do any action, little or great, nor heard her speak any word, which I could reprove”:--Ann Thwayte, a woman of faith and prayer, for whom Wesley preached a funeral sermon:--Merchant West, a pattern of diligence in all things, spiritual and temporal:--Charles Greenwood, a melancholy man, full of doubts and fears, but who, two days before he died, was made so unspeakably happy that he exclaimed, “God has revealed to me things which it is impossible for man to utter”:--George Hufflet, for many years a burning and shining light:--Ann Sharland, whose cancer in her breast caused her continual pain, but who triumphed gloriously through Christ;--and Robert Windsor, prudent, serious, diligent, full of mercy and good fruits.

All these died during Wesley’s lifetime. The temptation to add to them is great. We should like to tell of William Palmer, Wesley’s first classleader in London; and of his son, who was blind from infancy, was one of the first to form the Community, or body of workhouse visitors, often made preaching excursions into different parts of the country, with Wesley’s sanction, and died in 1822, after being sixty-two years a Methodist.[266] Old Thomas Gibbs of Lambeth, also, deserves a place in Methodism’s gallery,--a patriarch, who lived to the age of one hundred and four years, eighty-three of which he had been a member of Wesley’s society; and who, at his death, in 1827, was probably the oldest Methodist in the world.[267] There is Isaac Andrews, one of the original subscribers to City Road chapel, a man of unimpeachable Christian character, a Methodist of sixty years’ standing, who died at the age of eighty-two, in 1832.[268] There is Mrs. Maddan, whose mother, Mrs. Varin, was the eighth person whom Wesley received into church fellowship, when forming his infant society in Fetter Lane. There are Mrs. Mortimer and Mrs. Bruce, of whom the Rev. Richard Watson used to say, “they were the two finest specimens of primitive Methodism that he knew;” the latter being the daughter of parents who were among the eighteen persons who first joined Wesley in Christian fellowship, in 1739.[269] We cannot find room for more.

For five-and-thirty years, Wesley and his friends had worshipped in “the old Foundery.” Here hundreds, perhaps thousands, had been converted; but, as the building was only held on lease, they were now in danger of losing it. On October 19, 1775, Wesley, writing to his brother, says: “on Friday I hope to be in London, and to talk with the committee about building a new Foundery.”[270] A few months later, he wrote again: “1776, March 1--As we cannot depend on having the Foundery long, we met to consult about building a new chapel. Our petition to the city for a piece of ground lies before their committee; but when we shall get any further, I know not: so I determined to begin my circuit as usual; but promised to return whenever I should receive notice that our petition was granted.” Exactly five months after this, Wesley started the first subscription, and, at three meetings, raised upwards of £1000. In November following, building plans were agreed upon; in April 1777, Wesley laid the foundation stone; and on Sunday, November 1, 1778, he opened his new sanctuary, by preaching, in the morning, on part of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple; and in the afternoon, on the hundred, forty and four thousand standing with the Lamb on mount Zion. He writes: “It is perfectly neat, but not fine; and contains far more people than the Foundery: I believe, together with the morning chapel, as many as the Tabernacle.”

The chapel in City Road will always stand as a thanksgiving monument, raised, not by the London Methodists merely, but by Methodists throughout the three kingdoms. No sooner was it resolved to build, than Wesley issued the following circular, an original copy of which now lies before us.

“October 18, 1776.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--The society at London have given assistance to their brethren in various parts of England. They have done this for upwards of thirty years: they have done it cheerfully and liberally. The first year of the subscription for the general debt, they subscribed above nine hundred pounds; the next, above three hundred; and not much less every one of the ensuing years.

“They now stand in need of assistance themselves. They are under a necessity of building; as the Foundery, with all the adjoining houses, is shortly to be pulled down. And the city of London has granted ground to build on; but on condition of covering it, and with large houses in front, which, together with the new chapel, will, at a very moderate computation, cost upwards of six thousand pounds. I must, therefore, beg the assistance of all our brethren. Now help the parent society, which has helped others, for so many years, so willingly and so largely. Now help me, who account this as a kindness done to myself; perhaps, the last of this sort which I shall ask of you. Subscribe what you conveniently can, to be paid either now, or at Christmas, or at Ladyday next.

“I am, your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.

⎧ JOHN DUPLEX, ⎪ CHARLES GREENWOOD, ⎪ RICHARD KEMP, “The Trustees are ⎨ SAMUEL CHANCELLOR, ⎪ CHARLES WHEELER, ⎪ WILLIAM COWLAND, ⎩ JOHN FOLGHAM.”

We are afraid to enter into details, respecting the New Chapel, in City Road. John Pawson, who was appointed to the office of assistant in the London circuit, within two years after the chapel was opened, tells us, in an unpublished manuscript, that the plan proposed was to build an elegant chapel, such as even the lord mayor might attend, without any diminishing of his official dignity; and that it should be wholly supplied by ordained clergymen of the Established Church on Sundays, when the liturgy should be constantly read at both morning and evening service; and this, for a considerable time after the chapel was opened, was regularly done. No layman, so called,--that is, no itinerant preacher not episcopally ordained, was allowed to officiate within its walls, except on week days. Charles Wesley, Thomas Coke, and John Richardson were City Road’s only sabbatic priests: Pawson, Jaco, Rankin, Tennent, Olivers, and others, though better preachers than any of the trio, were not admitted; because their heads had not been touched by a bishop’s fingers. Pawson says, that Richardson and Coke disapproved of this arrangement; but Charles Wesley persisted, until the congregations so fell off, and the society was thrown into such confusion, that the trustees of the chapel met, and waited on Charles Wesley with a request, that he would not preach so often at City Road, but would go sometimes to West Street on Sundays, and allow the itinerants to take his place on the hitherto forbidden ground. Charles reluctantly submitted; but wrote to his brother, casting all the blame upon the poor, tabooed itinerants, and stating that it was wholly owing to their deep rooted prejudices against the clergy of the Established Church, that these events had happened.

For many years, the men sat on one side the chapel, and the women on the other; and, besides this, there was another usage, which would not be popular at the present day: all the pews and seats were open. Large numbers paid for seats; but no one was allowed to call a seat, or a pew, his own. In 1788, the trustees endeavoured to make an alteration in both the respects just mentioned; “thus overthrowing,” says Wesley, “at one blow, the discipline which I have been establishing for fifty years!” He continues, however: “we had another meeting of the committee; who, after a calm and loving consultation, judged it best--(1) that the men and women should sit separate still; and (2) that none should claim any pew as his own, either in the new chapel, or in West Street.”

The days of the old Foundery have long been ended; the “New Chapel” in City Road still stands, and we trust will ever stand, by far the most sacred and attractive edifice in the Methodistic world. Not for a hundred pretentious gothic structures would Methodists of the olden type give up this. Though its ceiling may be somewhat low, yet, taken as a whole, its architecture, for neatness, and commodiousness, and solidity, has been but rarely equalled, by the more pretentious Methodist buildings of the present day. We are weary of gothic gaudiness, sacrificing the interests of the church of God to the pride of showy architects, and the mediæval whims of Methodists in danger of relapsing into mediæval darkness. Let the present race of Methodists have wisdom and modesty enough to build their chapels according to the plan adopted by a man, in all respects, their superior--Methodism’s founder. Hail to old City Road! When we think of the ministers who have occupied its pulpit, of the families who have filled its pews, of the dead resting in graves round about its walls, and of the interesting events which make up its story,--we feel that of all the Methodist meeting-houses in existence, gothic or otherwise, marble or mudden, there is not one to equal this.

For many a long year, the chapel in City Road was the head of London Methodism; and, though there are now more than twenty heads, all owe a respectful obeisance to this. Its circuit plan, from June 17 to September 23, 1792, eighteen inches broad and fifteen deep, is simply headed, “A Plan for the Preachers in London;” the word Methodist, or Methodism, not being printed in any part of it. The preaching places, and hours of preaching, are as follows:--New Chapel, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.; West Street, 9, 3 and 7; Spitalfields, 10 and 3; Wapping, 10 and 5; Snowsfields, 10 and 5; Lambeth, 6; Westminster, 5; Peckham, 3; Rotherhithe, 10 and 5; Deptford, 7, 10, and 5; Chelsea, 6; Brentford, 10, 2, and 6; Dorking, 11, 2, and 5; Raynham, 10 and 5; Purfleet, 9 and 5; Woolwich, 2 and 6; Wandsworth, 6; Mitcham, 2 and 6; Croydon, 2 and 6; Bromley, 3; Barnet, 2 and 5; Poplar, 11 and 5; Bow, 5; Stratford, 11 and 5; Barking, 5; Leyton, 5; Grosvenor Market, 6; Ratcliff Cross, 2; Christ Church, 5; Clerkenwell, 6; Kentish Town, 6; and Seven Dials without an hour. Such was London circuit at the time when Wesley died.

Interesting citations might be made from the old City Road society book, extending from August 23, 1784, to July 9, 1800. We learn, that sacramental collections were, upon an average, a little more than £3 each; and monthly collections, for “the furtherance of the gospel,” about £6 10_s._ The sacrament was administered once a week; and what is now known among the Methodists as a quarterly collection was then made once a month as just referred to. The entire circuit income, for 1786, was £862 16_s._ 5_d._, which included sacramental collections and payments for graves, all of which were then appropriated to circuit purposes. Strangely enough, there is no entry of class moneys till 1788, from which time such entries were regularly made. Had the practice of collecting pence weekly in the classes been superseded by collections made at the weekly sacraments? This is not improbable; for, from the time when class moneys are entered as a part of the circuit income, the entries of sacramental collections, and collections for the furtherance of the gospel, cease. For the year 1787, including all sources of income, the average contribution per member per year was in this great London circuit 3_s._ 10½_d._, or less than a shilling per member per quarter. How far was this from the requirement of Wesley’s rules? Who will say that the former days were better than these? Besides, all that was contributed was not current coin; for in the same year there is a charge deducted of not less than £10 14_s._ 9½_d._ for bad money given at collections.

Many are the curious items in the list of circuit payments and allowances. The yearly salary paid to Wesley was £30; to his brother £60; to Creighton, £61; to Dickenson, £50; to Coke, £30; while the quarterage to the itinerants, and to their wives respectively, was £3 each. With a few more extracts we conclude this lengthened notice of London Methodism, during the last seven years of Wesley’s life. “1784: November 7, a new pail, half a crown; December 6, chain for dog, two shillings. 1785: January 4, shaving the preachers, £2 10_s._ 6_d._; February 18, “news pappers,” 13_s._; May 18, lamplighter, four weeks, 6_s._; August 8, Mr. Tennant, to pay his debts, and to send him to Leeds, £9 9_s._; August 13, letters, four weeks, £2 15_s._ 8½_d._ August 19, for shaving the preachers at conference, £7 5_s._ 3_d._ 1787: February 2, two trees for front of dwelling house, 3_s._ 6_d._; December 17, for curtain over the altar, £5 1_s._ 9_d._ 1789: March 28, paid expenses of a hogshead of cider, from Guernsey, a present to Mr. Wesley, £1 9_s._; July 7, paid the man servant a quarter’s wages, £1 1_s._; December 29, paid Mr. Moore for cold bath, £1 1_s._ 1790: July 1, the hairdresser’s bill, £1 1_s._, for one quarter. 1791: February 22, paid the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s salary (the last he received) £15; April 20, paid for Rev. Mr. Wesley’s horses standing at livery after his decease, £1 11_s._ 9_d._; December 3, paid Mr. Judd’s bill for hanging the New Chapel with black superfine cloth, £41 16_s._”[271]

These may seem little things to introduce into a work like this; but little things often indicate greater, and, sometimes, it is only by knowing minute matters that men can form a correct opinion of a great general system.

After this long, but we hope not uninteresting digression, we must return to Wesley in 1776.

On Sunday evening, March 3, he set out from London to Bristol, and thence to his societies in the north. The tour was not completed until the 19th of July following, when he got back to London. Its incidents were much the same as previous ones, except that he was permitted to preach in a larger number of churches than usual,--namely, at Pebworth, Chowbent, Heptonstall, Bingley, Haworth, Colne, and at Banff in Scotland,[272] a proof that clerical prejudice was subsiding, and that the poor branded outcast was beginning to be regarded with a more favourable eye. The churches that he occupied in Yorkshire were crowded. Thomas Taylor, at that time in the Haworth circuit, writes, in his unpublished diary: “Saturday, April 27--Mr. Wesley preached at Bradford, at 5 a.m. At 10½, to the surprise of many, he preached in Bingley church, from Acts xxiv. 25. I never saw him weep while preaching before now. He spoke awfully, and the congregation heard attentively. The next day (Sunday) I heard him at Keighley in the morning, and then at Haworth church. Afterwards, the sacrament was administered, but in too great a hurry. Several hundreds communicated in less than an hour. We then dined, in haste and confusion, and drove off to Colne. I rode fast, and got thither before Mr. Wesley. The street was filled with people waiting to welcome him; but, when about two miles from Colne, his chaise broke down, which somewhat delayed his coming. He mounted a horse, however, and so arrived in safety. The crowd was so great that it was with difficulty we got into the church. The sexton led us to the reading desk, and thereby I got a seat. Mr. Wesley’s text was Revelation xx. 12. At the beginning he was rather flat; but, at the end, he spake many awful things.”

Wesley’s journey to the north was always one continued panorama of toil and travel, preaching and praying, conferring with his preachers and visiting the sick. Hardly one in a thousand could have borne the burden of its labours without bending; and yet Wesley, an old man, was always, in the midst of gigantic toils, blithe and happy; and never went northwards without making his large circuit larger. Besides other places, he now, for the first, time, preached at Chesterfield. Three years before, Jeremiah Cocker had gone from Sheffield, and stood on a table, in the midst of the market place, and begun to preach. A man, hired for the purpose, pulled him down. Jerry again mounted his rostrum, and was again pulled down. A third time he ascended, and a third time his assailant brought him to the ground. The old Adam now began to stir in the athletic preacher, and, seizing the man, he gave him a shake hardly gentle. “That is not the spirit of Christ,” shouted the mob, which, all at once, had become pious. “I acknowledge it,” said Jerry; and again he jumped upon his table, and finished his discourse.[273]

Wesley opened the conference of 1776, in London, on August 6, and concluded it three days afterwards. He writes: “In several conferences we have had great love and unity; but in this there was, over and above, such a general seriousness and solemnity of spirit as we scarcely ever had before.” “Everything,” says Thomas Taylor, “was conducted in great order. A very strict scrutiny was made into every one’s character; and I am glad so few were found culpable.”[274]

The truth is, objections to the preachers had become so rife, that Wesley felt it to be his duty to interfere. He writes: “It is objected, that some of our preachers are utterly unqualified for the work, and that others do it negligently, as if they imagined they had nothing to do but to preach once or twice a day. In order to silence this objection for ever, which has been repeated ten times over, the preachers were examined at large, especially those concerning whom there was the least doubt. The result was, that one was excluded for inefficiency, and two for misbehaviour. And we were thoroughly satisfied, that all the rest had both grace and gifts for the work wherein they are engaged. I hope, therefore, we shall hear of this objection no more.”

Even in 1776, as now, there were crabbed, cantankerous Methodists, to whom discipline was a blessing. Those in Ireland refused to contribute to the yearly collection, saying, it “was nothing to them; they would only bear their own expenses.” This was worse than foolish; it was disloyal and unjust. In their own fashion, they were willing to feed and clothe the preachers sent to them; but they expected some one else to pay their expenses for travelling, and for the sickness of themselves and their families; or, perhaps, these Irish Methodists had dreamt that itinerants travelled without expense, and, so far as sickness was concerned and the need of medicine, were entirely exempted from the dire effects of Adam’s curse. Wesley says, with honest indignation: “These are properly their expenses; nor will we pay any part of them for the time to come, unless their yearly contribution enable us so to do.” If the Irish stopped supplies on one side of the channel, Wesley could stop supplies on the other side as well. This probably was a dilemma which the simple Hibernians had not studied.

There was another unpleasantness at the conference of 1776. Circuit stewards complained, that some of the preachers’ wives were sluts, and spoiled their houses; and the preachers, on the other hand, complained that their houses were hardly homes, for the people, without ceremony, crowded into them as into coffee houses. Wesley dealt with both complaints in his own laconic way; directing that no “known slut” should have a house to spoil; and that no person, either on Sundays or week days, should go into the preacher’s house except to ask a question.

The conference pronounced the opinion, that Calvinism had been the grand hindrance of the work of God; and, hence, to stop its progress, all the preachers were requested--(1) To read, with carefulness, the tracts published by Wesley, Fletcher, and Sellon. (2) To preach universal redemption frequently, explicitly, and lovingly. (3) Not to imitate the Calvinist preachers in screaming, allegorising, and boasting; but to visit as diligently as they did, to answer all their objections, to advise the Methodists not to hear them, to pray constantly and earnestly that God would stop the plague.

Was it wise to publish this? We doubt it; and so did Toplady, for he immediately, without note or comment, republished it in his Gospel Magazine, with the heading “Authentic Extract of what passed at a certain Confabulation, held at London, August 6, 1776.”

The Isle of Man now began to attract attention. John Crook was the son of a Lancashire physician, who squandered his own and his wife’s fortunes, and then died a miserable and untimely death at sea. John was put apprentice to learn a laborious trade, and then enlisted to be a soldier; when he was sent to Limerick, where, at the age of twenty-eight, he was converted, in the Methodist chapel, in the year 1770. Having purchased his discharge from the army, he returned to Liverpool, where he became a classleader, and a local preacher. At the beginning of 1775, he went, uncommissioned except by God Himself, to the Isle of Man, and began to preach, and had the lieutenant governor, and his lady, and all the family, and the chief people in Castletown, to hear him. Numbers had been converted; and persecution had begun to rage. On July 16, 1776, the following episcopal bull was issued.

“To the several Rectors, Vicars, Chaplains, Curates, within the Isle and Diocese of Man.

“REVEREND BRETHREN,--Whereas, we have been informed, that several unordained, unauthorised, and unqualified persons from other countries have presumed, for some time past, to preach and teach publicly, and hold and maintain conventicles, and have caused several weak persons to combine themselves together in a new society, and have private meetings, assemblies, and congregations, contrary to the doctrine, government, rites and ceremonies of the Established Church, and the civil and ecclesiastical laws of this island--

“We do, therefore, for the prevention of schism, and the establishment of uniformity of religious worship, which so long hitherto has subsisted among us, hereby desire and require each and every one of you, to be vigilant and use your utmost endeavours to dissuade your respective flocks from following, or being led and misguided by, such incompetent teachers, and to exhort, incite, and invite them devoutly to read the holy Scripture, to attend reverently the blessed sacraments of their parish church, and the ghostly advice of their own ministers, by which they will be better and more comfortably instructed in the meaning of grace and salvation, than by the crude and pragmatical and inconsistent, if not profane and blasphemous, extempore effusions of these pretenders to the true religion; and, if afterwards they regard not the truth, but obstinately persist in error, then to know and find out the names of such persons, within your respective parishes and chapelries, as attend the public instructions of the said disorderly and unqualified teachers, or frequent the said conventicles, meetings, assemblies, and congregations; and if, upon due inquiry and certain information, you discover, or, consistently with your own knowledge, know any licensed schoolmaster, mistress, parish clerk, or any other person, who holds any office or employment by licence from us or our predecessors, that you signify and make known to us in writing the names, within one month after the receipt hereof, as also unto our reverend vicars general or any one of them, of the persons who attend the instructions of the said teachers, or frequent the said conventicles.

“And we, likewise, further desire and require each and every one of you, in case any of the above mentioned unordained, unauthorised, and unqualified teachers shall, at any time hereafter, offer to partake of the holy communion in any of your respective churches or chapels, that you repel him or them so offering, and the minister so repelling them or any of them to give an account of the same unto us within fourteen days, at the farthest, as is directed in the rubric in that behalf.

“Given at Peeltown, July 16, 1776.

“R. SODOR AND MAN.

“P.S.--Let these be forwarded, in the usual manner, and the time of receiving and forwarding be noted by each of you. You will also take a copy thereof, and publish it, in English and Manx, at the usual time, in your respective churches and chapels the Sunday next after the receipt thereof.”[275]

Such was the fulmen brutum discharged at the poor Methodists from the episcopal battery of the Isle of Man. Twelve days later, John Crook wrote as follows to a friend at Liverpool.

“CASTLETOWN, ISLE OF MAN, July 28, 1776.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--I am now in hot war. The devil has stirred up the Rev. Mr. Moor, of Douglas, and made a firebrand of him, to set all the island on fire. This gentleman has set his schoolboys to work, to write chosen texts of Scripture against false prophets, dreamers of dreams, running and not being sent, etc. He has also picked up a ballad, written, I fancy, by the late Dr. Bowden, and has dispersed manuscript copies of it, and of the texts, among the populace, and put them into a most violent flame. The effect on us, as a society, is, we are hooted at, slutched, and stoned, whenever we go to worship God. Mr. Moor’s scholars, in particular, and the rabble of the town in general, gather round our place of meeting, and first sing the blasphemous ballad, and then proceed to throw dirt and stones at the windows and door. As for myself, when I come out they plentifully salute me with channel dirt, with which they have often plastered me pretty well. When the scholars meet me at mid day, they curse me most horribly, and throw at me chips, hard pieces of mortar, potatoes, stones, or whatever comes to hand. But if this were all, we might do well enough; but this brand has communicated the infectious blaze to the bishop, who has issued a bull, dated, not Rome, but Peeltown, which was published in the churches last sabbath. I have petitioned the governor for liberty of conscience, but he and the bishop are so unanimous, that, he says, he will not interfere in the case, but wishes me to write a memorial setting forth my suit. I am not willing to do this, but have given Mr. Wesley an account of the matter, and hope he will direct me how to act.

“I am, your willing servant in the gospel,

“JOHN CROOK.”[276]

Wesley replied to Mr. Crook as follows.

“LONDON, August 10, 1776.

“MY DEAR BROTHER,--By all means, stay in the island till the storm be ended: in your patience possess your soul. Beware of despising your opponents! Beware of anger and resentment! Return not evil for evil, or railing for railing. I advise you to keep, with a few serious people, a day of fasting and prayer. God has the hearts of all men in His hands. Neither Dr. Moor, nor the bishop himself, is out of His reach. Be fervent in prayer, that God would arise and maintain His own cause. Assuredly, He will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear. Violent methods of redress are not to be used, till all other methods fail. I know pretty well the mind of Lord Mansfield, and of one that is greater than he; but, if I appealed to them, it would bring much expense and inconvenience on Dr. Moor and others. I would not willingly do this; I love my neighbour as myself. Possibly, they may think better, and allow that liberty of conscience which belongs to every partaker of human nature, and more especially to every one of his majesty’s subjects in his British dominions. To live peaceably with all men is the earnest desire of your affectionate brother,

“JOHN WESLEY.”[277]

Three years after this, the Isle of Man was a flourishing Methodist circuit, with 1051 members of society.

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