FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Section " The Life of Wesley " is Southey almost at his best, thus only encumbered slightly by foible and vnu'eflective narrow prejudice ; and in his own specific province Southey is rarely equalled, seldom surpassed. " The favourite of my library," Coleridge wrote of this work ; " the book I can read for the twentieth time, when I can read nothing else." Even Macaulay predicted it would live, containing as it does the only popular account of a most remarkable moral revo- lution and of a man whose genius for govern- ment was not inferior to that of Richelieu. Modern critics have espied and admired this work in the Southey literary pantechnicon ; " not much inferior to the Life of Nelson," says Mr. Saintsburj^ Clearly, Southey was intolerant, apt to speak " in the very gall of bitterness," and especiallj^ on moral and political differences of opinion, nor were his midivided sympathies with Methodism ; yet the historian in him, the artist, rose valiantly on occasion, overcoming to a great extent the belligerent would-be reformer and prescriber ; hence the Life of Wesley. There is an excellent introduction to this Oxford reprint by Mr. Fitzgerald, to whom readers are already indebted for his edition of Southey' s Letters. Mr. Fitzgerald is re- strained in his criticism,| ardentj though not slavish in praise ; and the biographical table, the supplementary notes and useful marginal dates give completion to an edition which, no doubt, will become the standard for stu- dents of Southey' s Wesley biography and the rise and progress of Methodism. ... LIFE OF WESLEY. VOL. 11. LoMiON : I'liiituil l>y A. SroTTiswooi>E, Ne«'- Strcrt - S((iiarc. "f^T"""*^ '■ •'' i-*"/:;^" '(■/ v\ n i; '(' K '\V •['[ [ 'r K y •[ e t , !:>. /;,/.,',.•,•/,.■,/ /.i/,..y.vw. /in'Wfi*- •:■;/.. ■.■,./..; ^luf T jfi4t\ ^ OCT 23 1931 THE \V>), ><^ LIFE OF WESLEY; RISE AND PROGRESS METHODISM. ^ BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D. ^i^irb 1Et(ition» WITH V NOTEl;; BY THE LATE SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, ESQ. REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER^ OF JOHN WESLEY, BY THE LATE ALEXANDER KNOX, ESQ. / EDITED BY / THE REV. CHARLES CUTHBERT SOUTHEY, M.A. CURATE OF COCKERMOUTH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, BROWN, GRP:EN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1846. THE LIFE OF WESLEY. CHAPTER XVII. JOHN OLIVER. JOHN PAWSON ALEXANDER MATHER. THOMAS OLIVERS. John Oliver, the son of a tradesman at Stockport in Cheshire, received the rudiments of a liberal edu- cation at the grammar-school in that towm ; but at the age of thirteen, in consequence of reduced circum- stances, was taken into his father's shop. When he was about fifteen, the Methodists came to Stockport : he partook the general prejudice against them, and calling upon one with whom he chanced to be ac- quainted, took upon himself to convince him that he "was of a bad religion, which was hostile to the Church. The Methodist, in reply, easily convinced him that he < had no religion at all. His pride was mortified at this defeat, and he went near his acquaintance no more ; but the boy was touched at heart also : he left off his idle and criminal diversions (of which cock- fighting was one), read, prayed, fasted, regularly attended church, and repeated the prayers and collects every day. This continued some months, without any apparent evil ; but having, at his father's instance, spent a Sabbath evening at an inn, with some young comrades from Manchester, and forgotten all his good vol. II. B 2 JOHN OLIVER. rcsolutiDiis while he was in their company, he came home at night in an agony of mind. He did not dare to pray : his conscience stared him in the face ; and he became melancholy. The cause of this dis- temper was more obvious than the cure; and when he was invited one evening to attend a meeting, the father declared he would knock his brains out if he went, though he should be hanged for it. John Oliver knew how little was meant by this threat, and stole away to the sermon. He " drank it in with all his heart ;" and liaving afterwards been informed, by a female disciple, of the manner of her conversion, he was " all in a flame to know these things for himself." So he hastened home, fell to prayer, fancied twice that he ln'urd a voice distinctly saying his sins were forgiven him, and felt, in that instant, that all his load was gone, and that an inexpressible change had been wrought. " 1 loved God," he says : " I loved all man- kind. I could not tell whether I was in the body or out of it. Prayer was turned into wonder, love, and praise." In this state of exaltation he joined the society. Mr. Oliver was a man of violent temper : he loved his son dearly ; and thinking that a boy of sixteen f was not emancipated from the obligation of filial obe- dience, his anger at the course which John persisted in ])ursuing, was strong in proportion to the strength of his affection. He sent to all the Methodists in the town, threatening what he would do if any of them dared receive him into their houses. He tried se- verity, by the advice of stupid men; and broke not only sticks but chairs upon him, in his passion. Per- -^ ceiving that these brutal means were ineffectual, and ])erhaps inwardly ashamed of them, he reproached his uiidutit'ul child with breaking his father's heart, and bringing down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. The distress of the father, and the stubborn JOHN OLIVER. 3 resolution of the son, were now matter of public talk in Stockport. Several clergymen endeavoured to con- vince the lad of his misconduct. One of them, who had been his schoolmaster, called him his child, prayed for him, wept over him, and conjured him, as he loved his own soul, not to go near those people any more. The father, in presence of this clergyman, told his son, that he might attend the church prayers every day, and should have every indulgence which he could ask, provided he would come no more near those " damned villains," as he called the objects of his violent, but not unreasonable prejudice. John's reply was, that he would do every thing in his power to satisfy him as a child to a parent, but that this was a matter of conscience which he could not give up. Mr. Oliver had good cause for apprehending the worst consequences from that spirit of fanaticism with which the boy was so thoroughly possessed. The disease was advancing rapidly toward a crisis. At this time, his heart was " kept in peace and love all the day long;" and when his band-fellows spoke of the wickedness which they felt in themselves, he wondered at them, and could discover none in him- self. It was not long before he made the discovery. " Having," he says, " given way to temptation, and grieved the Holy Spirit of God," all his comforts were withdrawn in a moment: "my soul was all over darkness : I could no longer see him that is invisible : I could not feel his influence on my heart : I sought him, but could not find him. I endeavoured to pray, but the heavens seemed like brass : at the same time such a weight came upon me, as if I was instantly to be pressed to death. I sunk into black despair : I found no gleam of light, no trace of hope, no token of any kind for good. The Devil improved this hour of darkness, telling me I was sure to be damned, for I n 2 JOHN OLlVl•:l^ Avas forsaken of God. Sleep departed from nie, and 1 scarce cat any tiling, till 1 was reduced to a mere skeleton." One morning, being no longer able to endure this misery, and resolving to put an end to liis wretched life, he rose very early, and threw him- self into the river, in deep water. How he was taken out, and conveyed to the house of a Methodist, he Bays, is what he never could tell ; " unless God sent one of his ministering spirits to help in the time of need." A humbler Christian would have been satisfied Avith gratefully acknowledging the providence of God : he, however, Hattered himself Avitli the sup- position of a miracle ; and Wesley, many years after- wards, published the account without reprehension or connncnt. That evening, there was preaching and praying in the house; but, in the morning, " Satan came upon him like thunder," telling him he was a self-nuu-derer ; and he attempted to strangle him- self with a handkerchief. It was now thought proper to send for Mr. Oliver, who had been almost distracted all this while, fearing what might so probably have happened to the poor bewildered boy. He took him home, promising to use no severity ; for John was afraid to go. A physician was called in, whom Oliver calls an utter stranger to all religion. He bled him, largcl}', physicked him well, and blistered him on the head, back, and feet. It was very possible that the bodilv disease required some active treatment: the lea\en of the mind was not thus to be worked off. »► The first time that he was permitted to go out, one of his Methodist friends advised him to elope, seeing that he -svould not be permitted to serve God at home. He went to Manchester: his mother followed him, and Ibund means to bring him back by force : the father then gave up the contest in despair, and John pursued his own course without further opposition. Now it was, he says, that his strength came again : JOHN PAWSON. 5 his light, his life, his God. He began to exhort : soon afterward he fancied himself called to some more pub- lic work; and, having passed through the previous stages, was accepted by Wesley upon trial as a tra- velling preacher. At the year's end he would have gone home, from humility, not from any weariness of his vocation. Wesley's reply was, " You have set your hand to the gospel-plough, therefore never look back ! I would have you come up to London this winter. Here is every thing to make the man of God perfect." He accepted the invitation ; and had been thirty years an active and successful preacher, when his life and portrait were exhibited in the Arminian Mao-azine. Oliver describes himself as having always been of a fearful temper — a temper which is often connected^ with rashness. During part of his life, he was afflicted with what he calls a scrofulous disorder. A prac- titioner in Essex, to whom he applied for relief, and who began his practice by prayer, told him his whole mass of blood was corrupted, and advised him to a milk diet : he took daily a quart of milk, with white bread, and two table- spoonfuls of honey. In six months his whole habit of body was changed, and no symptom of the disorder ever appeared afterwards. John Pawson was the son of a respectable farmer, who cultivated his own estate, at Thorner, in York- shire. His parents were of the Church of England, and gave him a good education according to their means, and though, he says, they were strangers to the life and power of religion, brought him up in the fear of God. The father followed also the trade of a builder, and this son was bred to the same business. The youth knowing the Methodists only by common report, supposed them to be a foolish and Avicked people ; till happening to hear a person give an account of his wife, who was a Methodist, he conceived a 6 JOHN PAWSON. better opinion of them, and felt a wish to hear them. Accordingly he went one evening to their place of meet- ing ; but, when he came to the door, he was ashamed to no in, and so walked round the house, and returned home. This was in his 18th year. He was now em- ployed at Harewood, and fell into profligate company, who, though they did not succeed in corrupting him, made him dislike ]\Iethodism more than ever. Two sermons, which had been preached at the parish church in Leeds by a methodistical clergyman, were lent to his father when Pawson Avas about twenty. These fell into his hands, and convinced him that justification by faith was necessary to salvation. He went now to Otley to hear a IMethodist preach ; and from that hour his course of life was determined. The serious devout behaviour of the people, he says, struck him with a kind of religious awe : the singing greatly delighted him ; and the sermon was, to use his own phraseology, " much blest to his soul." He was permitted to stay, and be present at the Society Meeting, and " had cause to bless God for it." There was nothing wavering in this man's cha- racter : he had been morally and religiously brought up; his disposition, from the beginning, was good, and his devotional feelings strong. But his relations were exceedingly offended Avhen he declared himself a Methodist. An uncle, who had promised to be his friend, resolved that he would leave him nothing in his will, and kept the resolution. His parents, and his brother and sisters, supposed him to be totally ruined. Sometimes his fiither threatened to turn him out of doors, and utterly disoAvn him: but John was his eldest son : he dearly loved him ; and this fault, bitterly as he regretted and resented it, was not of a nature to destroy his natural affection. He tried persuasion, as well as threats ; beseeching him not to run Avilfully after his own ruin ; and his mother fre- JOHN PAWSON. 7. quently wept much on his account. The threat of disinheriting him gave him no trouble ; but the danger which he believed their souls were in distressed him sorely. " I did not regard what I suffered," says he, " so my parents might be brought out of their Egyp- tian darkness." He bought books, and laid them in his father's Avay, and it was a hopeful symptom that the father read them, although it seemed to no good purpose. The seed, however, had struck root in the family: his brother and some of his sisters were " awakened." The father became more severe with John, as the prime cause of all this mischief : then again he tried mild means, and told him to buy what books he pleased, but besought him not to go to the preachings : he might learn more by reading Mr. Wesley's writings, than by hearing the lay -preachers ; and the Methodists, he said, were so universally hated, that it would ruin his character to go among them. It was " hard work " to withstand the entreaties of a good father ; and it was not less hard to refrain from what he verily believed essential to his salvation. There was preaching one Sunday near the house, and, in obedience, he kept away ; but when it was over, and he saw the people returning home, full of the consolation which they had received, his grief became too strong for him ; he went into the garden, and wept bitterly ; and, as his emotions became more powerful, retired into a solitary place, and there, he says, be- moaned himself before the Lord, in such anguish, that he was scarcely able to look up. In this situation his father found him, and took him into the fields to see the grass and corn ; but the cheerful images of nature produced no effect upon a mind thus agitated ; and the father was grievously troubled, believing verily that his son would run distracted. They returned home in time to attend the Church service ; and, in the evening, as was their custom, John read aloud B 4 8 JOHN TAWSON. from some religious book, clioosing one to his purpose. Seeing that his father approved of what he read, he ventured to speak to him in defence of his principles. The father grew angry, and spoke with bitterness. " I find," said the old man, " thou art now entirely ruined. 1 have used every means I can think of, but all to no purpose. I rejoiced at thy birth, and I once thought thou wast as hopeful a young man as any in this town ; but now I shall have no more com- fort in thee so long as I live. Thy mother and I are grown old, and thou makest our lives quite miserable : thou wilt bring down our grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. Thou intendest to make my house a preaching-house, when once my head is laid ; but it shall never be thine : no, I will leave all I have to the poor of the parish, before the Methodists shall have any thing to do with it." Pawson was exceedingly affected ; and the father seeing this, desired him to promise that he would hear their preaching no more. 'He replied, when he could speak for weeping, that if he could see a sufficient reason he would make that promise ; but not till then. " Well," replied the old man, " I see thou art quite stupid — I may as well say nothing : the Methodists are the most bewitching people that ever lived ; for, when once a person hears them, it is impossible to persuade him to return back again." Pawson retired from this conversation in great trouble, and was tempted to think that he was guilty of disobeying his parents ; but he satisfied himself that he must obey God rather than man. It was a great comfort to him that his brothers sympathised with him entirely : they both strove to oblige their parents as much as possible, and took especial care that no business should be neglected for the preaching. This conduct had its effect. They used to pray toge- ther in their chamber. The mother, after often listen- JOHN PAWSON. 9 ing on the stairs, desired at last to join them ; and the father became, in like manner, a listener at first, and afterwards a partaker in these devotions. The minister of the parish now began to apprehend that he should lose the whole family : the way by which he attempted to retain them was neither wise nor chari- table ; it was by reviling and calumniating the Metho- dists, and in this manner inflaming the father's wrath against the son. This was Pawson's last trial ; perceiv- ing the eifect which was thus produced, he wrote a letter to his father, in which, after stating his feelings concerning his own soul, he came to plain arguments, which could not but have their due weight. " What Avorse am I, in any respect, since I heard the Metho- dists ? Am I disobedient to you or my mother in any other thing ? Do I neglect any part of business ? " He asked him also why he condemned the preachers, whom he had never heard. " If you will hear them only three times," said he, " and then prove from the Scripture that they preach contrary thereunto, I will hear them no more." The old man accepted this pro- posal. The first sermon he liked tolerably well, the second not at all, and the third so much, that he went to hear a fourth, which pleased him better than all the rest. His own mind was now wholly unsettled : he retired one morning into the stable, where nobody might hear or see him, that he might pray without interruption to the Lord ; and here such a paroxysm came on, " that he roared for the very disquietness of his soul." — "This," says Pawson, " was a day of glad tidings to me. I now had liberty to cast in my lot Avith the people of God. My fiither invited the preachers to his house, and prevented my turning it into a preaching-house, (as he had formerly said,) by doing it himself. From this time we had preachings in our own house, and all the family joined the Society." 10 JOHN TAWSON. It mi,2:lit liave been thouglit that tlic proselyte had now obtained his soul's desire ; but he had not at- tained to the new birth : his prayer was, that the Lord would take away his heart of stone, and give him a heart of flesh ; and, ere long, as he was " hearing the word " in a neighbouring village, the crisis which he solicited came on. " In the beginning of the service," says he, " the power of God came mightly upon me and many others. All on a sudden my heart was like melting wax : I cried aloud -with an exceeding bitter cry. The arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in my flesh, and the poison of them drank up my spirits ; yet in the height of my distress I could bless the Lord, that he had granted me that whicli I had so long souaht for." It was well that his father had been converted before he reached this stage, or he might with some reason have believed that Methodism had made his son insane. He could take no delight in any thing ; his business became a burthen to him ; he was quite confused ; so that any one, he says, Avho looked on him, might see in his countenance the distress of his mind, for he was on the very brink of despair. One day he was utterly confounded by hearing that one of his acquaintance had received an assurance of salva- tion, when he had only heard three sermons ; whereas he, who had long waited, was still Avithout comfort. Public thanks were given for this new birth; and Pawson went home from the meeting to give vent to his own grief. As he could not do this in his cham- ber without disturbing the family, he retired into the barn, where he might perform freely, and there began to pray, and weep, and roar aloud, for his distress was greater than he could well bear. Presently he found that his brotlier was in another part of the barn, in as much distress as himself. Their cries brought in the father and mother, the eldest sister, and lier husband, and all being in the same condition, they all lamented JOHN PAWSON. 11 together. " I suppose," says Pawson, ' if some of the good Christians of the age had seen or heard us, they would have concUided we were all quite beside our- selves. However, " though the children were brought to the birth, there was not strength to bring forth." One Saturday evening, when " there was a mighty shaking among the dry bones " at the meeting, his father re- ceived the assurance, and the preacher gave thanks on his account ; but Pawson was so far from being able to rejoice with him, that, he says, " his soul sunk as into the belly of hell." On the day following the preacher met the Society, " in order to wrestle with God in behalf of those who were in distress. Pawson went full of sorrow, " panting after the Lord, as the hart after the water-brooks." When the prayer for those in distress was made, he placed himself upon his knees in the middle of the room, if possible, in greater anguish of spirit than ever before. Presently a person, whom he knew, " cried for mercy, as if he would rend the very heaven." * " Quickly after, in the twinkling of an * What shall I say to these and other instances ? Disbelieve the narrators ? I cannot — I dare not. I seem to be assured that I should quench the ray, and paralyse the factual nerve, by which I have hitherto been able to discriminate veracity from falsehood, and deceit from delusion. Is it then aught real, though subjectively real as the law of conscience ? When I find an instance recorded by a philosopher of himself, he still continuing to be a philosopher — recorded by a man, who can give the distinctive marks by which he had satisfied himself that the experience was not explicable physiologically, nor psychologi- cally,— I shall think it time to ask myself the question : till then, I find no more rational solution than that afforded by disord<;r of the nervous functions from mental causes, no physical or external disturb- ing forces being present, and no disease. In such cases we may, I should think, anticipate certain sudden refluxes of healthful secretions, and internal actions of the organs : this, and that of a mind perhaps bafiled and drawn back, till at length, either strengthened by accumu- lated sensation, or availing itself of a quieter moment or conspiring circumstances, it makes head again, and flows in on the empty channel in a bore. And this of course would take its shape, and as it were articulate itself, or interpret itself, by the predominant thoughts, images, and aims of the individual ; even as life returns upon the drowned, and as moderate warmth has been known to intoxicate and produce all 12 JOHN TAWSON. eye," says Pawson, " all my trouble was gone, my guilt and condemnation were removed, and 1 was tilled Avitli joy unspeakable. I was brought out of darkness into marvellous light; out of miserable bonda""e, into glorious liberty; out of the most bitter distress, into unspeakable happiness. I had not the least doubt of my acceptance with God, but was fully assured that he was reconciled to me through the merits of his Son. I was fully satisfied that I was born of God : my justification was so clear to me, that I could neither doubt nor fear." The lot of the young man was now cast. He was shortly afterwards desired to meet a class : it was a sore trial to him ; but obedience was a duty, and he was "obliged to take up the cross." "From the first or second time I met it," he continues, " I con- tinually walked in the light of God's countenance : I served him with an undivided heart. I had no dis- tressing temptations, but had constant power over all sin, so that 1 lived as upon the borders of heaven." Henceforward his progress was regular. From reading the homilies, and explaining them as he went on, he began to expound the Bible, in his poor manner. The people thrust him into the pulpit. First he became a local preacher, then an itinerant, and, finally, a lead- ing personage of the conference, in which he continued a steady and useful member till his death. the thrilling overwhelming synthesis of impatient appetite and intoler- able fruition, that some constitutions have undergone from inhaling the nitrous oxyde. Add to this the important fact, that Christianity in its genuine doctrines contains so much of spiritual verities, that can only be spiritually discerned, but which will to such individuals sccni akin to their recent exaltations, and therefore actually supply a link ; so that by these spiritual verities they become, without any sensible discon- tinuity, connected with the whole series of the duties, humanities, charities of religion : at vcrlnnn sat. In short, the man awakens so gradually, and opens his eyes by little and little to objects so similar to liis dream, that the dream detaches itself as it were from sleep, and becomes the commencing portion of the new day- thoughts. — S. T. C, ALEXANDER MATHER. 13 Alexander Mather was a man of cooler tempera- ment and better disciplined mind than most of Wes- ley's coadjutors. He was the son of a baker, at Bre- chin, in Scotland: his parents were reputable and religious people : they kept him carefully from evil company, and brought him up in the fear of God: but the father was a rigid and severe man ; and pro- bably for this reason, while he was yet a mere boy, (according to his own account not thirteen,) he joined the rebels in 1745. Having escaped from Culloden and the pursuit, he found that his father's doors were closed against him on his return. By his mother's help, however, he was secreted among their relations for several months, till he thought the danger was over, and ventured a second time to present himself at home. The father, more, perhaps, from cunning, than actual want of feeling, not only again refused him admittance, but went himself and gave informa- tion ao-ainst him to the commandino; officer, and the boy would have been sent to prison, if a gentleman of the town had not interfered, and obtained leave for him to lodixe in his father's house. The next morn- ing he passed through the form of an examination, and was discharo;ed. From this time he worked at his father's business, till, in the nineteenth year of his age, he thought it advisable to see the world, and therefore travelled southward. The next year he reached London, and there engaged himself as a journeyman baker. Because he was, as he says, a foreigner, his first master was summoned to Guild- hall, and compelled to dismiss him. This unjust law was not afterwards enforced against him, and he seems to have had no difficulty in obtaining employ- ment. Before he had been many months in London, a young woman, who had been bred up with him in his father's house, sought him out : they had not met for many years, and this renewal of an old intimacy, in a strange land, soon ended in marriage. 14 ALEXANDER MATHER. Mather had made a resolution that he would live wholly to God whenever he should marry. For a while he was too happy to remember this resolution : he remembered it when his wife was afflicted with ill- ness : it then lay heavy on his mind that he had not ])erformed his vow of praying Avith her, and yet some kind of false feeling prevented him from opening liis heart to her. Day after day the sense of this secret sin increased upon him, till, after loss of appetite and of sleep, and tears by day and night, he " broke through," as he expresses it, and began the practice of praying with her, which from that time was never interrupted. Her education had been a religious one like his, and they did not depart from the way in which they were trained up. Though Mather had no domestic obstacles to over- come, and never passed through those struggles of mind which, in many of his colleagues, bordered so closely upon madness, he was by no means in a sane state of devotion at this time. It was not sufficient for him to pray by himself every morning, and every afternoon with his wife ; he sometimes knelt when he was going to l^ed, and continued in that position till two o'clock, when he was called to his work. The master whom he now served was an attendant at the Foundry, but, like all others of the same trade, he was in the practice of what was called " baking of pans" on a Sunday. Mather regarded this as a breach of the Sabbath : it troubled him so that he could find no peace ; and his flesh, he says, consumed away, till the bones were ready to start through his skin. At length, unable to endure this state of mind, he gave his master warning. The master, finding by what motives he was influenced, and that he had not pro- vided himself with another place, was struck by his conscientious conduct : he went round to all the trade in the neighbourhood, and proposed that they should ALEXANDER MATHER. 15 enter into an agreement not to bake on Sundays. The majority agreed. He advertised for a meeting of master bakers upon the subject; but nothing could be concluded. After all this, which Mather acknow- ledges was more than he could reasonably expect, he said to him, " I have done all I can, and now I hope you will be content." Mather sincerely thanked him for what he had done, but declared his intention of quitting him, as soon as his master could suit himself with another man. But the master, it seems, took advice at the Foundry, and on the following Sunday staid at home, to tell all his customers that he could bake no more on the Sabbath day. From this time both he and his wife were particularly kind to Mather. They introduced him to the Foundry, and he soon became a regular member of the Society. It Avas not long before he had strong impressions upon his mind that he was called to preach. After fasting and praying upon this point, he communi- cated it to his band, and they set apart some days for the same exercises. This mode of proceeding was not likely to abate his desire ; and the band then ad- vised him to speak to Mr. Wesley. Wesley replied, " This is a common temptation among young men. Several have mentioned it to me ; but the next thing I hear of them is, that they are married, or upon the point of it." — " Sir," said Mather, " I am married already." Wesley then bade him not care for the temptation, but seek God by fasting and prayer. He made answer, that he had done this ; and Wesley re- commended patience and perseverance in this course ; adding, that he doubted not but God would soon make the way plain before him. Mather could not but un- derstand this as an encoiu'agement: he was the more encouraged, when Wesley shortly afterwards appointed him first to be the leader of a band, and in a little time of a class. In both situations he acquitted himself to K; ALEXANDER MATHER. the satisfaction of others : his confidence in himself M'-as, of course, increased, and he went once more to Mr. AVesley to represent his ardent aspirations. " To be a Methodist preacher," said Wesley, " is not the way to ease, honour, pleasure, or profit. It is a life of nnicli labour and reproach. They often fare hard — often are in want. They are liable to be stoned, beaten, and abused in various manners. Consider this before you engage in so uncomfortable a way of life." The other side of the picture would have been sufficiently tempting, if Mather had been influenced by worldly considerations : the danger Avas just enough to stimulate enthusiasm : the reproach of strangers would only heighten the estimation in which he would be held by believers : no way of life could be more uncom- fortable than his own ; and what a preferment in the world for a journeyman baker ! The conversation ended, by allowing him to make a trial on the follow- in"* morning. After a second essay, he received in- formation nearly at ten at night, that he was to preach the next morning, at five o'clock, at the Foundry. This was the critical trial. All the time he was making his dough he was engaged in meditation and prayer for assistance. The family were all in bed, and when he had done, he continued praying and reading the Bible to find a text till two o'clock. It was then time to call his fellow-servant, and they went to work together as usual till near four, preparing the bread for the oven. His comrade then retired to bed, and he to his prayers, till a quarter before five, when he went, in fear and trembling, to the meeting, still im])repai'ed even with a text. He took up the hymn- book, and gave out the hymn, in a voice so faint, be- cause of his timidity, that it could not be understood. The people, not hearing the verse, knew not what to sing : he was no singer himself, otherwise he might liave recovered this mishap by leading them ; so ALEXANDER MATHER, 17 they were at a stand, and this increased his agitation so much, that his joints shook. However, he reco- vered himself, and took the text upon which he opened. The matter after this was left to Mr. Wes- ley, to employ him as his business would permit, just when and where he pleased. When first he began to preach, there was a considerable natural defect in his delivery ; and he spoke with such extreme quickness, that very few could understand him : but he entirely overcame this. The account of the exertions in which this zealous labourer was now engaged, may best be related in his own words. He says, " In a little time I was more employed than my strength would well allow. I had no time for preaching but what I took from my sleep ; so that I frequently had not eight hours' sleep in a week. This, with hard labour, constant abste- miousness, and frequent fasting, brought me so low, that, in a little more than two years, I Avas hardly able to follow my business. My master was often afraid I should kill myself; and perhaps his fear was not groundless. I have frequently put off my shirts as wet with sweat as if they had been dipt in water. After hastening to finish my business abroad, I have come home all in a sweat in the evening, changed my clothes, and ran to preach at one or another chapel ; then walked or ran back, changed my clothes, and gone to work at ten, wrought hard all night, and preached at five the next morning. I ran back to draw the bread at a quarter, or half an hour past six ; wrought hard in the bake-house till eight ; then hur- ried about -svith bread till the afternoon, and perhaps at night set off again." Had this mode of life continued long, Mather must have fallen a victim to his zeal. He was probably saved by being appointed a travelling preacher ; yet, at the very commencement of his itinerancy, hia VOL. II. c 18 ALEXANDER MATHER. course had been nearly cut short. A mob attacked him at Boston ; and when, with great difficulty and danger, he reached his inn, bruised, bleeding, and covered with blood, the rabble beset the house, and the landlord attempted to turn him out, for fear they should pull it down. jMather, however, knew the laws, and was not wanting to himself. " Sir," he said, " I am in your house ; but, while I use it as an inn, it is mine — turn me out at your peril." And he compelled him to apply to a magistrate for pro- tection. It was more than twelve months before he recovered from the brutal treatment wdiicli he received on this occasion. The mob at AVolverhampton pulled down a preaching-house : an attorney had led them on, and made the first breach himself. Mather gave him his choice of rebuilding it at his own expense, or being tried for his life : of course the house was re- built, and there were no further riots at Wolver- hampton. He was of a hardy constitution and strong mind, cool and courageous, zealous and disinterested, most tender-hearted and charitable, but possessing withal a large share of prudence, which enabled him to conduct the temporal affairs of the Connection with great ability. The account which, in his ma- tured and sober mind, he gives of his experience, touching what Wesley calls the great salvation, bears with it fewer marks of enthusiasm, and more of me- ditation, than is usually found in such cases. " A¥hat I experienced in my own soul," he says, " was an in- stantaneous deliverance from all those wrong tempers and affections which I had long and sensibly groaned under ; an entire disengagement from every creature, with an entire devotedness to God ; and from that moment I found an unspeakable pleasure in doing the will of God in all things. I had also a power to do it, and the constant approbation both of my own conscience and of God. I had simplicity of heart, THOMAS OLIVERS. 19 « and a single eye to God at all times and in all places, with such a fervent zeal for the glory of God and the good of souls, as swallowed up every other care and consideration. Above all, I had uninterrupted com- munion with God, whether sleeping or waking." It is scarcely compatible with human weakness, that a state like this should be permanent ; and Mather, in describing it, after an interval of more than twenty years, exclaims, " Oh that it were with me as when the candle of the Lord thus shone upon my head ! " Yet he had not failed in his course ; and, after much reflection, and the surer aid of prayer, had calmly satisfied his clear judgement, " that deliverance from sin does not imply deliverance from human infirmi- ties ; and that it is not inconsistent with temptations of various kinds." * Thomas Olivers was born at Tregonan, a village in Montgomeryshire, in the year 1725. Being left an * Assuredly my judgement is strong against the use of the word, and the profession of the state, perfection ; which word, in its English meaning, does not correspond to the Greek words, riXeioc teXeiottjq, of which it is pretended to be the translation : full growth, adult, are far nearer ; and as the age of twenty-one, or twenty-five, neither precludes comparatively greater or less manhood, strength, and power in A and in B, nor yet an increase of growth, though not in stature, yet in breadth and muscular firmness, — but rather brings with it a lessening of some excellences (as agility, fervour, and the like), to make way for the growth of other powers and qualities, — so is it with the Christian TeXeiorijg. It would be desirable to know what the Syro-Chaldaic word was, which our Lord used in the precept, " Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." I cannot doubt that it would be found to corre- spond to our English sense oi pei feet, not including the secondary, yet the popular and ordinary, sense of riXeioc among the Greeks. Like- wise the very extensive and various application of the verb-substantive in the Semitic languages, justifies us in interpreting the text as the proposed ideal, the commended ultimate, yet ever present aim ; and the " Be ye," as = continue striving to be. There is no point at which you can arrive in this life, in which the command, " Soar upwards still," ceases in validity or occasion. How much opposition — nay, how much spiritual pride and vanity— might Wesley have prevented by calling his first class, mature believers^ or adult Christians. — S. T. C. c 2 20 THOMAS OLIVERS. • orphan in childhood, with some little property, he was placed under the care of the husband of his father's first cousin ; which remote relationship comes under the comprehensive term of a Welsh uncle. Mr. Tudoi', as this person was called, was an eminent farmer, and did his duty by the boy; giving him not merely the common school education, but bestowing more than common pains in imparting religious ac- quirements. He was taught to sing psalms, as well as repeat his catechism and his prayers, and to attend church twice on the Sabbath day. But the parish happened to be in a state of shocking immorality : there was one man, in particular, who studied the art of cursing, and would exemplify the richness of the Welsh language by compounding twenty or thirty words into one long and horrid blasphemy. As this v/"as greatly admired among his profligate companions, Olivers imitated it, and in time rivalled what he calls his infernal instructor. " It is liorrid to think," says he, " how often I have cursed the wind and the weather ! the souls of cows and horses ! yea, the very heart's blood of stones, trees, gates, and doors ! " The other parts of his conduct were in the same spirit; and he obtained tlie character of being the worst boy who had been known in that countr}^ for the last thirty years. Wlien he Avas about three or four and twenty he left the country, not having half learned the business to which he had been appren- ticed. The cause of his departure was the outcry raised against him for his conduct toward a former's daughter: he was the means, he says, of driving her almost to an untimely end. It was the sin whicli lay heaviest on his mind, both before and after his con- version; and which, as long as he lived, he remem- bered with peculiar shame and sorrow. He removed to ShrcAvsbury, and there, or in its neighbourhood, cr.itinued a profligate course of life, THOMAS OLIVERS. 21 till poverty, as well as conscience, stared liim In the face. He said within himself, that he was living a most wretched life, and that the end mnst be damna- tion, unless he repented and forsook his sins. But how should he acquire strength for this ? For he had always gone to church, and he had often prayed and resolved against his evil practices, and yet his resolutions were weak as water. So he thought of "trying what the sacrament would do ;" and borrow- ing, accordingly, the book called A Week's Prepara- tion, he went regularly through it, and read daily upon his knees the meditations and prayers for the day. On the Sunday he went to the Lord's table, and spent the following week in going over the second part of the book, as devoutly as he had done the first. During this fortnight he " kept tolerably clear of sin ; " but when the course of regimen was over, the effect ceased : he returned the book with many thanks, and fell again into his vicious courses. Ere long he was seized with a violent fever : and when his life was despaired of, was restored, as he believed, by the skill of a journeyman apothecary, who, being a Me- thodist, attended him for charity. His recovery brought with it a keen but transitory repentance. This was at Wrexham. Here he and one of his com- panions committed an act of arch -villainy, and de- camped in consequence ; Olivers leaving several debts behind him, (which was generally the case wherever he went,) and the other running away from his appren- ticeship. They travelled as far as Bristol ; and there Olivers, learning that Mr. Whitefield was to preach, resolved to go and hear what he had to say ; because he had often heard of Whitefield, and had sung songs about him. He went, and was too late. Determined to be soon enough on the following evening, he went three hours before the time. When the sermon began, he did little but look about him ; but seeing c 3 22 THOMAS OILVERS. tears trickle down tlie cheeks of some who stood near, he became more attentive. The text Avas, "is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ? " " When the sermon began," says this fiery-minded Welshman, " I was certainly a dreadful enemy to God, and to all that is good ; and one of the most profligate and abandoned young men living." Before it was ended, he became a new creature : a clear view of redemption was set before him, and his own con- science ^ave him clear conviction of its necessity. The heart, he says, was broken ; nor could he express the strong desires which he felt for righteousness. They led him to effectual resolutions : he broke off all his evil practices, forsook all his wicked compa- nions, and gave himself up with all his heart to God. He was now almost incessantly in tears : he was con- stant in attending worship, wherever it was going on ; and describes his feelinos durino; a Te Deum at the cathedral, as if he had done with earth, and was praising God before his throne. He bought the Week's Preparation, and read it upon his knees day and night ; and so constant was he in prayer, and in this position, that his knees became stiff, and he was actually, for a time, lame in consequence. " So earn- est was I," he says, " that I used, by the hour to- gether, to w^restle with all the might of my body and soul, till I almost expected to die on the spot. AVhat with bitter cries, (unheard by any but God and my- self,) together with toi-rents of tears, which were almost continually trickling down my cheeks, my throat was often dried up, as David says, and my eyes literally failed, while I waited for God ! " He used to follow Whiteiield in the streets, with such veneration, that he could "scarce refrain from kissing the very prints of his feet." Here he would fain have become a member of the Society; but when, with nuicli timidity, he made his THOMAS OLIVERS. 23 wishes known to one of Mr. Whitefield's ministers, the preacher, for some unexplained reason, thought proper to discourage him. After a few months, Olivers removed to Bradford, and there, for a long- time, attended the preaching of the Methodists ; and when the public service was over, and he, with the uninitiated, was shut out, he would go into the field at the back of the preaching-house, and listen while they Avere singing, and weep bitterly at the thought that, while God's people were thus praising his name, he, a poor wretched fugitive, was not permitted to be among them. And, though he compared himself to one of the foolish virgins, when they came out he would walk behind them for the sake of catching a word of their religious conversation. This conduct, and his regular attendance, at last attracted notice : he was asked if it was his wish to join the Society, and receive a note of admission from the preacher. His rebuff at Bristol had discouraged him from ap- plying for what might so easily have been obtained ; and the longing for the admission had produced a state of mind little different from insanity. Return- ing home, now that he possessed it, and exhilarated, or even intoxicated with joy, he says, that as he came to the bottom of the hill, at the entrance of the town, a ray of light, resembling the shining of a star, de- scended through a small opening in the heaven, and instantaneously shone upon him. In that instant his burden fell off, and he was so elevated, that he felt as if he could literally fly away to heaven.* A shooting star might easily produce this effect upon a man so * " This/' he says, "■ was the more surprising to me, as I had always been (what I still am) so prejudiced in favour of rational religion as not to regard visions, or revelations perhaps, so much as I ought to do. But this light was so clear, and the sweetness and other effects attending it were so great, that though it happened about twenty-seven years ago, the several circumstances thereof are as fresh in my remembrance as if they had happened but yesterday." c 4 24 THOMAS OLIVEKS. agitated : for " trifles, light as air," vnW act as strongly upon enthusiasm as upon jealousy ; and never was any man in a state of higher enthusiasm than Olivers at this time. He says, that in every thought, inten- tion, or desire, his constant inquiry was, whether it was to the glory of God ; and that if he could not answer in the affirmative, he dared not indulge it: that he received his daily food nearly in the same manner as he did the sacrament ; that he used men- tal prayer daily and hourly ; and for a while his rule was, in this manner, to employ five minutes out of every quarter of an hour, lie made it part of his business to stir up the members of the Society to greater diligences, and, among other things, used to run over great part of the town to call them up to the mornin.o; preaching. " Upon the whole," he pursues, " I truly lived by faith. I saw God in every thing : the heavens, the earth, and all therein, showed me something of him ; yea, even from a drop of water, a blade of grass, or a grain of sand, I often received in- struction." He soon became desirous of " telling the world what God had done for him ; " and having communi- cated this desire to his band-fellows, they kept a day of solemn fasting on the occasion, and then advised him to make a trial. Many approved of his gifts: others were of opinion that he ought to be more esta- blished, and was too earnest to hold it long. When he began to preach, his custom was, to get all his worldly business done, clean himself, and put out his Sunday's apparel on Saturday night, which sometimes was not acconqolished before midnight : afterwards he sat up reading, praying, and examining himself, till one or tAvo in the morning : he rose at four, or never later than five, and went two miles into the country, through all weather, to meet a few poor people, from six till seven. By eight he returned to THOMAS OLIVEKS. ^5 Bradford, to hear the preaching ; then went seven miles on foot to preacli at one ; three or four farther to hold forth at five ; and, after all, had some five or six more to walk on his return. And as the preach- ing was more exhausting than the exercise, he was often so wearied, that he could scarcely get over a stile, or go up into his chamber when he got honle. " For some time," says he, " I had frequent doubts concerning my call. One time, as I was going to preach at Coleford, I was tempted to believe that I was running before I was sent. As I went on, the temptation grew stronger and stronger. At last I resolved to turn back. I had not gone back above thirty or forty yards before I began to think, ' This may be a temptation of the Devil.' On that I took out my Testament, and on opening it, the words I cast my eyes on were. He that putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not Jit for the kingdom, of Heaven. I could not help looking on this as the voice of God to me ; therefore I took courage to turn about, and pursue my journey to Coleford." When he had been a local preacher about twelve months, the small-pox broke out in Bradford, and spread like a pestilence : scarce a single person escaped ; and six or seven died daily. Olivers Avas seized with it the first week in October : heating- things were given him by an ignorant old woman ; and when some charitable person sent an experienced physician to visit him, the physician declared that, in the course of fifty years' practice, he had never seen so severe a case. He was blind for five weeks. The room in which he lay was so ofiensive, that those who went out of it infected the streets as they past. He was not able to rise, that his bed might be made, till New Year's Day ; yet, during the whole time, he never uttered a groan or a single complaint ; " thus evincing," as he says, " that no suffering is too great 2G THOMAS OLIVERS. for the grace of God to enable us to bear "with re- signation and quietness." This long illness increased the number of his debts, which -were numerous enough before his conversion. As soon, therefore, as he had gained sufficient strength for the journey, he set off for Montgomeryshire, to receive his little property, which had hitherto re- mained in ]\lr. Tudor's hands. The thorough change whicli had been effected in so notorious a reprobate astonished all who knew him: when they saw him riding far and near, in search of all persons to whom he was indebted, and faithfully making payment of what the creditors never expected to recover, they could not doubt the sincerity of his reformation, and they ascribed it to the grace of God. Tudor explained the matter in a way more satisfactory to himself, be- cause he could comprehend it better : he said to Olivers, " Thou hast been so wicked that thou hast seen the Devil." * Having paid his debts in his ovni country, he returned by way of Bristol to Bradford, discharged, in like manner, his accounts in both these places, and being now clear of the world, and thereby delivered from a burden which had cost him, as he says, many prayers and tears, he set up business with the small remains of his money, and with a little credit ; but, before he was half settled, Wesley ex- horted him to free himself from all such engagements, and make the work of the gospel his sole pursuit. The advice of the master was a law to the obedient disciple. Olivers disposed of his effects, wound up his affairs, and prepared to itinerate in the west of England. " But I was not able," he says, " to buy another horse ; and therefore, with my boots on my legs, my great coat on my l^ack, and my saddle-bags, * There is a sort of wild philosophy in this popular notion. See Friend, vol. iii. p. 71. (p. 56. 3d edition.) What we have within, that only can we see without. Aa//.to»'oc t't^et ov^eic £< /*''/ o daii.iot'oudT)Q. — S. T. C. THOMAS OLIVERS. 27 with my books and linen, across my shoulder, I set out in October, 1753." Wesley, when he was not the dupe of his own imagination, could read the characters of men with a discriminating eye. He was not deceived in Olivers : the daring disposition, the fiery temper, and the stub- bornness of this Welshman, were now subdued and disciplined into an intrepidity, an ardour, and a per- severance, which were the best requisites for his vocation. It was not long before one of his congre- gation at Tiverton presented him with the price of a horse, as well suited to him as Bucephalus to Alexan- der ; for he was as tough and as indefatigable as his master. Indeed the beast, as if from sympathy, made the first advances, by coming up to him in a field where he was walking with the owner, and laying his nose upon his shoulder. Pleased with this familiarity, Olivers stroked the colt, Avhicli was then about two years and a half old ; and finding that the farmer would sell him for five pounds, struck the bargain. " I have kept him," he says in his memoirs, " to this day, which is about twenty-five years, and on him I have travelled comfortably not less than an hundred thousand miles." On one occasion both he and his horse were exposed to a service of some danger at Yarmouth. The mob of that toAvn had sworn, that if any Methodist came there, he should never return alive. Olivers, however, being then stationed at Norwich, was resolved to try the experiment, and ac- cordingly set out with a companion, who was in no encouraging state of mind, but every now and then exclaimed upon the road, " I shall be murdered, and go to hell this day; for I know not the Lord." With this unhappy volunteer for martyrdom, Olivers entered Yarmouth ; and having first attended service in the church, went into the market-place and gave out a hymn. The people collectedj and listened with toler- 2S THOMAS OLIVERS. able quietness while lie sung and prayed ; but, as soon as he had taken his text, they began so rude a comment upon the sermon, that one of his friends prudently pulled him down from his perilous stand, and retreated with him into a house, in one of those remarkable streets which are peculiar to Yarmouth, and are called rows ; and which are so narrow, that two long-armed persons may almost shake hands across from the windows. Though Olivers had rashly thrust himself into this adventure, he was prudent enough now to withdraw from it, and accordingly he sent for his horse. The mob recognised the animal, followed him, and filled the row. To wait till they dispersed might have been inconvenient ; and perhaps they iniaht have attacked the house : so he came forth, mounted resolutely, and making use of his faithful roadster as a charger on this emergence, forced the rabble before him through the row ; but the women on either side stood in the door- ways, some vnth. bowls of water, others with both hands full of dirt, to salute him as he passed. Having rode the gauntlet here, and got into the open street, a tremendous battery of stones, sticks, apples, turnips, potatoes, and other such varieties of mob ammunition, was opened upon him and his poor comrade : the latter clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped out of town: Olivers proceeded more calmly ; and watching the sticks and stones which came near, so as to ward them oiF, and evade the blow, preserved, as he says, a regular retreat. Olivers was more likely led into this danger by a point of honour, than by any natural rashness ; for, that he had acquired a considerable share of sound worldly prudence, appears from the curious account which he has given of his deliberation concerning marriage. Setting out, he says, with a conviction that in this important concern " young people did not consult j-eason and the will of God, so much as their own THOMAS OLIVERS. 29 foolish inclinations," he inquired of himself, in the first place, whether he was called to marry at that time; and having settled that question in the affirma- tive, the next inquiry was, what sort of a person ought he to marry ? The remainder is too extraordinary and too characteristic to be given in any words but his own : — "To this I answered in general, such a one as Christ would choose for me, suppose he was on earth, and was to undertake that business. I then asked, ' But what sort of a person have I reason to believe he would choose for me ? ' Here I fixed on the following- properties, and ranged them in the following order : — The first was grace: I was quite certain that no preacher of God's word ought, on any consideration, to marry one who is not eminently gracious. Secondly, she ought to have tolerable good common sense : a Methodist preacher, in particular, who travels into all parts, and sees such a variety of company, ought not to take a fool with him. Thirdly, as I knew the natural warmth of my own temper, I concluded that a wise and gracious God would not choose a companion for ME who would throw oil, but rather water, upon the fire. Fourthly, I judged that, as I was connected with a poor people, the will of God was, that whoever I married should have a small competency, to prevent her being chargeable to any." He then proceeds to say, that, upon the next step in the inquhy, "Who is the person in whom these properties are found ? " he immediately turned his eyes on Miss Green, " a person of a good family, and noted through all the north of England for her extraordinary piety." He opened his mind to her, consulted Mr. Wesle}^, married her ; and having, " in this affair, consulted reason and the will of God so impartially, had abundant reason to be thankful ever afterwards." The small-pox had shaken his constitution : for eight years after that dreadful illness his health continually 30 THOMAS OLIVERS. declined; and lie was thought to be far advanced in consumption wlien he was appointed to the York cir- cuit, where he had to take care of sixty societies, and ride about three hundred miles every six weeks. Few persons thought it possible that he could perform the journey once ; but he said, "I am determined to go as far as I can, and when I can go no farther, I will turn back." By the time he had got half round, the ex- ercise, and perhaps the frequent change of air, restored in some degree his appetite, and improved his sleep ; and before he reached the end, he had begun to recover flesh :" but it was twelve years before he felt himself a hale man. The few fits of dejection with which he was troubled, seem to have originated more in bodily weakness than in the temper of his mind. One in- stance is curious, for the way in which it affected others. While he was dining one day about noon, a thouQ-ht came over him that he was not called to preach : the food, therefore, with which he was then served, did not belong to him, and he was a thief and a robber in eating it. He burst into tears, and could eat no more ; and having to officiate at one o'clock, went to the preaching-house, weeping all the way. He went weeping into the pulpit, and wept sorely while he gave out the hymn, and while he prayed, and while he preached. A sympathetic emotion spread through the congregation, which made them receive the impression like melted wax : many of them ''cried aloud for the disquietness of their souls ; " and Olivers, who, looking as usual for supernatural agency in every thing, had supposed the doubt of his own quali- fications to be produced by the tempter, believed now that the Lord had brought much good out of that temptation. After serving many years as a travelling preacher, he was fixed in London as the manager of JMr. Wes- ley's printing ; an occui^ation which did not interfere THOMAS OLIVERS. 31 with his preaching, but made him stationary. He never laboured harder in his life, he says ; and finding it good both for body and soul, he hoped to be fully employed as long as he lived. Well might this man, upon reviewing his own eventful history, bless God for the manifold mercies which he had experienced, and look upon the Methodists as the instruments of his deliverance from sin and death. 32 CHAPTER XVIII. JOHN IIAIME. SAMPSON STANIFORTH. GEORGE STORY. Among the memoirs of his more eminent preachers, which Wesley published in his magazine, as written by themselves for general edification, is " A short Account of God's Dealings witli Mr. John Haime." Satan has so much to do in the narrative, that this is certainly a misnomer. It is accompanied by his por- trait, taken when he was seventy years of age. What oro-ans a cranioloofist mio:ht have detected under his brown wig, it is impossible to say ; but Lavater him- self would never have discovered, in those mean and common features, the turbulent mind, and passionate fancy, which belonged to them. Small inexpressive eyes, scanty eye-brows, and a short, broad, vidgar nose, in a face of ordinary proportions, seem to mark out a subject Avho would have been content to travel a jog-trot along the high-road of mortality, and have looked for no greater delight than that of smoking and boozing in the chimney-corner. And yet John Haime passed his whole life in a continued spiritual ague. He was born at Shaftesbury, in 1710, and bred up to his father's employment, of gardening. Not liking this, he tried button-making ; but no occupation pleased him : and indeed he appears, by his own account, to have been in a state little differing from insanity; or differing from it in this only, that he had sufficient command of himself not to communi- cate the miserable imaginations by which he was tor- JOHN HABIE. 33 mentecl. He describes himself as unclutiful to his parents, addicted to cursing, swearing, lying, and Sab- bath-breaking ; tempted with blasphemous thoughts, and perpetually in fear of the Devil, so that he could find no comfort in working, eating, drinking, or even in sleeping. " The Devil," he says, " broke in upon me with reasonings concerning the being of a God, till my senses were almost gone. He then so strongly tempted me to blaspheme, that I could not withstand. He then told me, ' Thou art inevitably damned ; ' and I readily believed him. This made me sink into despair, as a stone into the mighty water. I now began to wander about by the river side, and through woods and solitary places ; many times looking up to heaven with a heart ready to break, thinking I had no part there. I thought every one happy but my- self, tlie Devil continually telling me there was no mercy for me. I cried for help, but found no relief ; so I said, there is no hope, and gave the reins to my evil desires, not caring which end went foremost, but giving up myself to wicked company and all their evil ways. And I was hastening on, when the great tremendous God met me, as a lion in the way ; and his holy Spirit, whom I had been so long grieving, re- turned with greater force than ever. I had no rest day or night. I was afraid to go to bed, lest the Devil should fetch me away before morning. I was afraid to shut my eyes, lest I should awake in hell. I Avas terrified when asleep ; sometimes dreaming that many devils were in the room ready to take me away ; sometimes that the world was at an end. At other times I thought I saw the world on fire, and the wicked left to burn therein, with myself amongst them ; and when I awoke, my senses were almost gone. I was often on the point of destroying myself, and was stopped, I know not how. Then did I weep VOL. II. D 34 JOHN ITAIME. bitterly : I moaned like a dove, I chattered like a swallow." lie relates yet more violent paroxysms than these : how, having risen from his knees, upon a sudden im- pulse that he would not pray, nor be beholden to God for mercy, he passed the whole night as if his very body had been in a fire, and hell within him ; thoroughly persuaded that the Devil was in the room, and fully expecting every moment that he would be let loose upon him. He says, that in an excess of blasphemous frenzy, having a stick in his hand, he threw it towards heaven against God with the utmost enmity ; and, he says, that this act was followed by what he supposed to be a supernatural appearance : that immediately he saw, in the clear sky, a creature like a swan, but much larger, part black, part bro^vn, which flew at him, went just over his head, and light- ing on the ground, at about forty yards' distance, stood staring upon him. The reader must not sup- pose this to be mere fiction ; what he saw was cer- tainly a bustard, whose nest was near ; but Wesley publishes the story as Haime wrote it, without any qualifying word or observation, and doubtless be- lieved it as it was written. Had this poor man been a Romanist, he would have found beads and holy water efiectual amulets in such cases : anodynes would have been the best palliatives in such a dis- ease ; and he might have been cured through the imagination, when no remedy could be applied to the understanding. In this extraordinary state of mind he forsook his wife and children, and enlisted in the Queen's regi- ment of dragoons. The life which John Bunyan wrote of himself, under the title of " Grace abound- ing to the Chief of Sinners," now fell into his hands. He read it with the deepest attention, finding that the case nearly resembled his own : he thought it the JOHN HAIME. 35 best book he had ever seen ; and it gave him some hope of mercy. " In every town where we staid," says he, " I went to church ; but I did not hear what I wanted : ' Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world ! ' Being come to Alnwick, Satan desired to have me, that he might sift me as wheat. And the hand of the Lord came upon me with such weight, as made me roar for very anguish of spirit. Many times I stopt in the street, afraid to go one step farther, lest I should step into hell. I now read and fasted, and went to church, and prayed seven times a day. One day, as I walked by the Tweed side, I cried out aloud, being all athirst for God, ' Oh that thou wouldst hear my prayer, and let my cry come up before thee ! ' The Lord heard : he sent a gracious answer : he lifted me up out of the dungeon : he took away all my sorrow and fear, and filled my soul with peace and joy. The stream glided sweetly along, and all nature seemed to rejoice with me." But left, as he was, wholly to his own diseased imagination, the hot and cold fits succeeded each other with little in- terval of rest. Being sent to London with the camp- equipage, he went to hear one of Whitefield's preachers ; and ventured, as he was coming back from the meet- ing, to tell him the distress of his soul. The preacher, whose charity seems to have been upon a par with his wisdom, made answer, " The work of the Devil is upon you," and rode away. " It was of the tender mercies of God," says poor Haime, " that I did not put an end to my life." " Yet," he says, " I thought if I must be damned myself, I will do what I can that others may be saved ; so I began to reprove open sin wherever I saw or heard it, and to warn the ungodly, that, if they did not repent, they would surely perish : but, if I found any that were Aveary and heavy laden, I told them to wait upon the Lord, and he would renew their D 2 3G JOHN ITAIRIE. strengtli ; yet I found no strength myself." He was, however, hicky enough to hear Charles Wesley, at Colchester, and to consult him when the service was over. Wiser than the Calvinistic preacher, Cliarles AV^esley encouraged him, and bade him go on without fear, and not be dismayed at any temptation. These words sank deep, and were felt as a blessing to him for many years. His regiment was now ordered to Flanders ; and writing from thence to Wesley for comfort and counsel, he was exhorted to persevere in his calling. " It is but a little thing," said Wesley, " that man should be against you, while you know God is on your side. If he give you any companion in the narrow way, it is well ; and it is well if he does not : but by all means miss no opportunity — speak and spare not : declare what God has done for your soul : regard not worldly prudence. Be not ashamed of Christ, or of his word, or of his work, or of his servants. Speak the truth in love, even in the midst of a crooked generation." — " I did speak," he says, " and not spare." He was in the battle of Dettingen, and being then in a state of hope, he describes himself as in the most exalted and enviable state of mind, while, during seven hours, he stood the fire of the enemy. He was in a new world, and his heart Avas fiUed with love, peace, and joy more than tongue could express. His faith, as well as his courage, was put to the trial, and both were found proof. liCturning into Flanders to take up their Avinter quarters, as they marched beside the INIaine, they " saw the dead men lie in the river, and on the banks, as dung for the earth : for many of the French, at- tempting to pass the river after the bridge had been broken, had been drowned, and cast ashore, where there was none to bury them." During the winter, he found two soldiers who agreed to take a room JOHN HAIME. 37 with him, and meet every niglit to pray and read the Scriptures : others soon joined them: a society was formed ; and Methodism was organised in the army with great success. There were three hundred in the society, and six preachers beside Haime. As soon as they Avere settled in a camp, they built a tabernacle. He had generally a thousand hearers, officers as well as common soldiers ; and he found means of hiring others to do his duty, that he might have more leisure for carrying on the spiritual war. He frequently walked between twenty and thirty miles a-day, and preached five times a-day for a week together. " I had three armies against me," he says : " the French army, the wicked English army, and an army of devils ; but I feared them not." It was not, indeed, likely that he should go on without some dif- ficulties, his notions of duty not being always per- fectly in accordance Avitli the established rules of military discipline. An officer one day asked him what he preached ; and as Haime mentioned certain sins which he more particularly denounced, and which perhaps touched the inquirer a little too closely, the officer swore at him, and said, that, if it were in his power, he would have him flogged to death. " Sir," replied Haime, " you have a commis- sion over men ; but I have a commission from God to tell you, you must either repent of your sins, or perish everlastingly." His commanding officer asked him how he came to preach ; and being answered, that the Spirit of God constrained him to call his fellow-sinners to repentance, told him, that then he must restrain that spirit. Haime replied, he would die first. It is to the honour of his officers that they manifested no serious displeasure at language like this. His conduct toward one of his comrades might have drawn upon him much more unpleasant conse- quences. This was a reprobate fellow, who, finding D 3 38 JOHN iiAnrE. a piece of money, after some search, whicli he thought he had lost, threw it on the table, and exclaimed, " There is my ducat ; but no thanks to God, any more than to the Devil." Haime wrote down the words, and brought him to a court-martial. Being then asked what he had to say against him, he pro- duced the speech in writing ; and the officer having read it, demanded if he was not ashamed to take ac- count of such matters. " No, Sir," replied the en- thusiast ; " if I had heard such words spoken against His Maj esty King George, would not you have counted me a villain if I had concealed them ? " The only corporal pain to which officers were subjected by our martial law, was for this offence. Till the reign of Queen Anne, they were liable to have their tongues bored with a hot iron ; and, mitigated as the law now was, it might still have exposed the culprit to serious punishment, if the officer had not sought to end the matter as easily as he could ; and therefore, after telling the soldier that he was worthy of death, by the laws of God and man, asked the prosecutor what he wished to have done ; giving him thus an oppor- tunity of atoning, by a little discretion, for the excess of his zeal. Haime answered, that he only desired to be parted from him ; and thus it terminated. It Avas well for him that this man was not of a malicious temper, or he might easily have made the zealot be regarded by all his fellows in the odious light of a persecutor and an informer. While he was quartered at Bruges, General Pon- sonby granted him the use of the English church, and, by help of some good singing, they brought together a large congregation. In the ensuing spring the battle of Fontenoy was fought. The Methodist soldiers were at this time wrought up to a higli pitch of fanaticism. One of them being fully prepossessed with a belief that he should ftxll in the action, danced JOHN IIAIME. 39 for joy before he went into it ; exclaiming, that he was going to rest in the bosom of Jesus. Others, when mortally wounded, broke out into rapturous expres- sions of hope and assured triumph, at the near prospect of dissolution. Haime himself was under the not less comfortable persuasion that the French had no ball made which would kill him that day. His horse was killed under him. " Where is your God now, Haime?" said an officer, seeing him fall. "Sir, he is here with me," replied the soldier, " and he Avill bring me out of the battle." Before Haime could extricate himself from the horse, which was lying upon him, a cannon ball took off the officer's head. Three of his fellow-preachers were killed in this battle, a fourth went to the hospital, having both arms broken ; the other two began to preach the pleasant doctrine of Antinomianism, and professed that they were always happy ; in which one of them, at least, was sincere, being frequently drunk twice a-day. Many months had not passed before Haime himself relapsed into his old miserable state. "I was off my watch," he says, " and fell by a grievous temptation. It came as quick as lightning. I knew not if I was in my senses ; but I fell, and the Spirit of God departed from me. Satan was let loose, and followed me by day and by night. The agony of my mind weighed down my body, and threw me into a bloody flux. I I was carried to a hospital, just dropping into hell : but the Lord upheld me, with an unseen hand, qui- vering over the great gulf. Before my fall, my sight was so strong, that I could look steadfastly on the sun at noon -day ; but after it, I could not look a man in the face, nor bear to be in any company. The roads, the hedges, the trees, every thing seemed cursed of God. Nature appeared void of God, and in the pos- session of the Devil. The fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, all appeared in a league against me. B 4 40 JOHN IIAIME. I was one day drawn out into the woods, lamenting my forlorn state, and on a sudden I began to weep bitterly : from weeping I fell to howling, like a wild beast, so that the woods resounded ; yet could I say, notwithstanding my bitter cry, my stroke is heavier than my groaning ; nevertheless, I could not say, ' Lord, have mercy upon me ! ' if I might have pur- chased heaven thereby. Veiy frequently Judas Avas represented to me as hanging just before me. So great was the displeasure of God against me, that he, in great measure, took away the sight of my eyes: I could not see the sun for more than eight months : even in the clearest summer day, it always appeared to me like a mass of blood. At the same time I lost the use of my knees. I could truly say, ' Thou hast sent fire into my bones.' I was often as hot as if I was burning to death : many times I looked to see if my clothes were not on fire. I have gone into a river to cool myself ; but it was all the same ; for what could quench the wrath of his indignation that was let loose upon me? At other times, in the midst of summer, I have been so cold, that I knew not how to bear it : all the clothes I could put on had no effect ; but my flesh shivered, and my very bones quaked." As a mere physical case, this would be very curious ; but, as a psychological one, it is of the higliest in- terest. For seven years he continued in this miserable state, without one comfortable hope, " angry at God, angry at himself, angry at the Devil," and fancying himself possessed with more devils than j\lary Mag- dalene. Only while he was preaching to others (for he still continued to preach) his distress was a little abated. " Some may inquire," says he, "what could move me to preach while I was in such a forlorn con- dition? They must ask of God, for I cannot tell. After some years I attempted again to pray. With this Satan was not well pleased ; for one day, as I was JOHN IIAIME. 4X walking alone, and faintly crying for mercy, suddenly such a hot blast of brimstone flashed in my face, as almost took away my breath ; and presently after an invisible power struck up my heels, and threw me violently upon my face. One Sunday I went to church in Holland, when the Lord's supper was to be administered. I had a great desire to partake of it ; but the enemy came in like a flood to hinder me, pouring in temptations of every kind. I resisted him with my might, till, through the agony of my mind, the blood gushed out at my mouth and nose. How- ever, I was enabled to conquer, and to j^artake of the blessed elements. I was much distressed with dreams and visions of the night. I dreamt one night that I was in hell ; another, that I was on Mount Etna ; that, on a sudden, it shook and trembled exceedingly ; and that, at last, it split asunder in several places, and sunk into the burning lake, all but that little spot on which I stood. Oh how thankful was I for my preservation ! — I thought that I was worse than Cain. In rough weather it was often suggested to me, ' This is on your account ! See, the earth is cursed for your sake ; and it will be no better till you are in hell ! ' Often did I wish that I had never been con- verted : often, that I had never been born. Yet I preached every day, and endeavoured to appear open and free to my brethren. I encouraged them that were tempted. I thundered out the terrors of the law against the ungodly. I was often violently tempted to curse and swear, before and after, and even while I was preaching. Sometimes, when I was in the midst of the congregation, I could hardly refrain from laughing aloud; yea, from uttering all kind of ribaldry and filthy conversation. Frequently, as I was going to preach, the Devil has set upon me as a lion, telHng me he would have me just then, so that it has thrown me into a cold sweat. In this agony I have caught 42 JOHN IIAIME. hold of the Bible, and read, ' If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous!' I have said to the enemy, 'This is the word of God, and thou canst not deny it ! ' Thereat he would be like a man that shrunk back from the thrust of a sword. But he would be at me again. I again met him in the same way ; till at last, blessed be God ! he fled from me. And even in the midst of his sharpest assaults, God gave me just strength enough to bear them. When he has strongly suggested, just as I was going to preach, ' 1 will have thee at last,' I have an- swered, (sometimes with too much anger,) ' I "svill have another out of thy hand first ! ' And many, while I was myself in the deep, were truly convinced and converted to God." Having returned to England, and obtained his dis- charge from the army, he was admitted by Mr. Wesley as a travelling preacher. This, however, did not deliver him from his miserable disease of mind : he could neither be satisfied with preaching nor with- out it ; wherever he went he was not able to remain, but was continually wandering to and fro, seeking rest, but finding none. " I thought," he says, " if David or Peter had been living, they would have pitied me." Wesley, after a wliile, took him as a companion in one of his rounds, knowing his state of mind, and knowing how to bear with it, and to manage it. " It Avas good for him," he said, " to be in the fiery furnace : he should be purified therein, but not consumed." Year after year he continued in this extraordinary state, till, in the year 1766, he was persuaded by Mr. Wesley to go and dwell with a person at St. Ives, in Cornwall, who wanted a worn-out preacher to live with him, take care of his family, and pray with him morning and evening. Here he was, if possible, ten times worse than before ; and it seemed to him, that, unless he got some relief, he must die in despair. JOHN HAIME. 43 "One day," he says, "I retired into the hall, fell on my face, and cried for mercy ; but got no answer. I got up, and walked up and down the room, wringing my hands, and crying like to break my heart ; beg- ging of God, for Christ's sake, if there was any mercy for me, to help me ; and, blessed be his name, all on a sudden, I found such a change through my soul and body, as is past description. I was afraid I should alarm the whole house with the expressions of my joy. I had a full witness from the Spirit of God that I should not iind that bondage any more. Glory be to God for all his mercy!" Twenty years the disease had continued upon him ; and it now left him, by his own account, as instantaneously as it came : and his account is credible; for he acknowledges that he had not the same faith as in his former state : the ao;e of rapture was over, and the fierceness of his disposition was spent, though its restlessness was unabated. Though his chaplainship with Mr. Hoskins had every thing which could render such a situation comfortable, he could not be at ease till he was again in motion, and had resumed his itinerant labours. He lived till the great age of seventy- eight, and died of a fever, which was more than twelve months consuming him, and which wore him to the bone before he went to rest. But though his latter days were pain, they were not sorrow. " He preached as long as he was able to speak, and longer than he could stand without support." Some of his last words were, " 0 Lord, in thee have I trusted, and have not been confounded;" and he expired in full confidence that a convoy of angels were ready to conduct his soul to the paradise of God.* * In this sorrowful case, it is difficult not to think, and even to hope, that it is that of a patient so erroneously treated from the beginning as to make the late and final recovery a work of Divine mercy, in spite of the physician and his injudicious medicines ; which yet, in a different 44 SAMPSON STANIFORTir. Wh.atevor may be thought of John Halme's qualifi- cations for preaching the gospel, there was one man, at least, who had reason to ble^s him as his greatest earthly benefactor : this was Sampson Staniforth, who served at the same time as a private in the army. He was the son of a cutler at Sheffield, and grew up Avithout any moral or religious instruction, so that he had " no fear of God before his eyes, no thought of his providence, of his saving mercy, nor indeed of his having any thing to do with the world." Why he was born into the world, what was his business in it, or where he was to go when this life was over, were considerations, he says, which never entered into his mind; and he grew up in a course of brutal vices, being as utterly without God in the world as the beasts that perish. He describes himself as not only fierce and passionate, but also sullen and malicious, without any feeling of humanity ; and disposed, instead of weeping with those who wept, to rejoice in their sufferings. This hopeful subject enlisted as a soldier at the age of nineteen, in spite of the tears and en- treaties of his mother ; and, after some hair-breadth escapes from situations into which he was led by his own rashness and profligacy, he joined the army in Germany a few days after the battle of Dettingen. While they were encamped at Worms, orders were read at the head of every regiment, that no soldier should go above a mile from the camp on pain of death, which was to be executed innnediately, without the forms of a court-martial. This did not deter case, might have been right ones. The Moravian doctrine, especially that of imputed righteousness, wouhl have suited this case. Haime should have been led to fix liis whole attention, and all the ardour of his seeking, on that which he was sure to iind ; and there, where he was sure to find it — the righteousness of Christ in Christ — the infinite love and loveliness of the redeeming God, the Son of I\Ian ; in sliort, he shoidd have been drawn out of himself, or rather, out of the nioibid acts and pioducts which he took for himself. — S. T. C. SAMPSON STANIFORTII. 45- Stanifortli from straggling; and he was drinking with some of his comrades in a small town to the left of the camp, when a captain, with a guard of horse, came to take them up, being appointed to seize all he could find out of the lines, and hang up the first man without delay. The guard entered the town and shut the gates. He saw them in time, ran to a wicket in the great gate, which was only upon the latch, and before the gate itself could be opened to let the horse- men follow him, got into the vineyards, and there concealed himself by lying down. He had a still narrower escape not long afterwards : many com plaints had been made of the marauders in the EngHsh army ; and it was proclaimed that the guard would be out every night, to hang up the first oftenders who were taken. This fellow listened to the proclamation, and set out, as soon as the officer who read it had turned away, upon a plundering party, witli two of his companions. They stole four bullocks, and were met by an officer driving them to the camp. Stanifortli said they had bought them, and the excuse passed. On the next day the owners came to the camp to make their complaint ; and three of the beasts, which had been sold, but not slaughtered, were identified. Orders were, of course, given to arrest the thieves. That very morning Staniforth had been sent to some distance on an out-party, and thus Providence again preserved him from a shameful death. There was in the same company with him a native of Barnard Castle, by name Mark Bond, a man of a melancholy but rehgious disposition, who had enhsted in the hope of being killed. " His ways," says Stani- forth, " were not like those of other men : out of his little pay he saved money to send to his friends. We could never get him to drink with us ; but he was always full of sorrow : he read much, and was much in private prayer." The state of his mind arose from 46 SAMPSON STANIFORTII. having uttered blaspliemy when he was a little boy, and the thought of this kept him in a constant state of wretchedness and despair. A Komanist might here observe, that a distressing case like this could not have occurred in one of his persuasion ; and one who knows that the practice of confession brings Avith it evils tenfold greater than those which it palhates, may be allowed to regret, that in our Church there should be so little intercourse between the pastor and the people. This poor man might have continued his whole life in misery, if John Haime had not taken to preaching in the army : he went to hear him, and found what he wanted : his peace of mind was restored ; and wishing that others should partake in the hap- piness which he experienced, he could think of no one who stood more in need of the same spiritual medicine than his comrade Staniforth. He, as might be ex- pected, first wondered at his conversation, and after- wards mocked at it. Bond, however, was not thus to be discouraged : he met him one day when he was in distress, having neither food, money, nor credit, and asked him to go and hear the preaching. Staniforth made answer, " You had better give me something to eat and drink, for I am both hungry and dry." Bond did as he was requested ; took him to a sutler's, and treated him, and persuaded him afterwards, reluctant as he was, to accompany him to the preaching. In- coherent and rhapsodical as such preaching would be, it was better suited to such auditors than any thing more temperate would have been : it was level to their capacities ; and the passionate sincerity with which it was delivered found the readiest way to their feeUngs. Staniforth, who went with great unwilling- ness, and who was apparently in no ways prej^ared for such an effect, was, by that one sermon, suddenly and eifectually reclaimed from a state of habitual brutality and vice. He returned to his tent full of SAMPSON STANIPORTII. 47 sorrow, tliorouglily convinced of his miserable state, and " seeing all his sins stand in battle-array against him.'- The next day he went early to the place of meeting : some soldiers were reading there, some singing hymns, and others were at prayer. One came up to him, and after inquiring how long he had attended the preachers, said to him, " Let us go to prayer ; " and Staniforth was obliged to confess that he could not pray, for he had never prayed in his life, neither had he ever read in any devotional book. Bond had a piece of an old Bible, and gave it him, saying, " I can do better without it than you." This was a true friend. He found that Staniforth was in debt ; and telling him that it became Christians to be first just, and then charitable, said, "We will put both our pays together, and live as hard as we can, and what we spare will pay the debt." Such practice must have come strongly in aid of the preaching. From that time Staniforth shook off all his evil courses : though till then an habitual swearer, he never afterwards swore an oath ; though addicted to drinking, he never was intoxicated again ; though a gambler from his youth up, he left off gaming ; and having so often risked his neck for the sake of plunder, he would not now gather an apple or a bunch of grapes. Methodism had wrought in him a great and salutary work ; but it taught him to expect another change not less palpable to himself: he was in bitter distress under the weight of his sins, and he was taught to look for a full and entire sense of deliver- ance from the burden. His own efforts were not wanting to bring on this spiritual crisis, and after some months he was successful. The account which he gives must be explained by supposing that strong passion made the impression, of what was either a sleeping or a waking dream, strong as reality ; — a far more probable solution than would be afforded by 48 SAMrSON STANIFORTir. ascribing it to any wilful exaggeration or deliberate falsehood. " From twelve at night till two," he says, " it was my turn to stand sentinel at a dangerous post. I had a fellow-sentinel ; but I desired him to go away, which he willingly did. As soon as I was alone, I knelt down, and determined not to rise, but to continue crying and wrestling with God, till he had mercy on me. How long I was in that agony I cannot tell ; but, as I looked up to heaven, I saw tlie clouds open exceeding bright, and I saw Jesus hang- ing on the cross. At the same moment these words were applied to my heart, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee.' All guilt was gone, and my soul was filled Avith unutterable peace : the fear of death and hell was vanished away. I was filled with wonder and astonishment. I closed my eyes, but the impression was still the same ; and for about ten weeks, while I was awake, let me be where I would, the same appear- ance was still before my eyes, and the same impression upon my heart, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.'" It may be believed that Staniforth felt what he describes, and imagined what he appeared to see ; but to publish such an account as Wesley did, without one qualify- ing remark, is obviously to encourage wild and dan- gerous enthusiasm. Staniforth's mother had bought him off once when he enlisted, and sent him from time to time money, and such things as he wanted and she could provide for him. He now wrote her a long letter, asking pardon of her and his father for all his disobedience ; telling them that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven him his sins, and desiring her not to send him any more supplies, Avliich he knew must straiten her, and which he no longer wanted, for he had learned to be contented with his pay. This letter they covdd not very well understand ; it was handed about till it got into the hands of a dissenting minister, and of one of SAMPSON STANirORTH. 49 the leading Methodists at Sheffield : the latter sent Staniforth a " comfortable letter " and a hymn-book ; the former a letter also, and a Bible, which was more precious to him than gold ; as was a prayer-book also, which his mother sent him. He, as well as Haime, came safe out of the battle of Fontenoy, where Bond was twice preserved in an extraordinary manner, one musket-ball having struck some money in one of his pockets, and another having been repelled by a knife. Soon afterwards he was drafted into the artillery, and ordered back to England on account of the rebellion in 1745. He was now quartered at Deptford, and from thence was able, twice a- week, to attend upon Wesley's preaching at the Foundry, or at West-street Chapel. At Deptford also there was a meeting, and there he found a woman who, being of the same society, was willing to take him for a husband if he Avere out of the army. On his part, the match appears to have been a good one as to worldly matters : she was persuaded to marry him before his discharge was obtained ; and, on his wedding-day, he was ordered to embark immediately for Holland. The army which he joined in Holland was under the command of Prince Charles of Lorrain ; and as they soon came within sight of the enemy, Staniforth had too much spirit to apply for his discharge, " lest he should seem afraid to fight, and so bring a disgrace upon the Gospel." Near Maestricht, two English re- giments, of which his was one, with some Hanoverians and Dutch, in all about 12,000 men, being advanced in front of the army, had a sharp action. The Prince, according to this account, forgot to send them orders to retreat, " being busy with his cups and his ladies ;" and it appears, indeed, as he says, that many brave lives Avere vilely tln'own away that day by his gross misconduct. Among them was poor Bond : a ball went through his leg, and he fell at Staniforth's feet. VOL. II. E 50 SAMPSON STANIFORTII. " I and another," says lie, " took him in our arms, and carried him out of the ranks, while he was ex- liorting me to stand fast in the Lord. We laid him down, took our leave of him, and fell into our ranks a<^ain." In their farther retreat, Staniforth a<2;ainmet with him, when he had received another ball through his thigh, and the French pressed upon them at that time so closely, that he was compelled to leave him, thus mortally wounded, " but with his heart full of love, and his eyes full of Heaven." — " There," says he, " fell a great Christian, a good soldier, and a faith- ful friend." When the army went into winter quarters, Stani- forth obtained his discharge for fifteen guineas, which his wife remitted him. He now settled at Deptford, became a leading man among the Methodists there, and finally a preacher in his own neighbourhood, and in and about London. And however little it was to be expected from the early part of his life, and the school in which he was trained, his life was honourable to him- self, and beneficial to others. " I made it a rule," he says, " from the beginning, to bear my own expenses : this cost me ten or twelve pounds a year ; and I bless God I can bear it. Besides visiting the class and band, and visiting the sick, I preach five or six times in the week. And the Lord gives me to rejoice in that I can still say, these hands have ministered to my ne- cessities. " His preaching was so well liked, that he was more than once invited to leave the Connection, and take care of a separate congregation, with a salary of forty or fifty pounds a-year: but he was attached to Methodism ; he saw that it was much in- jured by such separations ; he was not weary of his labours ; and as to pecuniary considerations, they had no weight with him. The course of his life, and the ha|)py state of his mind, are thus described by himself: " I pray with my wife before I go out in the morning, GEORGE STORY. 51 and at breakfast-time with my family and all who are in the house. The former part of the day I spend in my business ; my spare hours in reading and private exercise. Most evenings I preach, so that I am sel- dom at home before nine o'clock ; but, though I am so much out at nights, and generally alone, God keeps me both from evil men and evil spirits : and many times I am as fresh when I come in at nio;ht, as I was when I went out in the morning. I conclude the day in reading the Scriptures, and in praying with my family. I am now in the sixty-third year of my age, and, glory be to God, I am not weary of well-doing. I find my desires after God stronger than ever ; my un- derstanding is more clear in the things of God ; and my heart is united more than ever both to God and his people. I know their religion and mine is the gift of God through Christ, and the work of God by his Spirit : it is revealed in Scripture, and is received and retained by faith, in the use of all gospel ordi- nances. It consists in an entire deadness to the world and to our own will ; and an entire devotedness of our souls, bodies, time, and substance to God, through Christ Jesus. In other words, it is the loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, and all mankind for God's sake. This arises from a knowledge of his love to us : We love him, because we knoic lie first loved us ; a sense of which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, that is given to us. From the little hereof that I have experienced, I know, he that experiences this religion is a happy man." No man found his way into the Methodist connec- tion in a quieter manner, nor brought with him a finer and more reasonable mind, than George Story,. a native of Harthill, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The circumstances of his boyhood were favourable to his disposition : his parents taught him early the fear £ 2 52 GKOKUE STOlti'. of the liOrd ; and though their instructions, lie says, were tedious and irksome, yet the impression which they made was never lost, and often recurred wlien he was alone, or in places of temptation. The minister of the parish also was a pious and venerable man : the solemnity with which he performed his duty impressed the boy with an awful sense of the Divine presence ; and, when he listened to the burial-service, he had a distant prospect of judgement and eternity. Thun- der and lightning filled him Avith a solemn delight, as a manifestation of the majesty and power of the Almighty. His heart, as well as his imagination, was open to all wholesome influences ; and having one day killed a young bird by throwing a stone at it, grief and remorse for the pain which he had inflicted kept him waking during several nights ; and tears and prayers to God for pardon Avere the only means Avherein he could find relief. After a decent school education, he was placed Avith a country bookseller. Here, being surrounded Avith books, he read AA^ith in- satiable and indiscriminate avidity : histories, noA^els, plays, and romances, AA^ere perused by dozens. He studied short- hand, and improved the knoAvledge Avhich he had learned at school of geometry and trigonome- try ; picked up something of geography, astronomy, botany, anatomy, and other branches of physical sci- ence ; and tired himself Avith the Statutes at Large. The lives of the heathen philosophers delighted him so much, that at one time lie resoh^ed to take them for his models ; and Thomas Taylor or John Fran- sham Avould then have fonnd him in a fit state to haA^e received the mysteries of Paganism. He fre- quently read till eleven at night, and began again at four or five in the morning ; and he ahvays had a book l)efore him Avhile he Avas at his meals. From the shop he entered the printing-office, and, applying himself sedulously to the business, learned GEORGE STORY. 53"- to despatch it with much regularity, so that he had plenty of time both for study and recreation. One summer he was an angler, the next he was a florist, and cultivated auriculas and polyanthuses. These pursuits soon became insipid. He tried cards, and found them only implements for unprofitably con- suming time ; and, when led into drinking, in the midst of that folly he saw its madness, and turned from it with abhorrence. He hoped that horse-racing might be found a more manly and rational amuse- ment ; so he attended the races at Doncaster, with the most flattering expectations of the happiness he should find that week. " The first day," says he, " vanished away without any satisfaction : the second was still worse. As I passed through the company, dejected and disappointed, it occurred to my mind, What is all this immense multitude assembled here for ? To see a few horses gallop two or three times round the course as if the Devil were both in them and their riders ! Certainly, we are all mad, we are fit for Bed- lam, if we imagine that the Almighty made us for no other purpose but to seek happiness in such senseless amusements. I was ashamed and confounded, and determined never to be seen there any more." At this time he had risen to the management of the printing-ofiice : he had to publish a weekly news- paper, select the paragraphs from other papers, pre- pare the advertisements, correct the press, and super- intend the journeymen and apprentices ; an employ- ment, he says, which flattered his vanity, increased his native pride, and consequently led him farther from God. For now, in the course of his desultory reading, he fell in witli some of those pernicious writers who have employed themselves in sapping the foundations of human happiness. " I read and reasoned," says he, " till the Bible grew not only dul], but, I thought, full of contradictions. I staggered E 3 54 GEORGE STORY. first at the divinity of Christ, and at length gave up the Bible altogether, and sunk into Fatalism and Deism." In this state of mind, and at the age of twenty, he went to London, in full hope of there finding the happiness of which he was in search. But new things soon became old : they palled upon him ; and, instead of happiness, an unaccountable anguish of spirit followed whenever his mind sunk back upon itself. He would gladly have gone abroad, for the sake of continual change, but it was a time of war. Pie resolved to try if religion would afibrd him relief, and went to several places of worship ; " but even this," says he, " was in vain ; there was some- thing dull and disagreeable wherever I turned my eyes, and I knew not that the malady was in myself. At length I found Mr. Whitefielcl's chapel, in Totten- ham-court-road, and was agreeably entertained with his manner of preaching : his discourses were so en- gaging, that, when I retired to my lodgings, I wrote down the substance of them in my journal, and fre- quently read them over with pleasure ; but still nothing reached my case, nor had I any light into the state of my soul. Meantime, on the week nights, I went to the theatres ; nor could I discern any dif- ference between Mr.Whitefield's preaching, and seeing a good tragedy." Weary of every thing, and all places being alike to him, he yielded to the persuasion of his friends, re- turned into the country, and thinking himself too young and inexperienced to enter into business for himself, as they would fain have had him do, under- took, once more, the management of a printing-office. He wanted for nothing, he had more money than he knew what to do with ; yet, in his own words, he was as wretched as he could live, without knowing either the cause of this misery, or any way to escape from it. For some years he had attempted to regulate his GEORGE STORY. 55 conduct according to reason ; but even at that bar he stood condemned. His temper was passionate ; he struggled against this, having thus far profited by the lessons of the Stoics ; and greatly was he pleased when he obtained a victory over his own anger ; but, upon sudden temptation, all his resolutions were " as a thread of flax before the fire." He mixed with jovial company, and endeavoured to catch their spirit ; but, in the midst of levity, there was a weight and hollo wness within him: experience taught him that this laughter was madness ; and when he returned to sober thoughts, he found into how deep a melancholy a simulated mirth subsides. He wandered to different places of worship, and found matter of disquiet at all ; at length he forsook them all, and shut himself up on Sundays, or went into the solitude of a neighbouring wood. " Here," says he, " I considered, with the closest attention I was able, the arguments for and against Deism. I would gladly have given credit to the Christian revelation, but could not. My reason leaned on the wrong side, and involved me in endless perplexities. I likewise endeavoured to fortify my- self with stronger arguments and firmer resolutions against my evil tempers ; for, since I could not be a Christian, I wished, however, to be a good moral Heathen. Internal anguish frequently compelled me to supplicate the Divine Being for mercy and truth. I seldom gave over till my heart was melted, and I felt something of God's presence; but I retained those gracious impressions only for a short time." It so happened that he was employed to abridge and print the life of Eugene Aram, a remai-kable man, who was executed for a case of murder, in a strange manner brought to light long after the com- mission of the crime. The account of this person's extraordinary attainments kindled Story witli emula- tion, and he had determined to take as much pains E 4 5G GEORGE STORY. liimself in the acquirement of knowledge, when some thoughts fastened upon his mind, and broke in pieces all his schemes. " The wisdom of this world," said he to himself, " is foolishness with God. What did this man's wisdom profit him? It did not save him from being a thief and a murderer ; — no, nor from attempting his own life. True wisdom is foolishness with men. He that will be wise, must first become a fool, that he may be wise. I was like a man awakened out of sleep," he continues: " I was astonished; I felt myself wrong ; I was conscious I had been pur- suing a vain shadow, and that God only could direct me into the right path. I therefore applied to him with earnest importunity, entreating him to show me the true way to happiness, which I was determined to follow, however difficult or dangerous." Just at this time Methodism began to flourish in his native vil- lage : his mother joined the Society, and sent him a message, entreating him to converse with persons of this description. To gratify her, being an obedient son, he called accordingly at a Methodist's house, and the persons who were assembled there went to prayer with him, and for him, a considerable time. The result was, as might be expected, — he looked upon them as well-meaning ignorant people, and thought no more about the matter. After a few days they desired he would come again ; and he, considering that it was his mother's request, went without hesi- tation, though perhaps not very desirous of being prayed for a second time. On this occasion, how- ever, argument was tried ; and he disputed with them for some hours, till they were fairly wearied, without having produced the slightest impression i^pon him. To attack him on the side of his reason, was not indeed the Avay by which such reasoners were likely to prevail ; such a proceeding would serve only to stimulate his vanity, and provoke his GEORGE STORY. 57 pride; and accordingly he was about to withdraw, not a little elevated with the triumph which he had obtained, when a woman of the company desired to ask him a few questions. The first was, " Are you happy ? " His countenance instantly fell, and he honestly answered, " No." — " Are you not desirous of finding happiness ? " she pursued. He replied, that he was desirous of obtaining it, on any terms, and had long sought for it in every way, but in vain. She then told him, that if he sought the Lord with all his heart, he would certainly find in him that peace and pleasure Avhich the world could not bestow. The right string had now been touched : every word sunk deep into his mind ; and he says, that from that moment he never lost his resolution of being truly devoted to God. The books which had misled him he cast into the fire; and willing as he now was to be led astray in a clifi'erent direction, by his new associates, his happy disposition preserved him. Not having the horrible fears, and terrors, and agonies which others declared they had experienced in tlie new-birth, and of whicli exhibitions were frequently occurring, he endeavoured to bring himself into the same state, but never could succeed in inducing these throes of spiritual labour. Yet thinking it a necessary part of the process of regeneration, and not feeling that consciousness of sanctification which his fellows professed, doubts came upon him thick and thronging. Sometimes he fell back toAvard his old scepticism: sometimes in- clined to the miserable notion of predestination ; plunging, as he himself expresses it, into the black- ness of darkness. He found at length the folly of reasoning himself into despair, and the unreasonable- ness of expecting a miraculous manifestation in his own bodily feelings ; and he learned, in the true path of Christian humility, to turn from all presumptuous 58 GEORGE STORY. reasonings, and, staying his mind upon God, to repose and trust in him with a child-hkc entireness of belief and love. This was at first mortifying to his proud reason and vain imagination ; but it brought with it, at length, " an ever-permanent peace, Avhich kept his heart in the knowledge and love of God ; " not the overflo^ving joys which he expected, and had been taught to expect, by enthusiastic men ; but that peace which God himself hath assured to all who seek him in humility and truth, and which passeth all understanding. There is not, in the whole hagio- graphy of Methodism, a more interesting or more remarkable case than this : — living among the most .enthusiastic Methodists, enrolled among them, and acting and preaching with them for more than fifty years, George Story never became an enthusiast : his nature seems not to have been susceptible of the con- tagion.* * The instance of George Story, and of many others, proves that such joys, such sensible deliverances, such sudden openings of a before unknown and glorious state of being, are no essential, nor even regular marks, accompaniments, or results of a true conversion. It may be admitted too, that in such extraordinary depths and heights, the body and nervous system may co-operate — that the animal life may furnish the matter of the sensations, and the copula connecting the soul and the life may be the seat of these experiences. But does it follow that the J all originate in fanaticism, and are mere delusions? — that such men as Story were alone in their sober senses ; though one proof of their sobriety was, that they did not doubt the different experiences of other Christians, whose lives and tempers proved the reality of their ji(£ro)'oi« at least ? — and that Haliburton, nay, that Paul, were mad or delirious ? For whatever may be said of the circumstances of St. Paul's conversion, yet his rapture, in which he knew not whether he was taken up into the state of glory, or that state made present to him, cannot, in Southey's sense of the word, be called a miracle. August, ISa.'Ji. I do not recollect the date of the above note : but I take no shame to myself for the mood in which it must have been written ! For who, tliat has a heart at all, has a heart of such strength as not at times to sink down in weariness, and crave after a resting-j)lace — a soisalion of present being, in lieu of the act and conflict of faith ? On this account I am less disposed to think meanly of AVtsley's judgement for his first belief in the reality of these assurances, and their antecedent birth- GEORGE STORY. 69 throes, while he held them to be the constant signs and proper conse- quents of regeneration in each and every individual on the reception of a new and divine life, as the nature or supposition of his spiritual " I, " than to suspect his sincerity with his own heart, for professing (and, no doubt, striving,) to retain his belief of the spirituality and divine origin of these experiences in his first converts, after he had abandoned, nay reprobated, the supposition of their necessity and uni- versality. This will appear evident on the first reflection. If the corpo- real sensibility is as insusceptible of any excitement immediately from the presence of the spiritual agent, as brass or iron is of vital stimuli, the negative must be universally true : but if not, if there is nothing in the transcendences of the spiritual life and power that prevents the bodily organs from partaking in their operation, it is to the last degree improbable that so stupendous an agency should take place without affecting the body. It has not been noticed, I think, that this doctrine of sensational assurances is closely linked with Wesley's pernicious doc- trine of entire deliverance from sin. If the latter were true, the radical life of the body, and the body itself, in all its essential forms, must have been acted on by the infused spiritual life, and consequently have re- acted : therefore the former must likewise be true and universal. And if the former were true, namely, that the higher and mightier power did actually excite and act on the lower, it must have overcome it, and either extruded or assimilated it. For such is of necessity the result, where a weaker and a stronger power meet, both being ejusdem generis. It follows, therefore, that the belief of these sensible assurances is not a mere harmless fancy ; but partakes of the mischievous nature of Wesley's heresy of sinless perfection in this life, in as far as the one implies or presupposes the other, — S. T, C. GO CHAPTER XIX. PKOVISION FOR THE LAY PREACHERS AND THEIR FAMILIES. KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. THE CONFERENCE. At first there was no provision made for the lay preachers. The enthusiasts who offered themselves to the work literally took no thought for the morrow, what they should eat, nor what they should drink, nor yet for the body what they should put on. They trusted in Him who feedeth the fowls of the air, and who sent his ravens to Elijah in the wilderness. " He who had a staff," says one of these first itinerants, " might take one ; he who had none might go without." They were lodged and fed by some of the society wherever they went ; and when they wanted clothes, if they Avere not supplied by iudividual friends, they represented their necessity to the stewards. St. Francis and his followers did not commit themselves with more confidence to the care of Providence, nor with a more entire disregard of all human means. But the Friars Minorite were marked by their liabit for privileged, as well as peculiar persons ; and as they professed poverty, the poorer and the more miserable their appearance, the greater was the re- spect which they obtained from the people. In Eng- land, rags were no recommendation ; and it was found a great inconvenience that the popular itinerants should be clothed in the best apparel, while the use- fulness of their fellows, who were equally devoted to the cause, was lessened by the shabbiness of their appearance. To remedy this evil, it was at length agreed that every circuit should allow its preacher PROVISION FOK THE LAY PREACHERS, ETC. 61 three pounds per quarter, to provide himself with clothing and books. Not long after this arrangement had been made, Mr. Wesley proposed that Mather should go with him into Ireland on one of his preach- ing expeditions, and promised that his wife should be supported during his absence. Mather cheerfully consented ; but when he came to talk with his friends upon the subject, they cautioned him to beware how he relied for his wife's support upon a mere promise of this kind ; for, when Mr. Wesley was gone, the matter would rest with the stewards. Upon this Mather thought it necessary to talk with the stewards himself : they asked him how much would be sufficient for his wife ; and when he said four shillings a week, they thought it more than could be afforded; and Mather therefore refused to undertake the journey. However, in the course of the ensuing year, the necessity of making some provision for the wives of the itinerants was clearly perceived, and the reason- ableness of Mather's demand was acknowledged. He was called upon to travel accordingly; and from that time the stated allowance was continued for very many 5^ears at the sum which he had fixed. A farther allowance was made, of twenty shillings a quarter, for every child ; and when a preacher was at home, the wife was entitled to eighteen-pence a day for his board ; the computation being fonrpence for break- fast, sixpence for dinner, and fourpence each for tea and supper ; with the condition, that whenever he was invited out, a deduction was to be made for the meal. But farther relief was still necessary for those mar- ried preachers who gave themselves up wholl)^ to the service of Methodism. Their boys, when they grew too big to be under the mother's direction, were in a worse state than other children, and were exposed to a thousand temptations, having no father to control G2 KINGS WOOD SCHOOL. and instruct them. " Was it fit," said Wesky, " tliat the children of those who leave wife, home, and all that is dear, to save souls from death, should want what is needful either for soul or body ? Ought not the society to supply what the parent could not, because of his labours in the Gospel ? The preacher, eased of this weight, would go on the more cheerfully, and perhaps many of these children might, in time, fill up the place of those who should have rested from their labours." The obvious remedy was to found a school for the sons of the preachers ; and thinking that the wealthier members of the society would rejoice if an opportunity were given them to separate their children from the contagion of the world, he seems to have hoped that the expenses of the eleemo- synary part of the institution might in great measure be defrayed by their means. Some tracts upon education had led him to consider the defects of English schools : the mode of teaching, defective as that is, he did not regard ; it was the moral discipline which fixed his attention ; and in founding a seminary for his own people, whose steady increase he now contemplated as no longer doubtful, he resolved to provide, as far as possible, against all the evils of the existing institutions. The first point was to find a situation not too far from a great town, which would be very inconvenient for so large a household as he was about to establish, nor yet too near,, and much less in it. For in towns the boys, whenever they went abroad, would have too many things to engage their thoughts, which ought, he said, to be diverted as little as possible from the objects of their learning ; and they would have too many other children round about them, some of whom they were liable to meet every day, whose example would neither forward them in learning nor in religion. He chose a spot, three miles from Bristol, in the middle of KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. 63 Kings wood, on the side of a small hill, sloping to the west, sheltered from the east and north, and affording room for large gardens. At that time it was quite private and remote from all highways : now the turnpike road passes close beside it, and it is sur- rounded by a filthy population. He built the house of a size to contain fifty children, besides masters and servants, reserving one room and a little study for his own use. In looking for masters he had the advantage of being acquainted with every part of the nation : and yet he found it no easy thing to procure such as he desired, — men of competent acquirements, "who were truly devoted to God, who sought nothing on earth, neither pleasure, nor ease, nor profit, nor the praise of men." The first rule respecting scholars was, that no child should be admitted after he was twelve years old ; before that age, it was thought he could not well be rooted either in bad habits or ill principles : he resolved also not to receive any that came to hand ; but, if possible, " only such as had some thoughts of God, and some desire of saving their souls ; and such whose parents desired they should not be almost, but altogether Christians." The pro- posed object was, " to answer the design of Christian education, by framing their minds, through the help of God, to wisdom and holiness, by instilling the principles of true religion, speculative and practical, and training them up in the ancient way, that they might be rational, scriptural Christians." Accord- ingly he proclaimed, that the children of tender parents had no business there, and that no child should be received, unless his parents would agree that he should observe all the rules of the house, and that they would not take him from school, no, not for a day, till they took him for good and all. " The rea- sonableness of this uncommon rule," says Wesley, 64 KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. " is sliowu by constant experience : for children may unlearn as much in one week, as they have learned in several; nay, and contract a prejudice to exact dis- cipline, which never can be removed." Had Wesley been a father, he would have perceived that such a rule is unreasonable, and felt that it is abominable : uncommon, unhappily, it is not ; for it makes a part of the Jesuit establishments, and Avas adopted also by Buonaparte, as part of his plan for training up an army of Mamelukes in Europe. No rule could better forward the purpose of those who desire to enslave mankind. The children were to rise at four, winter and sum- mer : this Wesley said he knew, by constant observa- tion, and by long experience, to be of admirable use, either for preserving a good or improving a bad con- stitution ; and he affirmed that it was of peculiar service in almost all nervous complaints, both in pre- venting and in removing them. They were to spend the time till five in private, partly in reading, partly in singing, partly in prayer, and in self-examination and meditation, those that were capable of it. Poor boys ! they had better have spent it in sleep. From five till seven they breakfasted and walked, or worked, the master being with them ; for the master was con- stantly to be present; and there were no holidays, and no play, on any day. Wesley had learnt a sour German proverb, saying, " He that plays when he is a child, Avill play when he is a man;" and he had for- gotten an English one, proceeding from good nature and good sense, which tells us by what kind of disci- pline Jack may be made a dull boy : " Why," he asks, " should he learn, now, what he must unlearn by and by ?" Why? for the same reason that he is fed with milk when a suckling, because it is the food convenient for him. They were to work in fair weather, according to their strength, in the garden ; on rainy days, in the KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. G5 house, always in presence of a master ; for tliey were never, day or night, to be alone. This part of his system Wesley adopted from the great school at Jena, in Saxony : it is the practice of Catholic schools, and may, perhaps, upon a comparison of evils, be better than the opposite extreme, which leaves the bo3^s, during the greater part of their time, wholly without superintendence. At a great expense of instinct and enjoyment, and of that freedom of character, without which the best character can only obtain from us a cold esteem, it gets rid of much vice, much cruelty, and much unhappiness. The school-hours were from seven to eleven, and from one to five : eight was the hour for going to bed ; they slept in one dormitory, each in a separate bed: a master lay in the same room, and a lamp was kept burning there. Their food was as simple as possible, and two days in the week no meat was allowed. The things to be taught there make a formidable catalogue in the founder's plan : reading, writing, arithmetic ; English, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew ; history, geography, chronology, rhetoric, logic, ethics, geometry, algebra ; natural philosophy, and metaphy- sics. No Roman author was to be read, who had lived later than the Augustan age, except certain selections from Juvenal, Persius, and Martial. This was carrying classical puritanism to an extreme ; and it indicates no very sound judgement that Wesley should have preferred a few of the modern Latin writers to supply the place of those whom he rejected. The classics which were retained were to be carefully expurgated : there had been a time when he was for interdicting them altogether, as improper to be used in the education of Christian youth, but this folly he had long outgrown. He was enabled to establish the school by the bounty of Lady Maxwell, one of his few converts in VOL. II. F (JG KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. high hfe. She was of the fomily of the Brisbanes, in Ayrshire ; was married to Sir Walter Maxwell at the age of 17; at 19 was left a widow; and, six weeks after the death of her husband, lost her son and only child. From that hour she was never known to men- tion either. Weaned from the world by these severe dispensations, she looked for comfort to Him who giveth and wlio taketh away ; and what little of her diary has appeared, shows more of high enthusiastic devotion, unmingled and undebased, than is to be found in any other composition of the kind. She used to say, that, had it not been for the Methodists, she should never have had those enjoyments in religion to which she had attained ; because it is seldom or never that we go farther than our instructors teach us. It was, however, many years before she formally joined them, and she never forsook the Church of Scotland. She lived to be the oldest member of the Society. The school was founded long before she became a member; but Wesley had no sooner mentioned his design to her, than she presented him with bank notes to the amount of 500/., and told him to begin immediately. After some time she asked how the building was going on, and whether he stood in need of farther assistance ; and hearing that a debt of 300/. had been incurred, thouirh he desired that she would not consider herself under any obligation in the business, she immediately irave him the whole sum. The school was opened in 1748: in two or three months there were twenty-eight scholars, notwith- standing the strictness of the disciplhie ; and so little was economy in education understood in those days, that there was an establishment of six masters for them. " From the very beginning," says Wesley, " I met Avith all sorts of discouragements. Cavillers, and prophets of evil, were on every side. An hundred objections were made, both to the whole design and KINGSWOOD SCHOOL. G7 every particular branch of it, especially by those from whom I had reason to expect better things. Notwith- standing which, through God's help, I went on ; wrote an English, a Latin, a Greek, a Hebrew, and a French grammar; and printed Prcdectiones Pueriles, with many other books, for the use of the school." In making his grammars, Wesley rejected much of the rubbish with which such books are encumbered : they might have been simplified still farther ; but it was reserved for Dr. Bell, the friend of children, to esta- blish the principle in education, that every lesson should be made perfectly intelligible to the child. Upon visiting the school a year after its establish- ment, he found that several rules had been habitually neglected ; and he judged it necessary to send away some of the children, and suiFer none to remain who were not clearly satisfied with them, and determined to observe them all. By the second year the scholars had been reduced from twenty- eight to eighteen : it is marvellous indeed that any but the sons of the preachers should have remained ; that any parents should have suftered their children to be bred up in a manner which would inevitably, in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred, either disgust them with religion, or make them hypocrites. " I wonder, " says he, " how I am withheld from dropping the whole design, so many difficulties have continually attended it ; yet if this counsel is of God, it shall stand, and all hin- drances shall turn into blessings." The house was in a state of complete anarchy. One of the masters was so rough and disobliging, that the children were little profited by him: a second, though honest and diligent, was rendered contemptible by his person and manner: the third had been useful, till the fourth set the boys against him ; and the two others were weighed down by the rest, who neither observed the rules in the school nor out of it. To crown all, the housekeeper F 2 ()8 THE CONFERENCE. neglected her duty, being taken up with thoughts oi" another kind ; and the four maids Avere divided into two parties. This pitiful case he published for the information of the Society, and cut down the esta- blishment to two masters, a housekeeper, and a maid. Two of the elder boys were dismissed as incorrigible, out of four or five who were " very uncommonly Avicked," (a very uncommon jDroportion of wicked boys out of eighteen,) and five more soon went away. Still it went on badly : four years afterwards he speaks of endeavouring once more to bring it into order. " Surely," he says, " the importance of this design is apparent, even from the difficulties that attend it. I spent more money, and time, and care on this than almost any design I ever had; and still it exercises all the patience I have. But it is worth all the labour." Provision had thus been made for the maintenance of the preachers' families, and the education of their sons. A Conference, to which Wesley, in the year 1744, invited his brother Charles, four other clergy- men, who co-operated with him, and four of his lay preachers, was from that time held annually, and be- came the general assembly, in which the aftairs of the Society were examined and determined. They began their first meeting by recording their desire, " that all things might be considered as in the immediate presence of God ; that they might meet with a single eye, and as little children who had every thing to learn ; that every point which was proposed might be examined to the foundation ; that every person might speak freely whatever was in his heart ; and that every question which might arise should be thoroughly de- bated and settled." There was no reason, they said, to be afraid of doing this, lest they should overturn their first principles : for if they were false, the sooner they were overturned the better ; if they were true, THE CONFERENCE. 69 they would bear the strictest examination. They determined, in the intermediate hours of this Confer- ence, to visit none but the sick, and to spend all the time that remained in retirement; giving themselves to prayer for one another, and for a blessing upon this their labour. With regard to the judgement of the majority, they agreed that, in speculative things, each could only submit so far as his judgement should be convinced ; and that, in every practical point, each would submit, so far as he could, without wounding his conscience. Farther than this, they maintained, a Christian could not submit to any man or number of men upon earth ; either to council, bishop, or con- vocation. And this was that grand principle of private judgement on which all the reformers pro- ceeded. " Every man must judge for himself; because every man must give an account for himself to God." But this principle, if followed to its full extent, is as unsafe and as untenable as the opposite extreme of the Romanists. The design of this meeting was to consider what to teach, how to teach, and what to do ; in other words, how to regulate their doctrines, disci- pline, and practice. Here, therefore, it .Avill be con- venient to present a connected account of each. p 3 70 CHAPTER XX. Wesley's doctrines and opinions. Wesley never departed willingly or knowingly from the doctrines of the Church of England, in which he had been trained up, and with which he was con- scientiously satisfied, after full and free inquiry. Upon points which have not been revealed, but are within the scope of reason, he formed opinions for himself, which were generally clear, consistent with the Christian system, and creditable, for the most part, both to his feelings and his judgement. But he laid no stress upon them, and never proposed them for more than they were worth. In the following connected view of his scheme, care has been taken to preserve his own words, as far as possible, for the sake of fidelity.* * It is matter of earnest thought and deep concernment to me, — and he little knows my heart who shall find the spirit of authorship in what I am about to say, — to think that thousands will read this chapter, or the substance of it, in the writings of Wesley himself, and never complain of obscurity, or that it is, as Hone called my " Aids to Reflection," a proper brain-cracker. And why is this ? In the words I use, or their collocation t Not so : for no one has pointed out any passage of importance, which he having at length understood, he could propose other and more intelligible words that would have con- veyed precisely the same meaning. No ! M'esley first relates his theory as a history : the ideas were for him, and through him for his readers, so many proper names, the suhstratum of meaning being sup- plied by the general image and abstraction, of the human form with the swarm of associations that cluster in it. "Wesley takes for grunted that his readers will all understand it, all at once, and without effort. The readers are far too well pleased with tliis, or rather, this proce- dure is far too much in accord both witli their mental indolence and their self-complacency, that they sliould think of asking themselves the qiicstion. Reflect on the simple fact of the state of a child's mind while with great delight he reads or listens to the story of Jack Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 71 The moral, or, as lie sometimes calls it, the Adamic law, he traced beyond the foundation of the world, to and the Bean Stalk ! How could this be, if in some sense he did not understand it ? Yea, the child does understand each part of it — A, and B, and C ; but not A B C = X. He understands it as we all under- stand our dreams, while we are dreaming, — each shape and incident, or group of shapes and incidents, by itself — unconscious of, and therefore unofFended at, the absence of the logical copula, or the absurdity of the transitions. He understands it, in short, as the rkading public, un- derstands this exposition of Wesley's theology. Now compare this with the manner, and even obtruded purpose of the " Friend," or the "Aids to Reflection," in which the aim of every sentence is to solicit, nay, tease the reader to ask himself, whether he actually does, or does not, under- stand distinctly ? — whether he has reflected on the precise meaning of the word, however familiar it may be both to his ear and mouth ? — whether he has been hitherto aware of the mischief and folly of em- ploying words on questions, to know the very truth of which is both his interest and his duty, without fixing the one meanitig which on that question they are to represent ? Page after page, for a reader accustomed from childhood either to learn by rote, i. e. without under- standing at all, as boys learn their Latin grammar, or to content him- self with the popular use of words, always wide and general, and expressing a whole county where perhaps the point in discussion con- cerns the difference between two parishes of the same county ! {^ex. gr. MIND, which in the popular use means, sometimes memory, sometimes reason, sometimes understanding, sometimes sense (nWy/jo-ic), some- times inclination, and sometimes all together, confusedly,) — for such a reader, I repeat, page after page is a process of mortification and awk- ward straining. Will any one instruct me how this is to be remedied? Will he refer me to any work, already published, which has achieved the objects at which 1 aim, without exciting the same complaints ? But then I should wish my friendly monitor to show me, at the same time, some one of these uncomplaining readers, and convince me that he is actually master of the truth contained in that work — be it Plato's, Bacon's, or Bull's, or Waterland's. Alas ! alas ! with a poor illiterate, but conscience- stricken, or soul-awakened Haime, or Pawson, I should find few difficulties beyond those that are the price of all momentous knowledge. For while I was demonstrating the inner structure of our spiritual organisms, he would have his mental eye fixed on the same subject, i. e. his own mind ; even as an anatomist may be dissecting a human eye, and the pupils too far off" to see this, may yet be dissecting another eye, closely following the instructions of the lecturer, and comparing his words with the shapes and textures which the knife dis- closes to them. But in the great majority of our gentry, and of our classically educated clergy, there is a fearful combination of the sensuous and the unreal. Whatever is subjective, the true and only proper noumenon, or intelligibile, is unintelligible to them. But all substance ipso nomine is necessarily subjective ; and what these men call reality, F 4 72 Wesley's doctrines and ormioNS. that period, unknown indeed to men, but doubtless enrolled in the annals of eternity, when the morninfij stars first sang together, being newly called into ex- istence. It pleased the Creator to make these His first-born sons intelligent beings, that they might know Him who created them. For this end he en- dued them with understanding to discern truth from falsehood, good from evil ; and, as a necessary result of this, with liberty, — a capacity of choosing the one, and refusing the other. By this they were likewise enabled to ' offer Him a free and willing service ; a service rewardable in itself, as well as most acceptable to their gracious Master. The law which He gave them was a complete model of all truth, so far as was intelligible to a finite being ; and of all good, so far as angelic natures Avere capable of embracing it. And it was His design herein to make way for a continued increase of their happiness, seeing every instance of obedience to that law would both add to the perfec- tion of their nature, and entitle them to a higher is object unsouled of all subject ; of course, an appearance only, which becomes connected with the sense of redUtii by its being common to any number of beholders present at the same moment; but an apparitio communis is still but an apparition, and can be substantiated for eacli individual only by his attributing a subject thereto, as its support and causa siiffiriois, even as the coryimunity of the appearance is tlie sign and presumptive proof of its objectivity. In short, 1 would fain bring the cause I am pleading to a short and simple, yet decisive test. Consciousness, tl^ii, mind, life, will, body, organ }i machine, nature, spirit, sin, habit, sense, understanding, reason : here are fourteen words. Have you ever reflectively and quietly asked yourself the meaning of any one of these, and tasked yourself to return the answer in distinct terms, not applicable to any one of the other words ? Or have you contented yourself with the vague floating meaning that will just serve to save you from absurdity in the use of the word, just as the clown's botany would do, who knew that potatoes were roots, and cab- bages greens ? Or, if you have the gift of wit, shelter yourself under Augustine's equivocation, " I know it perfectly well till I am asked.'' Know.'' Ay, as an oyster knows its life, liut do you know your know- ledge ? If the latter be your case, can you wonder that the "Aids of Reflection " are clouds and darkness for you } — S. T. C'. WESLEY S DOCTRINES AND OPINIONS. 73 reward, which the righteous Judge would give in its season. In like manner, when God, in His appointed time, had created a new order of intelligent beings — when He had raised man from the dust of the earth, breathed into him the breath of life, and caused him to become a living soul, He gave to this free intelli- gent creature the same law as to his first-born chil- dren ; not written, indeed, upon tables of stone, or any corruptible substance, but engraven on his heart by the finger of God, written in the inmost spirit, both of men and angels, to the intent it might never be afar off, never hard to be understood, but always at hand, and always shining with clear light, even as the sun in the midst of heaven. Such was the orio-inal o of the law of God, With regard to man, it was coeval with his nature ; but with regard to the elder sons of God, it shone in its full splendour, " or ever the mountains were brought forth, or the earth, and the round world were made." Man was made holy, as He that created him is holy : perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. As God is love, so man, dwelling in love, dwelt in God, and God in him. God made him to be an image of his own eternity. To man thus perfect, God gave a per- fect law, to which He required full and perfect obe- dience. He required full obedience in every point. No allowance was made for any falling short ; there was no need of any, man being altogether equal to the task assigned him. Man disobej^ed this law, and from that moment he died. God had told him, " In the day that thou eatest of that fruit thou shalt surely die." Accordingly, on that day he did die : he died to God, the most dreadful of all deaths. He lost the life of God : he was separated from Him in union with whom his spiritual life consisted. His soul died. The body dies when it is separated from the soul; 74 Wesley's doctrines and ormiONs. the soul, when it is separated from God : but this separation Adam sustained in the day, the hour, when he ate of the forbidden fruit. The threat can- not be understood of temporal death, without im- peaching the veracity of God. It must therefore be understood of spiritual death, the loss of the life and image of God. His body likewise became corruptible and mortal; and being already dead in the spirit, dead to God, dead in sin, he hastened on to death everlasting, to the destruction both of body and soul, in the fire never to be quenched. Why was this ? Why are there sin and misery in the world ? Because man was created in the image of God : because he is not mere matter, a clod of earth, a lump of clay, without sense or understanding, but a spirit, like his Creator ; a being endued not only with sense and understanding, but also with a will. Because, to crown the rest, he was endued with liberty, a power of directing his own affections and actions, a capacity of determining for himself, or of choosing good or evil. Had not man been endued with this, all the rest would have been of no use. Had he not been a free, as well as an intelligent being, his understanding would have been as incapable of holi- ness, or any kind of virtue, as a tree or a block of marble. And having this power of choosing good or evil, he chose evil. But in Adam all died, and this was the natural consequence of his fall. He was more than tl\e representative, or federal head, of the human race, — the seed and souls of all mankind were contained in him, and therefore partook of the cor- ruption of his nature. From that time every man who is born into the world bears the image of the Devil, in pride and self-will, — the image of the beast, in sensual appetites and desires. All his posterity were, by this act and deed, entitled to error, guilt, Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 75 sorrow, fear, pain, disease, and death, and these they have inherited for their portion. The cause has been revealed to us, and the effects are seen over the Avhole world, and felt in the heart of every individual. But this is no ways inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God, because all may recover, through the second Adam, whatever they lost through the first. Not one child of man finally loses thereby, unless by his own choice. A remedy has been provided, which is adequate to the disease. Yea, more than this, mankind have gained, by the fall, a capacity, first, of being more holy and happy on earth ; and, secondly, of being more happy in heaven than otherwise they could have been. For if man had not fallen, there must have been a blank in our faith and in our love. There could have been no such thing as faith in God " so loving the world, that he gave his only Son for us men, and for our salvation ; " no faith in the Son of God, as loving us, and giving himself for us ; no faith in the Spirit of God, as renewing the image of God in our hearts, or raising us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness. And the same blank must likewise have been in our love. We could not have loved the Father under the nearest and dearest rela- tion, as delivering up his Son for us : we could not have loved the Son, as bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, and by that one oblation of himself, once offered, making a full oblation, sacrifice, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world : we could not have loved the Holy Ghost, as revealing to us the Father and the Son, as opening the eyes of our under- standings, bringing us out of darkness into his mar- vellous light, renewing the image of God in our soul, and sealing us unto the day of redemption. So that what is now, in the sight of God, pure religion and undefiled, would then have had no being. The fall of man is the very foundation of revealed 76 Wesley's doctrines and oi'Inions. religion. If this be taken awuy, the Christian system is subverted; nor will it deserve so honourable an appellation as that of a cunningly devised fable. It is a scriptural doctrine : many plain texts directly teach it. It is a rational doctrine, thoroughly consistent with sound reason, though there may be some circum- stances relating to it which human reason cannot fathom. It is a practical doctrine, having the closest connection with the life, power, and practice of religion. It leads man to the foundation of all Christian prac- tice, the knowledge of himself, and thereby to the knowledge of God, and of Christ crucified. It is an experimental doctrine. The sincere Christian carries the proof of it in his own bosom. Thus Wesley rea- soned ; and, from the corruption of man's nature, or, in his own vicAV of the doctrine, from the death of the soul, he inferred the necessity of a New Birth. He had made that expression obnoxious in the season of his enthusiasm, and it was one of those things which em- barrassed him in his sober and maturer years ; but he had committed himself too far to retract ; and there- fore when he saw, and in his own cool judgement disapproved, the extravagances to which the abuse of the term had led, he still continued to use it, and even pursued the metaphor through all its bearings, with a Avantonness of ill-directed fancy, of which this is the only instance in all his writings. And in attempting to reconcile the opinion which he held with the doc- trine of the Church, he entangled himself in contra- dictions, like a man catching at all arguments, when defending a cause which he knows to be weak and untenable. Connected with his doctrine of the New Birth was that of Justification, which he afiirmed to be insepa- rable from it, yet easily to be distinguished, as being not the same, but of a widely diff*erent nature. In order of time, neither of these is before the other : in WESLFA-'S DOCTRINES AND OPINIONS. 77 the moment we are justified by the grace of God, through the redemption that is in Jesus, we are also born of the Spirit ; but in order of thinking, as it is termed. Justification precedes the New Birth. We first conceive his wrath to be turned away, and then his Spirit to work in our hearts. Justification implies only a relative, the New Birth a real change. God in justifying us, does something /6>r us; in begetting us again. He does the work in us. The former changes our outward relation to God, so that of enemies we become children. By the latter, our inmost souls are changed, so that of sinners we become saints. The one i-estores us to the favour, the other to the image, of God. Justification is another word for pardon. It is the forgiveness of all our sins, and, what is neces- sarily implied therein, our acceptance with God. The immediate effects are, the peace of God, — a peace that passeth all understanding ; and a " rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, with joy unspeakable and full of glory." And at the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very moment, sanctification begins. In that instant we are born again ; and when we are born again, then our sanctification begins, and thencefor- ward we are gradually to " grow up in Him who is our head." This expression, says Wesley, points put the exact analogy there is between natural and spiritual things. A child is born of a woman in a moment, or, at least, in a very short time. After- wards, he gradually and slowly grows till he attains to the stature of a man. In like maimer a person is born of God in a short time, if not in a moment ; but it is by slow degrees that he afterwards grows up to the measure of the full stature of Christ. The same relation, therefore, which there is between our natural birth and our growth, there is also between our New Birth and our Sanctification. And sanctification, though in some degree the immediate fruit of justi- 78 WESLEY'S DOCTRINES AND OPINIONS. fication, is a distinct gift of God, and of a totally different nature. The one implies what God does/or us through his So7i ; the other, what he works in us by his Spirit. ]\Ien are no more able, of themselves^ to think one good thought, to speak one good word, or do one good work, after justification, than before they were justified. When the Lord speaks to our hearts the second time, " Be clean^' then only the evil root, the carnal mind, is destroyed, and sin subsists no more. A deep conviction, that there is yet in us a carnal mind, shows, beyond all possibility of doubt, the ab- solute necessity of a farther change. If there be no such second change, if there be no instantaneous deli- verance after justification, if there be none but a gradual work of God, then we must be content, as well as we can, to remain full of sin till death ; and if so, we must remain guilty till death, continually de- serving punishment. Thus Wesley explains a doc- trine which, in his old age, he admitted that he did not find a profitable subject for an una wakened con- o;reo;ation. This deliverance, he acknowledged, might be gra- dually wrought in some. I mean, he says, in this sense, they do not advert to the particular moment wherein sin ceases to be. But it is infinitely desir- able, were it the will of God, that it should be done instantaneously ; that the Lord should destroy sin in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And so he generally does. This, Wesley insisted, w^as a plain fact, of which there was evidence enough to satisfy any ^inprejudiced person. And why might it not be instantaneous ? he argued. A moment is to Him the same as a thousand years. He cannot Avant more time to accomplish whatever is his will : and he cannot wait or stay for more worthiness or fitness in the per- sons he is pleased to honour. Whatever may be thought of the doctrine and of its evidence, it was a powerful one in Wesley's hands. To the confidence, Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 79 he says, that God is both able and willing to sanctify us now^ there needs to be added one thing more, a divine evidence and conviction that he doth it. In that hour it is done. " Thou^ therefore, look for it every moment : you can be no worse, if you are no better, for that expectation ; for were you to be disap- pointed of your hope, still you lose nothing. But you shall not be disappointed of your hope : it will come, it will not tarry. Look for it then every day, every hour, every moment. Why not this hour ? this moment ? Certainly you may look for it now, if you believe it is by faith. And by this token you may surely know whether you seek it by faith or works.* If by works, you want something to be dione jirst^ he- fore you are sanctified. You think I must first he^ or do^ thus or thus. Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. If you seek it by faith, you may expect it as you are ; then expect it now. It is of importance to observe, that tliere is an inseparable connection between these three points — expect it hy faith^ expect it as you are^ and expect it now. To deny one of them, is to deny them all : to allow one, is to allow them all. Do you believe we are sanctified by faith? Be true then to your principle, and look for this blessing just as you are, neither better nor worse ; as a poor sinner, that has nothing to pay, no- thing to plead, but ' Christ died.^ And if you look for it as you are, then expect it now. Stay for nothing ! Why should you ? Christ is ready, and he is all you want. He is waiting for you ! he is at the door. Whosoever thou art who desirest to be forgiven, first believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then thou shalt do all things well. Say not, 'I cannot be accepted yet, because I am not good enough.' Who is * This is shrewd logic ; but it is mere logic. A month's meditation on the being of sin, and not on the verbal definition of the word sin, might perhaps have shown Wesley its futility. But life was always a metaphor for him. He never got deeper than ftioc. — S. T. C. 80 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. good enough, wlio ever was, to merit acceptance at God's hands ? Say not, ' I am not contrite enough ; I am not sensible enough of my shis.' I know it. I would to God thou wert more sensible of them, and more contrite a tliousand fold than thou art ! But do not stay for this. It may be God will make thee so ; not before thou believest, but by believing. It may be thou wilt not weep much, till thou lovest mucli, because thou hast had much forgiven." Upon these fundamental doctrines of the New Birth, and Justification by Faith, he exhorted his disciples to insist with all boldness, at all times, and in all places : in public, those ivho were called thereto ; and at all opportunities in private. But what is faith ? " Not an opinion," said Wesley, " nor any number of opinions put together, be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian faith, than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not an assent to any opinion, or any number of opinions. A man may assent to three, or three-and-twenty creeds : he may assent to all the Old and New Testa- ment, (at least as far as he understands them,) and yet have no Christian faith at all. The faith by which the promise is attained, is represented by Christianity as a power wrought by the Almighty in an immortal spirit, inhabiting a house of clay, to see through tliat veil into the world of spirits, into things invisible and eternal : a power to discern those things which, with eyes of flesh and blood, no man hath seen, or can see; either by reason of their nature, which (though they surround us on every side) is not perceivable by these gross senses ; or by reason of their distance, as being yet afar off in the bosom of eternity. It showeth what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither could it before enter into our heart to conceive ; and all this in the clearest light, with the fullest certainty and evidence. For it does not leave us to receive our no- tice by mere reflection from the dull glass of sense. Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 81 but resolves a thousand enigmas of the highest con- cern, by giving faculties suited to things invisible. It is the eye of the new born soul, whereby every true believer " seeth Him who is invisible." It is the ear of the soul, whereby the sinner " hears the voice of the Son of God, and lives ; " the palate of the soul, (if the expression may be allowed, ) whereby a believer " tastes the good word and the powers of the world to come ; " the feeling of the soul, whereby, " through the power of the Highest overshadowing him," he per- ceives the presence of Him in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being, and feels the love of God shed abroad in his heart. It is the internal evidence of Christianity, a perpetual revelation, equally strong, equally new, through all the centuries which have elapsed since the incarnation, and passing now, even as it has done from the beginning, directly from God into the believing soul. Do you suppose time will ever dry up this stream ? Oh no ! It shall never be cut off — Lahitur et labetur in omne voluhilis cBVum. It flows, and as it flows, for ever will flow on. The historical evidence of revelation, strong and clear as it is, is cognizable by men of learning alone ; but this is plain, simple, and level to the lowest capacity. The sum is, " One thing I know : I was blind, but now I see : " an argument of which a peasant, a woman, a child, may feel all the force. The tra- ditional evidence gives an account of what was trans- acted far away, and long ago. The inward evidence is intimately present to all persons, at all times, and in all places. " It is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, if thou believest in the Lord Jesus Christ." This, then; is the recoi^d, this is the evidence, emphati- cally so called, that God hath given unto us eternal life^ and this life is in his Son. Why, then, have not all men this faith ? Because VOL. II. G 82 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. no man is able to Avork it in himself: it is a work of Omnipotence. It requires no less power thus to quicken a dead soul, than to raise a body that lies in the grave. It is a new creation ; and none can create a soul ancAv, but He who at first created the heavens and the earth. May not your own experience teach you this ? said Wesley. Can you give yourself this faith ? Is it in your power to see, or hear, or taste, or feel God ? — to raise in yourself any perception of God, or of an invisible Avorld ? — to open an intercourse between yourself and the world of spirits? — to discern either them or Him that created them ? — to burst the veil that is on your heart, and let in the light of eter- nity ? You know it is not. You not only do not, but cannot (by your own strength), thus believe.* The more you labour so to do, the more you will be con- vinced it is the gift of God. It is the free gift of God, which he bestows not on those who are worthy of his favour, not on svich as are 'previously holy, and so^^i to be croAvned with all the blessings of his goodness ; but on the ungodly and unholy ; on those Avho, till that hour, were fit only for everlasting destruction; those in whom was no good thing, and whose only plea was, God be merciful to me a sinner ! No merit, no goodness in man, precedes the forgiving love of God. His pardoning mercy supposes nothing in us but a sense of mere sin and misery ; and to all who see and feel, and own their wants, and their utter inability to remove them, God freely gives faith, for the sake of Him " in whom he is always well pleased." * I venture to avow it as my conviction, that either Christian faith is what Wesley here describes, or there is no proper meaning in tiie word. It is either the identity of the reason and the will (the proper spiritual part of man), in the full energy of each, consequent on a divine re- kindling, or it is not at all. Faith is as real as life ; as actual as force; as effectual as volition. It is the pliysics of the moral being, no less than it is the physics or morale of the zoo-physical. — S. T. C. May I. 1820. Wesley's doctrines ajstd opinions. 83 Whosoever thou art, 0 man, who hast the sentence of death in thyself, unto thee saith the Lord, not, " Do this, perfectly obey all my commands, and live ;" but, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Without faith, a man cannot be justified, even though he should have every thing else ; with faith, he cannot but be justified, though every thing else should be wanting. This justifying faith implies not only the personal revelation, the iuAvard evidence of Christianity, but likeAvise a sure and firm confidence in the individual believer, that Christ died for his sins, loved him, and gave his life for him. And at what time soever a sinner thus believes, God justifieth him. Repentance, indeed, must have been given him before ; but that repentance was neither more nor less than a deep sense of the want of all good, and the presence of all evil ; and whatever good he hath or doth from that hour when he first believes in God through Christ, faith does not find., but bring. Both repent- ance, and fruits meet for repentance, are in some degree necessary to justification : but they are not necessary in the same sense with faith, nor in the same degree. Not in the same degree ; for these fruits are only necessary conditionally, if there be time and opportunity for them. Not in the same sense; for repentance and its fruits are only remotely necessary — necessary in order to faith ; whereas faith is im- mediately and directly necessary to justification. In like manner, faith is the only condition of sanctifica- tion. Every one that believes is sanctified, whatever else he has, or has not. In other words, no man can be sanctified till he believes ; every man when he believes is sanctified. Here Wesley came upon perilous ground. We must be holy in heart and life, before we can be con- scious that we are so. But we must love God before G 2 84 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. we can be holy at all. We cannot love Him till we know that He loves us ; and this we cannot know till his Spirit witnesses it to our spirit. The testimony of the Spirit of God must therefore, he argued, in the very nature of things, be antecedent to the testimony of our own spirit. But he perceived that many had mistaken the voice of their oivn imaoination for this witness of the Spirit, and presumed that they were children of God, while they Avere doing the works of the Devil. And he was not surprised that many sensible men, seeing the effects of this delusion, should lean toward another extreme, and question whether the witness of the Spirit whereof the apostle speaks, is the privilege of ordinary Christians, and not rather one of those extraordinary gifts which they suppose belonged only to the apostle's age. Yet, when he asks, " How may one, who has the real wit- ness in himself, distinguish it from presumption?" he evades the difficulty, and offers a declamatory reply, " How, I pray, do you distinguish day from night ? How do you distinguish light from darkness ? or the light of a star, or of a glimmering taper, from the light of the noonday sun ? " This is the ready answer of every one who has been crazed by enthu- siasm. But AVesley regarded the doctrine as one of the glories of his people, as one grand part of the testimony which God, lie said, had given them to bear to all' mankind. It was by this peculiar blessing upon them, confirmed by the experience of his chil- dren, that this great evangelical truth, he averred, had been recovered, which had been for many years wellnigh lost and forgotten. These notions led to the doctrine of Assurance, which he had defended so pertinaciously against his brother Samuel. But upon this point his fervour had abated, and he made a fairer retractation than was to be expected from the founder of a sect. WESLEY S DOCTRINES AND OPINIONS. 85 " Some," said he, " are fond of the expression ; I am not ; I hardly ever use it. But I will simply declare (having neither leisure nor inclination to draw the sword of controversy concerning it) what are my present sentiments with regard to the tlmig which is usually meant tliereby. I believe a few, but very few Christians, have an assurance from God of everlasting salvation: and that is the thing which the apostle terms the plerophory, or full assurance of hope. I believe more have such an assurance of being 7iow in the favour of God, as excludes all doubt and fear: and this, if I do not mistake, is what the apostle means by the plerophory, or full assurance of faith. I believe a consciousness of being in the favour of God (which I do not term plerophory, or full as- surance, since it is frequently weakened, nay, perhaps interrupted, by returns of doubt or fear,) is the com- mon privilege of Christians, fearing God, and work- ing righteousness. Yet I do not aihrm there are no exceptions to this general rule. Possibly some may be in the favour of God, and yet go mourning all the day long. (But I believe this is usually owing either to disorder of body, or ignorance of the gospel pro- mises.) Therefore I have not, for many years, thought a consciousness of acceptance to be essential to justifying faith. And after I have thus explained myself once for all, I think without any evasion or ambiguity, I am sure without any self-contradiction, I hope all reasonable men will be satisfied : and who- ever will still dispute with me on this head, must do it for disputing's sake." The doctrine of Perfection is not less perilous, sure as the expression was to be mistaken by the ignorant people to whom his discourses were addressed. This, too, was a doctrine which he had preached with in- considerate ardour at the commencement of his ca- reer ; and which, as he grew older, cooler, and wiser, 86 WESLEY'S DOCTRINES AND OPINIONS. he modified and softened down, so as almost to ex- plain it away. He defined it to be a constant com- munion with God, which fills the heart with humble love ; and to this, he insisted, that every believer might attain : yet he admitted that it did not in- clude a power never to think an useless thought, nor speak an useless word. Such a perfection is in- consistent with a corruptible body, which makes it impossible always to think right : if, therefore. Chris- tian perfection implies this, he admitted that we must not expect it till after death. To one of his female disciples, who seems to have Avritten to him under a desponding sense of her own imperfection, he replied in these terms : " I want you," he added, " to be all love. This is the perfection I believe and teach ; and this perfection is consistent with a thousand nervous disorders, which that high-strained perfection is not. Indeed my judgement is, that (in this case particu- larly) to overdo, is to undo ; and that to set perfec- tion too high, is the most effectual way of driving it out of the world." In like manner he justified the word to Bishop Gibson, by explaining it to mean less than it expressed ; so that the bishop replied to him, " Why, Mr. Wesley, if this is what you mean by per- fection, who can be against it ? " " Man," he says, " in his present state, can no more attain Adamic than angelic perfection. The perfection of which man is capable, while he dwells in a corruptible body, is the complying with that kind command, * j\Iy son, give me thy heart ! ' It is the loving the Lord his God, with all his heart, and Avith all his soul, and with all his mind." But these occasional explana- tions did not render the general use of the Avord less mischievous, or less reprehensible. Ignorant hearers took it for what it appeared to mean ; and Avliat, from the mouths of ignorant instructors, it was intended to mean. It flattered their vanity and their spiritual Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 87 pride, and became one of the most popular tenets of the Methodists, precisely because it is one of the most objectionable. Wesley himself repeatedly finds fault with his preachers if they neglected to enforce a doc- trine so well adapted to gratify their hearers. In one place he says, " The more I converse with the believers in Cornwall, the more am I convinced that they have sustained great loss for want of hearing the doctrine of Christian Perfection clearly and strongly enforced. I see wherever this is not done, the be- lievers grow dead and cold. Nor can this be pre- vented, but by keeping up in them an hourly ex- pectation of being perfected in love. 1 say an hourly expectation ; for to expect it at death, or some time hence, is much the same as not expecting it at all." And on another occasion he writes thus : " Here I found the plain reason why the work of God had gained no ground in this circuit all the year. The preachers had given up the Methodist testimony. Either they did not speak of perfection at all, (the peculiar doctrine committed to our trust,) or they spoke of it only in general terms, without urging the believers to go on to perfection, and to expect it every moment : and wherever this is not earnestly done, the work of God does not prosper. As to the word per- fection," said he, " it is scriptural ; therefore neither you nor I can, in conscience, object to it, unless we would send the Holy Ghost to school, and teach Him to speak who made the tongue." Thus it was that he attempted to justify to others, and to himself also, the use of language, for persevering in which, after the intemperance of his enthusiasm had abated, there can be no excuse, seeing that all he intended to con- vey by the obnoxious term might have been expressed without offending the judicious, or deluding the igno- rant and indiscreet. Wesley was not blind to the tendency of these doc- G 4 88 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. trines. " The true gospel," said he, " touches the very edge both of Calvhiism and Antinomianism, so that nothing but the mighty power of God can pre- vent our sliding either into tlie one or the other." Many of his associates and followers fell into both. He always declared himself clearly and strongly against both ; though at the expense of some incon- sistency, when he preached of a sanctification which left the subject liable to sin, of an assurance which was not assured, and of an imperfect perfection. But his real opinion could not be mistaken ; and few men have combated these pestilent errors with more earn- estness or more success. He never willingly engaged in those subtle and unprofitable discussions which have occasioned so much dissension in the Christian world ; but upon those points in which speculation is allowable, and error harmless, he freely indulged his imagination. It was his opinion that there is a chain of beings advancing by degrees from the lowest to the highest point — from an atom of unorganised matter, to the highest of the archangels ; an opinion consonant to the philosophy of the bards, and confirmed by science, as far as our physiological knowledge extends. He believed in the ministry both of good and evil angels ; but whether every man had a guardian angel to pro- tect him, as the Romanists hold, and a malignant demon continually watching to seduce him into tlie ways of sin and death, this he considered as undeter- mined by revelation, and therefore doubtful. Evil thoughts he held to be infused into the minds of men by the evil principle ; and that " as no good is done, or spoken, or thought, by any man, without the assist- ance of God working together in and ivith those that believe in him ; so there is no evil done, or spoken, or thought, without the assistance of the Devil, '' who worketh with energy in tlie children of unbelief And Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 89 certainly," said he, " it is as easy for a spirit to speak to our heart, as for a man to speak to our ears. But sometimes it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish the thoughts which he infuses from our own thoughts, those which he injects so exactly resembling those which naturally arise in our own minds. Sometimes, indeed, we may distinguish one from the other by this circumstance : the thoughts which naturally arise in our minds are generally, if not always, occasioned by, or at least connected with, some inward or outward circumstance that went before ; but those that are preternaturally suggested, have frequently no rela- tion to, or connection (at least, none that we are able to discern,) with, any thing which preceded. On the contrary, they shoot in, as it were, across, and thereby show that they are of a diiferent growth." His notions of diabolical agency went farther than this : he imputed to it many of the accidents and dis- comforts of life, — disease, bodily hurts, storms and earthquakes, and nightmare : he believed that epilepsy was often or always the effect of possession, and that most madmen were demoniacs. A belief in witchcraft naturally followed from these premises; but after satisfying his understanding that supernatural acts and appearances are consistent with the order of the universe, sanctioned by Scripture, and proved by testimony too general and too strong to be resisted, he invalidated his own authority, by listening to the most absurd tales with implicit credulity, and record- ing: them as authenticated facts. He adhered to the old opinion, that the devils were the gods of the hea- then ; and he maintained, that the words in the Lord's Prayer, which have been rendered evil^ mean, in the orio:inal, the wicked one, " emphatically so called, the prince and god of this world, who works with mighty power in the children of disobedience." One of his most singular notions was concerning 90 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. the clay of judgement, lie thought it probable that its duration would be several thousand years, that the place would be above the earth, and that the circum- stances of every individual's life would then be brought forth in full view, together with all their tempers, and all the desires, thoughts, and intents of their hearts. This he thought absolutely necessary for the full display of the glory of God, for the clear and perfect manifestation of his wisdom, justice, power, and mercy. " Then only," he argued, " when God hath brought to light all the hidden things of dark- ness, will it be seen that wise and good were all his ways: that he saw through the thick cloud, and governed all things by the wise counsel of his own will; that nothing was left to chance or the caprice of men, but God disposed all strongly, and wrought all into one connected chain of justice, mercy, and truth." Whether the earth and the material heavens would be consumed by the general conflagration, and pass away, or be transmuted by the fire into that sea of glass like unto crystal, which is described in the Apocalypse as extending before the throne, we could neither affirm nor deny, he said ; but we should know hereafter. He held the doctrine of the millennium to be scriptural ; but he never fell into those wild and extravagant fancies, in which speculations of this kind so frequently end. The Apocalypse is the favourite study of crazy religionists ; but Wesley says of it, " Oh, how little do we know of this deep book ! at least, how little do / know ! I can barely con- jecture, not affirm, any one point concerning that part of it which is yet unfulfilled." He entertained some interesting opinions concern- ing the brute creation, and derived whatever evils inferior creatures endure, or inflict upon each other, from the consequence of the Fall. In Paradise they existed in a state of happiness, enjoying will and Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 91 liberty: their passions and affections were regular, and their choice always guided by their understand- ing, which was perfect in its kind. " What," says he, " is the barrier between men and brutes, — the line which they cannot pass ? It is not reason. Set aside that ambigious term ; exchange it for the plain word understanding, and who can deny that brutes have this ? We may as well deny that they have sight or hearing. But it is this : man is capable of God ; the inferior creatures are not. AVe have no ground to believe that they are in any degree capable of knowing, loving, or obeying God. This is the specific difference between man and brute — the great gulf which they cannot pass over. And as a loving obedience to God was the perfection of man, so a loving obedience to man was the perfection of brutes." While this con- tinued, they were happy after their kind, in the right state and the right use of all their faculties. Evil and pain had not entered into Paradise ; and they were immortal*; for "God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the death of any living." How true, then, is that word, " God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good." But as all the blessings of God flowed through man to the inferior creatures, those blessings were cut off when man made himself incapable of transmitting * Wesley appears to have confountled the term immortal with im- perishable. Life may be (and if life be ens rcrum, must be,) imperish- able ; but only reason is, or can render, immortal. An immortal brute is a contradiction in terms. Without continued progression there is no motive, = but without self- consciousness there is no subject, for immor- tality. But self-consciousness (which I suspect AV^esley confounded with the copula of vital sensations in the successive unity of the multi- tude of acts that constitute the life in each successive instant of time) — self-consciousness is, or implies, reason : for it implies the power of contemplating the self, as an ipea loosened from the sensation of one's own selfj as the, I am X I James, or I John ; consequently the power of determining an ultimate end — which if brutes possess, they are no longer brutes. But this opinion affords a fresh proof that Wesley's intellect never rose above logic. — S. T. C. , • 92 Wesley's doctrines and opinions. them, and all creatures were then subjected to sorrow, and pain, and evil of every kind. It is probable that the meaner creatures sustained much loss, even in the lower faculties of their corporeal powers : they suffered more in their understanding, and still more in their liberty, their passions, and their will. The very foundations of their nature were turned upside down. As man is deprived of his perfection, his loving obedience to God, so brutes are deprived of their per- fection, their loving obedience to man. The far greater part flee from his hated presence ; others set him at defiance, and destroy him when they can ; a few only retain more or less of their original disposi- tion, and, through the mercy of God, still love him and obey him. And in consequence of the first transgression, death came upon the whole creation; and not death alone, but all its train of preparatory evils, pain, and ten thousand sufferings ; nor these only, but likewise those irregular passions, all those unlovely tempers, which in man are sins, and even in brutes are sources of misery, passed upon all the in- habitants of the earth, and remain in all, except the children of God. Inferior creatures torment, per- secute, and devour each other, and all are tormented and persecuted by man. But, says Wesley, will the ci^eature, will even the brute creation always remain in this deplorable condition? God forbid that we should affirm this, yea, or even entertain such a thought. AVhile the whole creation groaneth to- gether, whether men attend or not, their groans are not dispersed in idle air, but enter into the ears of him that made them. Away with vulgar prejudices, and let the plain word of God take place ! " God shall wipe away all tears : and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain ; for the former things are passed away." This blessing shall take place ; not Wesley's doctrines and opinions. 93 on men alone, (there is no such restriction in the text,) but on every creature according to its capacity. The whole brute creation will then undoubtedly be restored to all that they have lost, and -with a large increase of faculties. They will be delivered from all unruly passions, from all evil, and all suffering. And Avhat if it should then please the all-wise, the all- gracious Creator, to raise them higher in the scale of beings?* What if it should please Him, when he makes us equal to angels, to make them what we are now, creatures capal^le of God, capable of knowing, and loving, and enjoying the author of their being ?" Some teacher of materialism had asserted, that if man had an immaterial soul, so had the brutes ; as if this conclusion reduced that opinion to a manifest absurdity. " I will not quarrel," said Wesley, " with any that think they have. Nay, I wish he could prove it ; and surely I would rather allow them souls, than I would give up my own." He cherished this opinion, because it furnished a full answer to a plau- sible objection against the justice of God. That jus- tice might seem to be impugned by the sufferings to which brute animals are subject ; those, especially, who are under the tyranny of brutal men. But the objection vanishes, if we consider that something better remains after death for these poor creatures also. This good end, he argued, was answered by thus speculating upon a subject which we so imper- fectly understand ; and such speculations might soften and enlarge our hearts. The kindness of Wesley's nature is apparent in this opinion, and that same kindness produced in him a degree of charity, which has seldom been found in * How was it possible for Wesley not to see that there is no mean- ing in the word them, as applied to flies, fish, worms, &c. ? As well, if I suffered a door to fall to pieces, and put a dog in the passage instead, I might be said to have raised the door into a dog. — S. T. C. 94 Wesley's doctjuxes and opinions. those wlio s the nerves," he said, " better than a thousand medicines ; and especially preserves the sight, and prevents lowness of spirits. Early preaching," he said, " is the glory of the Metho- dists. Whenever this is dropt, they will dwindle * away into nothing," He advised his preachers to be- gin and end always precisely at the time appointed, and always to conclude the service in about an hour ; to suit their subject to the audience, to choose the plainest texts, and keep close to the text ; neither rambling Irom it, nor allegorising, nor spiritualising too much. More than once, in his Journal, he has recorded the death of men who were martyrs to long and loud preaching, and he frequently cautioned his followers against it. To one of them he says, in a curious letter of advice, which he desired might be taken as the surest mark of love, " Scream no more, at the peril of your soul. God now warns you by me, * The importance which he attached to this custom appears in his Journal. " I was surprised when I came to Chester^ to find that there also morning preaching was quite left off; for this worthy reason, be- cause the people Avill not come, or, at least not in the winter : if so, the Methodists are a fallen people. Here is proof: they have lost their first love ; and they never will or can recover it till they do their first works. As soon as I set foot in Georgia, I began preaching at five in the morning ; and every communicant, that is, every serious person in the town, constantly attended throughout the year : I mean, came every morning, winter and summer, unless in the case of sickness. They did so till I left the province. In the year 1738, when God began his great work in England, I began preaching at the same hour, winter and summer, and never wanted a congregation. If they will not attend now, they have lost their zeal, and then, it cannot be denied, they are a fallen people ; and, in the mean time, we are labouring to secure the preaching-houses to the next generation ! In the name of God, let us, if possible, secure the present generation from drawing back to per- dition. Let all the preachers, that are still alive to God, join together as one man, fast and pray, lift up their voice as a trumpet, be instant, in season, out of season, to convince them they are fallen, and exhort them instantly to repent and do the first works ; this in particular, rising in the morning, without which neither their souls nor bodies can long remain in health." DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. 109 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 Avord 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." They were instructed also not to pray above eight or ten minutes at most, without intermission, unless for some pressing reason. Before an aspirant was admitted upon trial as an itinerant, he was exercised as a local preacher ; and many persons remained contentedly in this humbler office, which neither took them from their families, nor interfered with their worldly concerns. They carried on their business, whatever that might be, six days in the week, and preached on the seventh : but no person was admitted to this rank, unless he were thought competent by the preachers of the circuit. The places which they were to visit were determined by the assistant, and their conduct underwent an in- quiry every quarter. Without their aid, Methodism could not have been kept up over the whole country, widely as it was diffused ; and all that they received from the society was a little refreshment, at the cost of the people to whom they preached, and j)erhaps the hire of a horse for the day. A still more important part was performed by the leaders, who are to Methodism what the non-com- missioned officers are in an army. The leader was appointed by the assistant : it was his business regu- larly to meet his class, question them, in order, as to their religious affections and practice, and advise, caution, or reprove, as the case might require. If any members absented themselves from the class-meet- ing, he was to visit them, and inquire into the cause ; no DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. and he was to render an account to the officiating preacher, of those whose conduct ajDpeared suspicious, or was in any way reprehensible. By this means, and by the class-paper for every week, which the leaders were required to keep, and regularly produce, the preachers obtained a knowledge of every individual member within their circuit ; and, by the class-tickets, Avhich v/ere renewed every quarter, a regular census of the society was effected. The leaders not only per- formed the office of drilling the young recruits, they acted also as the tax-gatherers, and received the weekly contributions, of their class, which they paid to the local stewards, and the local stewards to the steward of the circuit. Thus far the discipline of the Methodists was well devised: if the system itself had been unexceptionable, the spiritual police was perfect. But they were divided into bands as well as classes ; and this subdi- vision, while it answered no one end of possible utility, led to something worse than the worst practice of the Romish church. The men and the women, and the married and the single, met separately in these bands, for the purpose of confessing to each other. They engaged to meet once a- week at least, and to speak, each in order, freely and plainly, the true state of their souls, with the faults they had committed, in thought, word, or deed, and the temptations they had felt during the week. They were to be asked " as many and as searching questions as may be, concerning their state, sins, and temptations ; " these four, in particu- lar, at every meeting: What known sin have you committed since our last meeting ? What temptations have you met with ? How was you delivered ? A\liat have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not ? And before any person en- tered into one of these bands, a promise of the most unreserved openness was required. " Consider, do DISCIPLINE or THE METHODISTS. HI you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you ? Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom ? Is it your desire and design to be, on this and all other oc- casions, entirely open, so as to speak every thing that is in your heart, without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?" The nature, and the inevitable tendency of this mutual inquisition, must be obvious to every reflecting mind : and it is marvellous, tliat any man should have permitted his wife * or his daughter to enter into these bands, where it is not possible for innocence to escape contamination. f The institution of the select society or band was not liable to the same objection. This Avas to consist of persons who were earnestly athirst for the full image of God, and of those who continually walked in the light of God, having fellowship with the Father and the Son: in other words, of those who had at- tained to such a degree of spiritual pride, that they * Wesley has himself recorded an instance of mischief arising from these bands. " I searched to the bottom," says he^ "^ a story I had heard in part, and found it another tale of real woe. Two of our society had lived together in uncommon harmony, when one, who met in band with E. F., to whom she had mentioned that she had found a temptation toward Dr. F.^ went and told her husband she was in love with him, and that she had it from her own mouth. The spirit of jealousy seized him in a moment, and utterly took away his reason. And some one telling him his wife was at Dr. F.'s, on whom she had called that afternoon, he took a great stick, and ran away, and meeting her in the street, called out, Strumpet ! strumpet ! and struck her twice or thrice. He is now thoroughly convinced of her innocence ; but the water cannot be gathered up again. He sticks there — ' I do thoroughly forgive you, but I can never love you more.' " After such an example, Wesley ought to have abolished this part of his institutions. t In one of his letters, Wesley says, '' I believe Miss F. thought she felt evil before she did, and by that very thought, gave occasion to its re-entrance." And yet he did not perceive the danger of leading his people into temptation, by making them recur to every latent thought of evil; and compelling them to utter, with their lips, imaginations which might otherwise have been suppressed within their hearts for ever ! 112 DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. professed to be in this state, — the adepts of Method- ism, who were not ashamed to take their degree as perfect. "I saw," says Mr. Wesley, "it might be useful to give some advice to those who thus continued in the light of God's countenance, which the rest of their brethren did not want, and probably covild not receive. My design was not only to direct them how to press after perfection, to exercise their every grace, and improve every talent they had received, and to incite them to love one another more, and to Avatch more carefully over each other ; but also to have a select company, to whom I might unbosom myself on all occasions, without reserve ; and whom I could pro- pose, to all their brethren, as patterns of love, of holiness, and of all good works. They had no need of being encumbered with many rules, having the best rule of all in their hearts." Nevertheless, the judicious injunction was given them, that nothing which was spoken at their meetings should be spoken again. Wesley says, he often felt the advantage of these meetings, experienced there, that in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. But they placed the un- tenable doctrine of perfection in so obtrusive and obnoxious a light, that he found it difficult to main- tain them ; and they seem not to have become a regu- lar part of the system. The watch-night was another of Wesley's objec- tionable institutions. It originated with some re- claimed colliers of Kingswood, who, having been accustomed to sit late on Saturday nights at the ale- house, transferred their weekly meeting, after their conversion, to the school-house, and continued there praying and singing hymns far into the morning. Wesley was advised to put an end to this : but, " upon weighing the thing thoroughly, and com- paring it with the practice of the ancient Christians," he could see no cause to forbid it ; because he over- DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. 113 looked the difference between their times and his own, and shut his eyes to the obvious impropriety of midnight meetings. So he appointed them to be held once a month, near the time of full moon. " Exceedingly great," says he, " are the blessings we have found therein ; it has generally been an ex- tremely solemn season, when the word of God sunk deep into the hearts even of those who till then knew him not. If it be said, this was only owing to the novelty of the thing, (the circumstance which still draws such multitudes together at those seasons,) or perhaps to the aweful stillness of the night, I am not careful to answer in this matter. Be it so : however, the impression then made on many souls has never since been effaced. Now, allowing that God did make use either of the novelty, or any other indif- ferent circumstance, in order to bring sinners to re- pentance, yet they are brought, and herein let us rejoice together. Now, may I not put the case far- ther yet ? If I can probably conjecture, that either by the novelty of this ancient custom, or by any other indifferent circumstance, it is in my power to save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins, am I clear before God if I do not ? — if I do not snatch that brand out of the burning?" The practice which Wesley thus revived had been discountenanced, even in the most superstitious Ca- tholic countries, for its inconvenience, and its mani- fest ill tendency ; and therefore it had long been dis- used. While the converts to his doctrine retained the freshness of their first impression, watch-nights served to keep up the feeling to the pitch at which he wished to maintain it ; and if any person, who was almost a Methodist, attended one of these meetings, the cir- cumstances were likely to complete his conversion. For the sake of these advantages, Wesley disregarded the scandal which this part of his institutions was VOL. II. I 114 DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. sure to occasion ; and he seems not to have con- sidered the effect among his own people, when their first fervour should have abated, and the vigils be attended as a mere formality. He also appointed three love-feasts in a quarter : one for the men, a second for the women, and the third for both together; " that we might together eat bread," he says, " as the ancient Christians did, with gladness and singleness of heart. At these love-feasts (so we termed them, retaining the name, as well as the thing, which was in use from the beginning,) our food is only a little plain cake and water ; but we seldom return from them without being fed not only with the meat which perisheth, but with that w^hich endureth to everlasting life." A travelling preacher presides at these meet- ings : any one who chooses may speak ; and the time is chiefly employed in relating what they call their Christian experience. In this point, also, Mr. Wesley disregarded the offence which he gave, by renewing a practice that had notoriously been abolished, because of the abuses to which it led. It cannot be supposed that a man of his sagacity should have overlooked the objections to which such meetings as the watch-nights and the love-feasts were obnoxious : his temper led him to despise and to defy public opinion ; and he saw how well these practices accorded with the interests of Methodism as a sepa- rate society. It is not sufficient for such a society that its members should possess a calm, settled prin- ciple of religion to be their rule of life and their sup- port in trial : religion must be made a thing of sen- sation and passion, craving perpetually for sympathy and stimulants, instead of bringing with it peace and contentment. The quiet regularity of domestic de- votion must be exchanged for public performances ; the members are to be pivfes.sot's of religion ; they must have a part to act, which will at once gratify DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. 115 the sense of self-importance, and afford employment for the uneasy and restless spirit with which they are possessed. Wesley complained that family religion was the grand desideratum among the Methodists ; but, in reality, his institutions were such as to leave little time for it, and to take away the inclination, by making it appear flat and unprofitable, after the ex- citement of class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, and midnight assemblies. Whenever a chapel was built, care was taken that it should be settled on the Methodist plan ; that is, that the property should be vested, not in trustees, but in Mr. Wesley and the Conference. The usual form among the dissenters would have been fatal to the general scheme of Methodism ; " because," said Wesley, " wherever the trustees exert the power of placing and displacing preachers, there itinerant preaching is no more. When they have found a preacher they like, the rotation is at an end ; at least till they are tired of him, and turn him out. While he stays, the bridle is in his mouth. He would not dare speak the full and the whole truth ; since, if he displeased the trustees, he would be liable to lose his bread ; nor would he dare expel a trustee, though ever so ungodly, from the society. The power of the trustees is greater than that of any patron, or of the king himself, who could jmt in a preacher, but could not put him out." Thus he argued, when a chapel at Birstall had been erroneously settled upon trustees ; and the importance of the point was felt so strongly by the Conference, that it was determined, in case these persons would not allow the deed to be can- celled, and substitute one upon the Methodist plan, to make a collection throughout the society, for the purpose of purchasing ground, and building another chapel, as near the one in question as possible. Wesley never wished to have any chapel or burial- I 2 116 DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. ground consecrated : such ceremonies he thought relics of popery, and flatly superstitious. The im- possibility of having them consecrated, led him, per- haps, to consider the ceremony in this light, at a time when he had not proceeded so far as to exercise any ecclesiastical function for which he was not pro- perly authorised. The buildings themselves Avere of the plainest kind : it was difficult to raise money * even for these ; but Mr. Wesley had the happy art of representing that as a matter of principle, which was a matter of necessity; and, in the tastelessness of their chapels, the Methodists were only upon a level with the dissenters of every description. The octagonf, wliicih, of all architectural forms, is the ugliest, he * The history of one of these chapels, at Sheerness, is curious. '' It is now finished," says Wesley, in his Journal for 1786, "■ but by means never heard of. The building was undertaken, a few months since, by a little handful of men, without any probable means of finishing it: but God so moved the hearts of tbe people in the dock, that even those who did not pretend to any religion, carpenters, shipwrights, labourers, ran up at all their vacant hours, and worked with all their might, without any pay. By these means a large square house was soon elegantly finished, both within and without. And it is the neatest building, next to the new chapel in London, of any in the south of England." A meeting-house at Haslinden, in Lancashire, was built for them on speculation, by a person not connected with the society in any way. He desired only three per cent, for what he laid out, (about 800/.) pro- vided the seats let for so much ; of which, says Wesley, there is little doubt. This was in 1788. t His predilection for this form seems to have arisen from a sight of the Unitarian meeting-house at Norwich, " perhaps/' he says, " the most elegant one in Europe. It is eight-square, built of the finest brick, with sixteen sash windows below, as many above, and eight sky-lights in the dome, which, indeed, are purely ornamental. The inside is finished in the highest taste, and is as clean as any nobleman's saloon. The communion-table is fine mahogany : the very latches of the pew doors are polished brass. How can ic be thought that the old coarse Gospel should find admission here ? " The sort of humility which is implied in this sneer, is well charactered by Landor, when he calls it " A tattered garb that pride wears when deform'd." It is no wonder that he was struck by the cleanness of the chapel. This curious item occurs in the minutes of Conference for 177(). " Q. 23. Complaint is made that sluts spoil our houses. How can we prevent this ? A. Let no known slut live in any of them." DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. 117 preferred to any other, and wished it to be used wherever the ground would permit : but it has not been generally followed. The directions were, that the windows should be sashes, opening downwards ; that there should be no tub-pulpits, and no backs to the seats ; and that the men and women should sit apart. A few years before his death, the committee in London proposed to him that families should sit together, and that private pews might be erected; " thus," he exclaims, " overthrowing, at one blow, the discipline which I have been establishing for fifty years ! " But, upon farther consideration, they yielded to his opinion. He prided himself upon the singing in his meeting- houses : there was a talent in his family both for music and verse ; and he availed himself, with great judgement, of both. A collection of hymns was pub- lished for the society, some few of which were selected from various authors ; some were his own composition ; but far the greater part were by his brother Charles. Perhaps no poems have ever been so devoutly com- mitted to memory as these, nor quoted so often upon a death-bed. The manner in which they were sung tended to impress them strongly on the mind : the tune was made wholly subservient to the words, not the words to the tune. The Romanists are indebted for their church-music to the Benedictines, an order to which all Europe is so deeply indebted for many things. Our fine catlie- dral service is derived from them : may it continue for ever ! The psalmody of our churches was a po- pular innovation, during the first years of the Re- formation ; and the psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins were alloiced* to be sung, not enjoined. The prac- * " Those wlio have searcheil into the matter with the utmost care and curiosity," says Collier, (vol. ii. 326.) "could never discover any authority, either from the crown or the convocation." I 3 118 DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. tice, however, obtained ; and having contributed in no sUght measure to the religious revolution when the passion wherein it originated was gone by, it became a mere interlude in the service, serving no other purpose than that of allowing a little breathing- time to the minister ; and the manner in which this interval is filled, where there is no organ to supply the want of singers, or cover their defects, is too often irreverent and disgraceful. Aware of the great ad- vantage to be derived from psalmody, and with an ear, as well as an understanding, alive to its abuse, Wesley made it an essential part of the devotional service in his chapels ; and he triumphantly con- trasted the practice of his people, in this respect, with that of the churches. " Their solemn addresses to God," said he, " are not interrupted either by the formal drawl of a parish-clerk, the screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither feel nor understand, or the unseasonable and unmeaning impertinence of a voluntary on the organ.* When it is seasonable to sing praise to God, they do it with the spirit and the understanding also ; not in the miserable, scandalous doggerell of Hopkins and Sternhold f, but in psalms and hymns, which are both sense and poetry, such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian, than a Christian to turn critic. What they sing is there- fore a proper continuation of the spiritual and rea- * Yet Wesley has noticed, that he once found at church an uncom- mon blessing, when he least of all expected it ; namely, " while the organist was playing a voluntary." — R. S. t I have lately looked into Hopkins and Sternhold ; and though I can- not pretend that it is not " coarse frieze," or that a more dignified metrical version is not a desideratum ; yet I do say, that it does not merit the harsh description of " miserable, scandalous doggerell," and that Stern- hold and Hopkins are David and Asoph themselves, compared with-f- Tate and Brady. There is assuredly a becoming dignity in the having the Scripture itself sung, that fits a national church; but yet I cannot blind myself to the superior edification and geneality of Christian hymns^ especially such as are David Evangilisans, i.e. the psalms interpreted. — S. T. C. DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODISTS. 119 sonable service, being selected for that end ; not by a poor hum-drum wretch, who can scarcely read what he drones out with such an air of importance, but by one who knows what he is about, and how to connect the preceding with the following part of the service. Nor does he take just ' two staves ;' but more or less, as may best raise the soul to God ; especially when sung in well-composed and well-adapted tunes ; not by a handful of wild unawakened striplings, but by a whole serious congregation ; and these not lolling at ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, drawling out one word after another ; but all standing before God, and praising him lustily, and with a good cou- rage." He especially enjoined that the whole con- gregation should sing, that there should be no repe- tition of words, no dwelling upon disjointed syllables, and that they should not sing in parts, but with one heart and voice, in one simultaneous and uninter- rupted feeling.* The preachers were forbidden to introduce any hymns of their own composing : in other respects they had great latitude allowed them: they might use the Liturgy, if they pleased, or an abridgement of it, which Mr. Wesley had set forth ; or they might discard it altogether, and substitute an extempora- neous service, according to their own taste and that of the congregation. Like the Jesuits, in this respect, they were to adapt themselves to all men. The ser- vice was not long: Wesley generally concluded it within the hour. * This feeling, however, must have been disturbed in a strange manner, if the preachers observed the directions of the first Conference, to guard against formality in singing, by often stopping short, and ask- ing the people, " Now, do you know what you said last ? Did you speak no more than you felt? Did you sing it as unto the Lord, with tlie spirit and with the understanding also ? " I 4 120 CHAPTER XXII. METHODISM IN WALES AND IN SCOTLAND. Upon Wesley's first journey into Wales, he thought that most of the inhabitants were indeed inpe for the Gospel. " I mean," says he, " if the expression ap- pear strange, they are earnestly desirous of being instructed in it; and as utterly ignorant of it they are as any Creek or Cherokee Indian. I do not mean they are ignorant of the name of Christ : many of them can say both the Lord's Prayer and the Belief; nay, and some all the Catechism : but take them out of the road of what they have learned by rote, and they know no more (nine in ten of those with whom I conversed) either of Gospel salvation, or of that faith whereby alone we can be saved, than Chicali or Tomo Chachi." This opinion was formed during a journey through the most civilised part of South Wales. He was not deceived in judging that the Welsh were a people highly susceptible of such im- pressions as he designed to make ; but he found him- self disabled in his progress, by his ignorance of their language. " Oh," he exclaims, " what a heavy curse was the confusion of tongues, and how grievous are the effects of it. All the birds of the air, all the beasts of the field, understand the language of their own species ; man only is a barbarian to man, unin- telligible to his own brethren!" This difficulty was insuperable. He found, however, a few Welsh clergy- men, who entered into his views with honest ardour, and an extravagance of a new kind grew up in their congregations. After the preaching was over, any- one who pleased gave out a verse of a hymn ; and METHODISM IN WALES AND SCOTLAND. 121 this they sung over and over again, with all their might and main, thirty or forty times, till some of them worked themselves into a sort of drunkenness or madness : they were then violently agitated, and leaped up and down, in all manner of postures, fre- quently for hours together. " I think," says Wesley, " there needs no great penetration to understand this. They are honest, uj^right men, who really feel the love of God in their hearts ; but they have little experience either of the ways of God or the devices of Satan ; so he serves himself by their simplicity, in order to wear them out, and to bring a discredit on the work of God." This was the beginning of the Jumpers.* Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, the remarkable men who made the secession from the Scotch church, in- vited Whitefield into Scotland, before his breach with Wesley. Accordingly, in the year 1741, he accej^ted the invitation ; and thinking it proper that they should have the first-fruits of his ministry in that kingdom, preached his first sermon in the seceding meeting-house belonging to Ralph Erskine, at Dun- fermline. The room was thronged ; and when he had named his text, the rustling which was made by the congregation opening their bibles all at once surprised him, who had never, till then, witnessed a similar practice. A few days afterwards he met the Associate Presbytery of the Seceders, by their own desire ; a set of grave, venerable men. They soon proposed to form themselves into a presbytery, and were proceeding to choose a moderator, when Mr. Whitefield asked them for what purpose this was to be done : they made answer, it was to discourse and set him right about ^ the matter of church government, and the solemn * " At seven in the morning," says Whitefield, " have I seen per- haps ten thousand, from different parts, in the midst of a sermon, ■^ crying, Gogunniant hendyitti, ready to leap for joy." Had they been reprehended at that time, this extravagant folly might have been prevented. 122 METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. league and covenant. Upon this Mr. Whitefield observed, they might save themselves the trouble, for he had no scruples about it ; and that settling church government, and preaching about the solemn league and covenant, was not his plan. And then he gave them some account of the history of his own mind, and the course of action in which he was engaged. This, however, was not satisfactory to the Associate Presbytery, though one of the synod apologised for him, urging that, as he had been born and bred in England, and had never studied the point, he could not be supposed to be perfectly acquainted with the nature of their covenants, and therefore they ought to have patience with him. This was of no avail : it was answered, that no indulgence could be shown him ; for England had revolted most with respect to church government, and that he could not but be ac- quainted with the matter in debate. It was a new thing for Whitefield, who had been accustomed to receive homage wherever he went, to be schooled in this manner ; but he bore this arrogant behaviour mth ^ great complacency, and replied, that indeed he never yet had studied the solemn league and covenant, be- cause he had been too busy about things which, in his judgement, were of greater importance. Several of them then cried out, that every pin of the tabernacle was precious. Whitefield was ready in reply : he told them that, in every building, there were outside and inside workmen ; that the latter was at that time his province ; and that, if they thought themselves called to the former, they might proceed in their own way, as he Avould do in his. The power of these persons, happily, was not so inquisitorial as their disposition ; and when he seriously asked them what they wished him to do, they answered, that they did not desire him immediately to subscribe to the solemn league and covenant, but that he would preach for them METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 123 exclusively till he had farther light. "And why for them alone?" he inquired. Ralph Erskine made an- swer, " They were the Lord's people." " I then," says Whitefield, " asked, whether there were no other Lord's people but themselves ? and, supposing all others were the Devil's people, they certainly, I told them, had more need to be preached to ; and there- fore I was more and more determined to go out into the highways and hedges ; and that if the Pope him- self would lend me his pulpit, I would gladly proclaim the righteousness of Jesus Christ therein. Soon after this the company broke up ; and one of these other- wise venerable men immediately went into the meet- ing-house, and preached upon these words : ' Watch- man, what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ? The watchman said. The morning cometh, and also the night ; if ye will enquire, enquire ye ; return, come.' I attended: but the good man so- spent himself, in the former part of his sermon, in talking against prelacy, the common prayer-book, the surplice, the rose in the hat, and such like externals, that, when he came to the latter part of his text, to invite poor sinners to Jesus Christ, his breath was so gone, that he could scarce be heard. What a pity that the last was not first, and the first last ! The consequence of all this was an open breach. I retired, I wept, I prayed, and, after preaching in the fields, sate do^vn and dined with them, and then took a final leave.* At table, a gentlewoman said she had * In honour of Whitefield, I annex here part of a letter upon this subject, written a few days after this curious scene, and addressed to a son of one of the Erskines. " The treatment I met with from the Associate Presbytery was not altogether such as I expected. It grieved me as much as it did you. I could scarce refrain from bursting into a flood of tears. I wish all were hke-minded with your honoured father and uncle ; matters then would not be carried on with so high an hand. I fear they are led too much. Supposing the scheme of governmtnt which the Associate Presbytery contend for to be scriptural, yet for- bearance and long-suffering is to be exercised towards such as may 124 METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. heard that I had told some people that the Associate Presbytery were buildhig a Babel. I said, ' Madam, it is quite true ; and I believe the Babel will soon fall down about their ears.' But enough of this. Lord, what is man — what the best of men — but men at the best!" Coming as a stranger into Scotland, and being free from all prejudice and passion upon the sub- ject, Whiteiield saw the folly and the mischief of the schisms in which his new acquaintance were engaged. They spared no pains to win him over to their side. " I find," said he, " Satan now turns himself into an angel of light, and stirs up God's children to tempt me to come over to some particular party." To one of his correspondents he replies : " I wish you would not trouble yourself or me in writing about the corruption of the Church of England. I believe there is no church perfect under heaven ; but as God, by his providence, is pleased to send me forth simply to preach the Gospel to all, I think there is no need of casting myself out." He was invited to differ from them : and, I am verily persuaded, there is no such form of government prescribed in the book of God, as excludes a toleration of all other forms whatsoever. Was the New Testament outward taber- nacle to be built as punctual as the Old, as punctual directions would have been given about the building it : Avhereas it is only deduced by inference ; and thus we see Independents, Presbyterians, and Episco- palians bring the same text to support their particular scheme : and I believe Jesus Christ thereby would teach us to exercise forbearance and long-suffering to each other. Was the Associate Presbytery scheme to take effect, out of conscience, if they acted consistently, they must restrain and grieve, if not persecute, many of God's children, who could not possibly come into their measures : and I doubt not but their present violent methods, together with the corruptions of that assembly, will cause many to turn Independents, and set up particular churches of their own. This was the effect of Archbishop Laud's acting with so high a hand ; and whether it be presbytery, or episco- pacy, if managed in the same manner, it will be productive of the same effects. O, dear Sir, I love and honour your pious father. Re- member me in the kindest manner to the good old man. I pray God his last days may not be employed too much in the non-essentials of rehiiion." METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 125 Aberdeen by the minister of one of the kirks in that city ; but the minister's co-pastor had prepossessed the magistrates against him, so that when he arrived they refused to let him preach in the kirk-yard. They had, however, sufficient curiosity to attend when he officiated in his friend's pulpit ; the congregation was very large, and, in Whitetield's own words, " light and life fled all around." In tlie afternoon it was the other pastor's turn : he began his prayers as usual ; but, in the midst of them, he named Whitefield by name, whom he knew to be then present, and entreated the Lord to forgive the dishonour that had been put upon him, when that man was suiFered to preach in that pulpit. Not satisfied with this, he renewed the attack in his sermon, reminded his congregation that this person was a curate of the Church of England, and quoted some passages from his first printed dis- courses, which he said were grossly Arminian. " Most of the congregation," says Whitefield, " seemed sur- prised and chagrined ; especially his good-natured colleague, who, immediately after sermon, without consulting me in the least, stood up, and gave notice that Mr. Whitefield would preach in about half an hour. The interval being so short, the magistrates returned into the sessions-house, and the congregation patiently waited, big with expectation of hearing my resentment. At the time appointed I went up, and took no other notice of the good man's ill-timed zeal, than to observe, in some part of my discourse, that if the good old gentleman had seen some of my later writings, wherein I had corrected several of my former mistakes, he would not have expressed himself in such strong terms. The people being thus diverted from controversy with man, were deeply impressed Avith Avhat they heard from the word of God. All was hushed, and more than solemn. And on the morrow the magistrates sent for me, expressed themselves 126 METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. quite concerned at the treatment I had met with, and begged I would accept of the freedom of the city." This triumph Whitefield obtained as much by that perfect self-command which he always possessed in public, as by his surpassing oratory. But wherever he could obtain a hearing, his oratory was triumphant, and his success in Scotland was, in some respects, greater than it had yet been in England. " Glory be to God," he says, " he is doing great things here. I walk in the continual sunshine of his countenance. Congregations consist of many thousands. Never did I see so many bibles, nor people look into them, when I am expounding, with such attention. Plenty of tears flow from the hearers' eyes. I preach twice daily, and expound at private houses at night ; and am employed in speaking to souls under distress great part of the day. Every morning I have a constant levee of wounded souls, many of whom are quite slain by the law. At seven in the morning (this was at Edinburgh) we have a lecture in the fields, attended not only by the common people, but persons of great rank. I have reason to think several of the latter sort are coming to Jesus. I am only afraid lest people should idolise the instrument, and not look enough to the glorious Jesus, in whom alone I desire to glory. I walk continually in the comforts of the Holy Ghost. The love of Christ quite strikes me dumb. 0 grace, grace ! let that be my song." In Scotland it was that he first found access to people of rank. " Saints," says he, " have been stirred up and edified ; and many others, I believe, are translated from darkness to light, and from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. The good that has been done is inexpressible. I am intimate with three noblemen, and several ladies of quality, who have a great liking for the things of God. I am now writing in an earl's METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 127 house, surrounded with fine furniture ; but, glory be to free grace, my soul is in love only with Jesus ! " His exertions increased with his success. " Yes- terday," he says, " I preached three times, and lectured at night. This day Jesus has enabled me to preach s seven times ; once in the church, twice at the girls' hospital, once in the park, once at the old people's hospital, and afterwards twice at a private house : notwithstanding, I am now as fresh as when I arose in - the morning : ' They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount on wings like eagles.' It would delight your soul to see the effects of the power of God. Both in the church and park the Lord was with us. The girls in the hospital were exceedingly affected, and so were the stand ers- by. One of the mistresses told me, she is now awakened in the morning by the voice of prayer and praise ; and the master of the boys says, that they meet together every night to sing and pray; and when he goes to their rooms at night, to see if all be safe, he generally disturbs them at their devotions. The presence of God at the old people's hospital was really very wonderful. The Holy Spirit seemed to come down like a mighty rushing wind. The mourn- ing of the people was like the weeping in the valley of Hadad-Rimmon. They appear more and more hungry. Every day I hear of some fresh good wrought by the power of God. I scarce know how to leave Scotland." The representation thus given by this remarkable man, of the effect which his preaching produced upon all ranks and descriptions of people, is not exagger- ated. Dr. Franklin has justly observed, that it would have been fortunate for his reputation if he had left no written works ; his talents would then have been estimated by the effect which they are known to have produced ; for, on this point, there is the evidence of 128 metiiodlsjm in Scotland. witnesses whose credibility cannot be disputed. Whitefield's writings, of every kind, are certainly below mediocrity. They afford the measure of his knowledge and of his intellect, but not of his genius as a preacher. His printed sermons, instead of being, as is usual, the most elaborate and finished discourses of their author, have indeed the disadvantage of being precisely those upon which the least care had been bestowed. This may be easily explained. " By hearing him often," says Franklin, " I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly composed, and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so im- proved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, Avas so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse : a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals." It was a great advantage, but it was not the only one, nor the greatest which he derived from repeating his discourses, and reciting instead of reading them. Had they been delivered from a written copy, one delivery would have been like the last ; the paper would have operated like a spell, from which he could not depart — invention sleeping, while the utterance followed the eye. But when he had nothing before him except the audience whom he was addressing, the judgement and the imagination, as well as the memory, were called forth. Those parts were omitted which had been felt to come feebly from the tongue, and fall heavily upon the ear; and their place was supplied by matter newly laid-in in the course of his studies, or fresh from the METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 129 feeling of the moment. They who lived with him could trace him in his sermons to the book which he had last been reading, or the subject which had recently taken his attention. But the salient points of his oratory were not prepared passages, — they were bursts of passion, like jets from a Geyser, when the spring is in full play. The theatrical talent vv^hicli he displayed in boyhood m.anifested itself strongly in his oratory. When he was about to preach, whether it was from a pulpit, or a table in the streets, or a rising ground, he appeared with a solemnity of manner, and an anxious ex- pression of countenance, that seemed to show how deeply he was possessed witli a sense of the importance of what he was about to say. His elocution was perfect. They who heard him most frequently could not remember that he ever stumbled at a word, or hesitated for want of one. He never fauitered, unless when the feeling to wliich he had wrought himself overcame him, and then his speech was interrupted by a flow of tears. Sometimes he would appear to lose all self-command, and weep exceedingly, and stamp loudly and passionately ; and sometimes the emotion of his mind exhausted hiin, and the beholders felt a momentary apprehension even for his life. And, indeed, it is said, that the effect of this vehemence upon his bodily frame was tremendous ; that he usually vomited after he had preached, and sometimes discharged, in this manner, a considerable quantity of blood. But this was when the effort was over, and nature was left at leisure to relieve herself. AVhile he was on duty, he controlled all sense of infirmity or pain, and made his advantage of the passion to which he had given way. " You blame me for weeping," he would say, " but how can I help it, when you Avill not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are upon the verge of destruc- VOL. 11. K 130 METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. tion, and, for aught 1 know, you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you!" Sometimes he would set bei'ore his congregation the agon}^ of our Saviour, as though the scene was actually before them. " Look yonder ! " he would say, stretching out his hand, and pointing while he spake, " what is it that 1 see ? It is my agonising- Lord ! Hark, hark ! do you not hear ? — 0 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ! Never- theless, not my will, but thine be done!" This he introduced frequently in his sermons ; and one who lived with him says, the effect was not destroyed by repetition ; even to those who knew what was coming, it came as forcibly as if they had never heard it before. In this respect it was like fine stage acting ; and indeed Whiteiield indulged in an histrionic manner of preaching, which would have been offensive if it had not been rendered admirable by his natural gracefulness and inimitable power. Sometimes, at the close of a sermon, he would personate a judge about to perform the last awful part of his office. With his eyes full of tears, and an emotion that made his speech faulter, after a pause which kept the whole audience in breathless expectation of what was to come, he would say, " I am noAV going to put on my condemning cap. Simier, 1 must do it: I nnist pronounce sentence upon you!" and then, in a Tre- mendous strain of eloquence, describing the eternal punishment of tlie wicked, he recited tlie words of Christ, •' l)ei)art from me, ve cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." AVhen he spoke or' St. Petei', Iioav, after the cock crew, he went out and \ve[)t bitterly, he had a fold of his gown ready, in wliirh he liid his face. Perfect as it was, histrionism like tliis would have produced no lasting effect upon the mind, had it not- been for the unaffected earnestness and the indu- • METHODISM liSr SCOTLAND. 131 bitable sincerity of the preacher, which equally characterised his manner, whether he rose to the height of passion in his discourse, or won the attention of the motley crowd by the introduction of familiar stories, and illustrations adapted to the meanest capacity.* To such digressions his disposition led him, which was naturally inclined to a comic play- fulness. Minds of a certain power will sometimes express their strongest feelings with a levity at which formalists are shocked, and which dull men are wholly unable to understand. But lano-uaoe which, wlien coldly repeated, might seem to border upon irreve- rence and burlesque, has its effect in popular preach- ing, when the intention of the speaker is perfectly understood : it is suited to the great mass of the people; it is felt by them, when better things would have produced no impression ; and it is borne away, when wiser aroaiments would have been forootten. There was another and more uncommon way in which Whitefield's peculiar talent sometimes was indulged : he could direct his discourse toward an individual so skilfully, that the congregation had no suspicion of any particular purport in that part of the sermon ; Avhile the person at whom it was aimed felt it, as it was directed, in its full force. There was sometimes a degree of sportiveness almost akin to mischief in his humour, f * Wesley says of him, in his Journal. " How wise is God, in giving different talents to different preachers ! Even the little improprieties both of his language and manner, were a means of profiting many, who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more calm and regular manner of speaking." St. Augustine somewhere says, that is the best key which opens the door : quid enim prodest clavis aurea si aperire quod votumus nan potest ? aiit quod ohest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil qncprimus nisi patere quod clausum est ? ■j" Mr. Winter relates a curious anecdote of his preaching at a maid- servant who iia-i displeased him by some negligence in the morning. " In the evening,'" says the writer, " before the family retired to rest, I found her under great dejection, the reason of which I did not appre- hend; for it did not strike me that, in exemplifying a conduct incon- K 2 132 METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. Remarkable instances are related of the manner in which he impressed his hearers. A man at Exeter stood with stones in his pocket, and one in his hand, ready to throw at him ; but he dropped it l^efore the sermon was far advanced, and going np to him after the preaching was over, he said, " Sir, I came to hear you with an intention to break your head : but God, through your ministry, has given me a broken heart." A ship-builder was once asked what he thought of him. "Think!" he replied, "1 tell you, Sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church, I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon ; but, were it to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield, I could not lay a single plank." Hume pronounced him the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard ; and said, it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him.* But, perhaps, the greatest proof of his persuasive powers sistent with tlie Christian's professed fidelity to his Redeemer, he was drawing it from remissness of duty in a living character ; but she felt it so sensibly as to be greatly distressed by it, until he relieved her mind by his usually amiable deportment. The next day, being about to leave town, he called out to her 'farewell:' she did not make her appearance, which he remarked to a female friend at dinner, who replied, ' Sir, you have exceediniily wounded poor Betty." This excited in him a liearty laugh ; and when I shut the coach-door upon liim, he said, ' Be sure to remember me to Betty ; tell her the account is settled, and that I have nothing more against her.' " Mr. Thornton, in a letter lo Mr. Powley^ (Feb. 11. 1788,) speaking of Mr. Winter as "one wliose piety and judiiement he had a great opinion of," says " he travelled with Mr. ^\llitefield, and was promised ordination ; but as they shuffled him off, he was necessitated to join the Dissenters." * One of his flights of oratory, not in the best taste, is related on Hume's authority. '' After a solemn pause, Mr. Whitefield thus ad- dressed his audience : — Tlie attendant angel is just about to leave the threshold, and ast'end to Heaven ; and shall he ascend and not hear with him the news of one sinner, among all tlie multitude, reclaimed from the error of his ways ! To give the greater effect to this exclamation, he stamped with his foot, lifted up his liands and eyes to heaven, and cried aloud. Stop, Gabriel ! stop, (.Jabriel ! stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God!' Hume said this address was accoiupanied with such animated, yet natural ac_tion, that it sur])assed any thing he ever saw or heard in any other preacher. i^ Q ( ^ / /ho y / . A '/ , . / /'. /A .J /W, -/V^/ /?/'/ METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 133 was, when he drew from Franklin's pocket the money which that clear cool reasoner had determined not to give : it was for the orphan-house at Savannah. " I did not," says the American philosopher, " disapprove of the design ; but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised ; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and T therefore refused to con- tribute. I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should oet nothino- from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he pro- ceeded I beo-an to soften, and concluded to a-ive the copper ; another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver ; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket T\diolly into the collector's dish, gold and all." * No wonder that such a preacher should be admired and followed in a country where the habits of the people were devotional. On his second visit to Scotland, he was met on the shore at Leith by mul- titudes, weeping and blessing him, and they followed * " At this sermon," continues Franklin, ''there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home : towards the conclusion of the discouise, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and ap- plied to a neighbour, who stood near him, to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, ' At any other time, friend Hopldnson, I - would lend to tliee freely, but not now ; for thee se;;ms to me to be out of thy right senses.' " id4 METHODISM IX SCOTLAND. his coacli to Edinbur£>li, pressing- to welcome him when he aliohted, and to hold him in their arms. Seats, with awnings, were erected in the park, in the form of an amphitheatre, for his preaching. Several youths left tlieir parents and masters to follow him as his servants and children in the Gospel; but he had sense enough to show them their error, and send them - back. The effect which he produced was maddening. At Cambuslang it exceeded any thing which he had ever witnessed in his career. " I preached at two," he says, " to a vast body of people, and at six in the evening, and again at nine. Such a commotion, surely, never was heard of, especially at eleven at night. For about an hour and a half there was such weeping, so many falling into deep distress, and ex- pressing it various ways, as is inexpressible. The people seem to be slain by scores. They are carried off, and come into the house, like soldiers wounded in and carried oft' a field of battle. Their cries and agonies are exceedingly afl^ecting. ^Ir. M. preached, after I had ended, till past one in the morning, and then could scarce persuade them to depart. All night, in the fields, might be heard the voice of prayer and praise. Some young ladies were found by a gentlewoman praising God at break of day : she went and joined with them." Soon afterwards he returned there to assist at the sacrament. " Scarce- ever," he sajs, " was such a sight seen in Scotland. There were, undoubtedly, upwards of twenty thousand persons. Two tents were set up, and the holy sacra- ment was administered in the ftelds. AVhen I began to serve a table, tlie power of ( Jod was felt by num- bers ; but the people crowded so upon me, tliat I was obliged to desist, and go to preach at one of the tents, whilst the ministers served the rest of tlie tables. God was with them, and with his people. There was preaching all day by one or another ; and in the ^ METHODISM IX SCOTLAND. 135 evening, when the sacrament was over, at the request of the ministers, I preached to the whole congregation. I preached about an hour and a lialf. Surely it was a time much to be remembered. On Monday morning I preached again to near as many ; but such an universal stir I never saw before. The motion fled as swift as lightning i'rom one end of the auditory to another. You might have seen thousands bathed in tears : some at the same time wringing their hands, others almost swooning, and others crying out and mourning over a pierced Saviour." The Erskines were astonished at all this. One of the Associated Presbytery published a pamphlet against him, wherein, Avitli the true virulence of bigotry, he ascribed these things to the influence of the Devil; and the heads of the Seceders appointed a public fast, to humljle themselves for his being in Scotland, Avhither they themselves had invited him, and for wliat they termed the delusion at Cambuslang. They niiglit have so called it, v\dth more propriety, if they had not been under a delusion themselves ; for Whitefleld perfecth- understood their feelings, when he said, " all this, because I would not consent to preacli only for them till I had light into, and could take the solemn league and covenant ! " He made many other visits to Scotland ; and there, indeed, he seems to have obtained that introduction to persons of rank which in its consequences led to the establishment of a college for Calvinistic Methodism in En2;land. But he aimed at nothing more than could be produced by his OAVii preaching: it was neither congenial to his talents nor his views to organise a body of followers ; and, in the intervals between his visits, the seed which he had scattered was left to grow up, or to wither as - it might. Wesley had other views : his aim, wherever he went, was to form a society. It was not till ten K 4 13G METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. years after his former colleague had first visited Scotland, that he resolved to go there. A reconcili- ation had then taken place between them, — for en- mity could not be lasting between two men who knew each other's sincerity and good intentions so well, — and Whitefield would have dissuaded him from going. " You have no business there," he said ; " for your principles are so well known, that, if you spoke like an angel, none would hear 3'ou ; and if they did, you would have nothing to do but to dispute with one and anotlier from morning to night." Wesley replied, " If God sends me, people will hear. And I will give them no provocation to dispute ; for I will studiously avoid controverted points, and keep to the fundamental truths of Christianity ; and if any still begin to dispute, they may, but I will not dispute with them." He was, however, so aware of the bitter hostility with which Arminian principles would be received in Scotland, that, he says, when he went into that kingdom, he had no intention of preaching there; nor did he imagine that any person would desire him so to do. He might have reckoned with more con- fidence upon the curiosity of the people. Pie Avas invited to preach at Musselborough : the audience remained like statues from the beo-innino- of the sermon till the end, and he flattered himself that "the prejudice which the Devil had been several years planting, was torn up by the roots in one hour." From this time Scotland was made a part of his regular rounds. " Surely," says he, " with God nothing is impossible ! Who would have believed, five-and-twenty years ago, either that the minister would have desired it, or that I should have consented to preach in a Scotch kirk ! " He flattered himself egregiously when he accepted these beoinninus as omens of o'ood success, and when he supposed that the prejudice against him was era- METHODISM IN SCOTLAND. 137 dicated. An old Burgher minister at Dalkeith preached against him, affirming that, if he died in his present sentiments, he Avould be damned ; and the fanatic declared that he would stake his own salvation upon it. It was well for him that these people were '■^ not armed with temporal authority. " The Seceders," says Wesley, •' who have fallen in my way, are more -- uncharitable than the Papists themselves. I never yet met a Papist who avowed the principle of mur- dering heretics. But a Seceding minister being asked, ' Would not you, if it was in your power, cut the throats of all the Methodists ?' replied directly, ' Why, did not Samuel hew Agag in pieces before the ^ Lord?' I have not yet met a Papist in this kingdom - who would tell me to my face, all but themselves must be damned ; but I have seen Seceders enouo^h who make no scruple to affirm, none but themselves ^ could be saved. And tins is the natural consequence x of their doctrine ; for, as they hold that we are saved by faith alone, and that faith is the holding such and- such opinions, it follows, all who do not hold those ^ opinions have no faith, and therefore cannot be saved." - Even Whitefield, predestinarian as he was, was re- garded as an abomination by the Seceders : how, then, was it possible that they should tolerate Wesley, who taught that redemption was offered to all man- kind?* A Methodist one day comforted a poor woman, whose child appeared to be dying, by as- suring her that, for an infant, death would only be the exchange of this miserable life for a happy eternity ; and the Seceder, to whose flock she belonged, was so shocked at this doctrine, that the deep-dyed Calvinist devoted the next Sabbath to the task of con- * Not only Wesley, but his biographer, seems to mal as the best Christian, — so they robbed in emulation ■■ / I- ? .- ;, 148 METHODISM IN ICELAND. of each other ; and recoiicIlinG; their habits to their ^ conscience, witli a hardiliood beyond that of the boldest ^ casuists, they persuaded themselves, that if robbery,-^ murder, and rape had been sins, Providence would > never put such temptations in their way ; nay, that - the sin Avould be, if they were so ungrateful as not to take advantage of a good opportunity when it was offered them. These things would appear incredible, if they were not conformable to the spirit of Irish history, fabu- lous and authentic. Yet were the Irish, beyond all other people, passionately attached to the reli- gion wherein they were so miserably ill instructed. Wliether they were distinguished by this peculiar attacliment to their church, when the supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged throughout Europe, can- not be known, and may with much probability be doubted : this is evident, that it must have acquired strength and inveteracy when it became a principle ^ of opposition to their rulers, and was blended with their hatred of the English, ,who so little understood their duty and their policy as conquerors, that they -neither made themselves loved, nor feared, nor re- ^ spected. Ireland is the only country in which the Peforma- tion produced nothing but evil, l^rotestant Europe has been richly repaid for the long calamities of that great revolution, by the permanent blessings which it left behind ; and even among those nations where the papal superstition mahitained its dominion by tire and sword, an important change was effected in the lives and conduct of the Komisli clergy. Ireland alone was so circumstanced as to be incapable of deriving any advantage, while it was exposed to all the evils of the change. The work of sacrilege and plunder went on there as it did in England and Scot- land ; but the language of the 2)eo2:)le, and their sava.o'e jrETHODISxAI IN IRELAND. 149 state, precluded all possibility of religious improve- ment. It was not till nearly the middle of the seven- teenth century that the Bible was translated into Irish, by means of Bishop Bedell, a man worthy to have Sir Henry Wotton for his patron, and Father Paolo Sarpi for his friend. The church property had been so scandalously plundered, that few parishes * could afford even a bare subsistence to a Protestant minister, and therefore few ministers were to be found. Meantime the Romish clergy were on the alert, and they were powerfully aided by a continued supply of fellow-labourers from the seminaries established in the Spanish dominions ; men who, by their temper and education, were fitted for any work in which policy might think proper to employ fanaticism. The ■ Franciscans have made it their boast, that at the time of the Irish massacre there appeared among the rebels more than six hundred Friars Minorite, who had been instigating them to that accursed rebellion while living among them in disguise. Charles II. restored to the Irish Church all the impro- priations and portions of tithes which had been vested in the crown ; removing, by this wise and meritorious measure, one cause of its inefficiency. When, in the succeedino; reio-n, the civil liberties of Eno-land were preserved by the Church of England, the burthen of the Revolution again fell upon Ireland. That un- happy country became the seat of war ; and from that time the Irish Catholics stood, as a political party, in the same relation to the French as they had done dur- ing Elizabeth's reign to the Spaniards. The history of Ireland is little else but a history of crimes and of misgovernment. A system of half-persecution was pursued, at once odious for its injustice, and contempt- * The best living in Connaught was not worth more than forty shil- lings a-year ; and some were as low as sixteen. L 3 150 METHODISM IN IRELAND. ible for its inefficacy. Good principles and generous feelings were thereby provoked into an alliance with superstition and priestcraft ; and the priests, whom the law recognised only for the purpose of punishing them if they discharged the forms of their office, esta- blished a more absolute dominion over the minds of the Irish people than was possessed by the clergy in any other part of the world. Half a century of peace and comparative tran- quillity, during which great advances were made in trade, produced little or no melioration in the religious state of the country. Sectarians of every kind, de-^ script and non-descript, had been introduced in Crom- - well's time ; and what proselytes they obtained were won from the Established Church, not from the Catholics, whom both the Dissenters and the clergy seem to have considered as inconvertible. In truth,- the higher orders were armed against all conviction by family pride, and old resentment, and the sense of ^ their wrongs ; while the great body of the native Irish were effectually secured by their language and their ignorance, even if the priests had been less vigilant in their duty, and the Protestants more active in theirs. Bishop Berkeley (one of the best, wisest, and greatest men whom Ireland, with all its fertility of genius, has produced,) saw the evil, and perceived what ought to be the remedy. In that admirable little book, the Querist, from which, even at this day, men of all ranks, from the manufacturer to the statesman, may derive instruction, it is asked by this sagacious writer, " Whether there be an instance of a people's being converted, in a Christian sense, otherwise than by preaching to them, and instructing them in their OAvn language? Whether catechists, in the Irish tongue, may not easily be procured and subsisted? and M'he- ther this would not be the most practicable means for converting the natives? Whether it be not of great METHODISM IN IRELAND. 151 advantage to the Church of Rome, that she hath clergy suited to all ranks of men, in gradual subordi- nation, from cardinals down to mendicants ? Whether her numerous poor clergy are not very useful in missions, and of much influence with the people ? Whether, in defect of able missionaries, persons con- versant in low life, and speaking the Irish tongue, if well instructed in the first principles of religion, and in the Popish controversy, — though, for the rest, on a level with the parish clerks, or the schoolmasters of charity-schools, — may not be fit to mix with, and bring over our poor illiterate natives to the Established Church ? Whether it is not to be wished that some parts of our liturgy and homilies were publicly read in the Irish language ? and whether, in these views, it may not be right to breed up some of the better sort of children in the charity-schools, and qualify them, for missionaries, catechists, and readers?" What"' Berkeley desired to see, Methodism would exactly have supplied, could it have been taken into the ser-v vice of the Church ; and this might have been done in . Ireland, had it not been for the follies and extrava- gances by which it had rendered itself obnoxious in^ Eno'land at its commencement. o Twelve years after the publication of the Querist, John Wesley landed in Dublin, where one of his preachers, by name Williams, had formed a small _ society. The curate of St. Mary's lent him his pulpit, -^ and his first essay was not very promising ; for he preached from it, he says, to as gay and senseless a congregation as he had ever seen. The clergyman who gave this proof of his good will disapproved, however, of his employing lay preachers, and of his preaching any where but in a church ; and told him, that the Archbishop of Dublin was resolved to suffer no such irregularities in his diocese. Wesley therefore called on the archbishop, and says, that, in the course L 4 152 MIOTIIODISM IN IRELAND. of a long conversation, lie answered aliiindaiice of ob- jections ; some, perhaps, he removed ; and if he did not succeed in persuading the prelate of the utility of Methodism, lie must certainly have satisfied him that he was not to be prevented from pursuing his OAvn ' course. Wesley's first impressions of the Irish were very fa^'ourable : a people so generally civil he had never seen, either in Europe or America. Even when he failed to impress them, they listened respectfully. " Mockery, " said he, " is not the custom here : all attend to what is spoken in the name of God. They^ do not understand the making sport with sacred things ; so that, whether they approve or not, they be- have with seriousness." He even thought that, if he or his brother could have remained a few months at Dublin, they might have formed a larger society than in London, the people in general being of a more teachable spirit than in most pai^s of England; but, on that very account, he observed, they must be watched over with the more care, being equally susceptible - of good or ill impressions. " What a nation," he says, "is this! every man, woman, and child, except a few of the great vulgar, not only patiently, but gladly, suffer the work of exhortation ! " And he called them an immeasurably loving people. There Avas, indeed, no cause to complain of insensibility in his hearers, as in Scotland. He excited as much curiosity and atten- tion as he could desire ; l)ut if IMethodism had been opposed by popular outcry, and by mobs, in England, it was not to be expected that it could proceed without molestation in Ireland. In Wesley's own Avords, " the roaring lion l)egan to shake himself here also." The Romish priests were the first persons to take the alarm. One of them would sometimes come, when a jMethodist was preaching, and drive away his hearers like a fiock of sheep. A Catholic mob broke into their METHODISM IN IRELAND. 153 room at Dublin, and destroyed every thing : several of the rioters were apprehended, but the grand jury threw out the bills against them ; for there were but too many of the Protestants who thought the Method- ists fair game. It happened that Ceiniick, preaching on Christmas-day, took for his text these words from St. Luke's Gospel: "And this shall be a sign unto you : ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." A Catholic who was present, and to whom the language of Scripture was a novelty, thought this so ludicrous, that he called the preacher a Swaddler, in derision ; and this unmeaning- word became the nickname of the Methodists, and had all the effect of the most opprobrious appellation. At length, when Charles Wesley was at Cork, a mob was raised against him and his followers in that city, under the guidance of one Nicholas Butler, who went about tlie streets dressed in a clergyman's gown and band, with a Bible in one hand, and a bundle of ballads for sale in the other. Strange as it may appear, this blackguard relied upon the approbation and encourage- ment of the mayor ; and when that magistrate was asked whether he gave Butler leave to beset the houses of the Methodists with a mob, and was required to put a stop to the riots, he replied, that he neither gave him leave nor hindered him : and when, with much importunity, a man, whose house was attacked, pre- vailed upon him to repair to the spot, and, as he supposed, afford him some protection, the mayor said aloud, in the midst of the rabble, " It is your own fault, for entertaining these preachers. If you will turn them out of your house, I will engage there shall be no more harm done ; but if you will not turn them out, you must take what you will get." Upon this the mob set up a huzza, and threw stones faster than before. The poor man exclauned, "This is fine usage under a Protestant government ! If I had a priest 154 METPIODISM IN IRELAND. saying mass in every room of it, my house would not be touched:" to which the mayor made answer, that " the priests were tolerated, but he was not." These riots continued many days. The mob paraded the streets, armed with swords, staves, and pistols, crying out, " Five pounds for a Swaddler's head ! " Many persons, women as well as men, were bruised and wounded, to the imminent danger of their lives. Depositions of these outrages were taken and laid before the grand jury ; but they threw out all the bills ; and, instead of affording relief or justice to the injured persons, preferred bills against Charles Wesley-' and nine of the Methodists, as persons of ill fame, vaga- bonds, and common disturbers of His Majesty's peace, praying that they might be transported. Butler was now in high glory, and declared that he had full liberty to do whatever he would, even to murder, if he pleased. The prejudice against the Methodists must have been very general, as well as strong, before a Protestant magistrate, and a Protestant grand jury, in Ireland, Avould thus abet a Catholic rabble in their excesses ; especially when the Romans, as they called themselves, designated the Methodists as often by the title of heretic dogs, as by any less comprehensive appellation. The cause must be found partly in the doctrines of the Methodists, and partly in their con- duct. Their notions of perfection and assurance might well seem fanatical, in the highest degree, if brought forward, as they mostly were, by ignorant and ardent men, who were not, like the Wesleys, careful to explain and qualify the rash and indefen- sible expressions. The watch-nights gave reasonable ground for scandal ; and the zeal of the preachers was not tempered with discretion, or softened by humanity. One of them asked a young woman whether she had a mind to go to hell with her father ; and j\lr. Wesley himself, in a letter upon the proceedings at Cork, METHODISM IN lEELAND. 155 justified this brutality so far as to declare, that, un- less he knew the circumstances of the case, he could not say whether it was right or wrong ! * Several of the persons, whom the grand jury had presented as vagabonds, appeared at the next assizes. Butler was the first witness against them. Upon being asked what his calling might be, he replied, " I sing ballads." Upon which the Judge lifted up his hands, and said, " Here are six gentlemen indicted as vagabonds, and the first accuser is a vagabond by * This person, whose name was Jonatlian Reeves, only acted upon a principle which had been established at the third Conference. The following part of the minutes upon that subject is characteristic: — Q. 1 . Can an unbeliever (whatever he be in other respects) challenge any thing of God's justice ? A. Absolutely nothing but hell. And this is a point which we cannot too much insist on. Q. 2. Do we empty men of their own righteousness, as we did at first ? Do we sufficiently labour, when they begin to be convinced of sin, to take away all they lean upon ? Should we not then endeavour, with all our might, to overturn their false foundations ? A. This was at first one of our principal points ; and it ought to be so still ; for, till all other foundations are overturned, they cannot build upon Christ. Q. 3. Did we not then purposely throw them into convictions ; into strong sorrow and fear ? Nay, did we not strive to make them incon- solable ; refusing to be comforted ? A. We did ; and so we should do still ; for the stronger the convic- tion, the speedier is the deliverance : and none so soon receive the peace of God as those who steadily refuse all other comfort. Q. 4. Let us consider a particular case. Were you, Jonathan Reeves, before you received the peace of God, convinced that, notwith- standing all you did, or could do, you were in a state of damnation ? J. JR. I was convinced of it, as fully as that I am now alive. Q. 5. Are you sure that conviction was from God ? .7. R. I can have no doubt but that it was. Q. 6. What do you mean by a state of damnation ? J. R. A state wherein if a man dies he perishes for ever.f -j- If for justice we put holiness, what is there in this series of Q. and A. to which a scriptural Christian can positively object ? Is it not most true that we must be bottomed in Christ alone ? And if so, must we not be unbottomed of all else. — S. T. C. — 27th August, 1832. 156 METHODISM IN IRELAND. profession ! " Tlie next witness, in reply to the same question, replied, " I am an Anti-swaddler, my Lord ;" and tlie examination ended in his being ordered out of court for contempt. The Judge delivered such an opinion as became him, upon the encouragement which had been given to the rioters. In the ensuing year Wesley himself visited Cork, and preached in a place called Hammond's JNIarsh, to a numerous but quiet assembly. As there Avas a report that the mayor in- tended to prevent him from preaching at that place again, Wesley, with more deference to authority than he had shown in England, desired two of his friends to wait upon him, and say, that if his preaching there would be offensive, he would give up the intention. The mayor did not receive this concession graciously : he replied, in anger, that there were churches and meetings enough; he would have no more mobs and riots — no more preaching; and if Mr. Wesley at- tempted to preach, he was prepared for him. Some person had said, in reply to one who observed that the Methodists were tolerated by the king, the}^ should find that the mayor was king of Cork ; and ]\Ir. Wesley now found, that there was more meaning in this than he had been disposed to allow. When next he began preaching in the Methodist room, the mayor sent the drummers to drum before the door. A great mob was by this means collected; and when Wesley came out of the house, they closed him in. He appealed to one of the Serjeants to protect him ; but the man replied, he had no orders to do so ; and the rabble began to pelt him : by pushing on, however, and looking them fairly in the face, with his wonted compos\u"e, he made way, and they opened to let him pass. ]>ut a cry was set up, " Hey for the Romans !" The congregation did not escape so well as the leader : many of them were roughly handled, and covered with mud ; the house was presently gutted, the floors METHODISM IN ICELAND. 157 were torn up, and, withtlie window-frames and doors, carried into the street and burnt : and the next day the mob made a grand procession, and burnt Mr. - AVesley in effigy. The house was a second time at- tacked, and the boards demolished which had been nailed against the windows ; and a fellow posted up a notice at the public exchange, with his name affixed, that he was ready to head any mob, in order to pull down any house that should harbour a Swaddler. The press also was employed against the Methodists, but with little judgement, and less honesty. One writer accused Mr. Wesley of " robbing and plun- dering the poor, so as to leave them neither bread to eat, nor raiment to put on." He replied victoriously to this accusation : " A heavy charge," said he, " but without all colour of truth ; yea, just the reverse is true. Abundance of those in Cork, Bandon, Limerick, and Dublin, as well as in all parts of England, who, a few years ago, either through sloth or profaneness, -^ had not bread to eat, or raiment to put on, have now, by means of the preachers called Methodists, a suf- ficiency of both. Since, by hearing these, they have ^ learned to fear God, they have learned also to work - with their hands, as well as to cut off every needless ^ expense, and to be good stewards of the mammon of unrighteousness." He averred also, that the effect of his preaching had reconciled disaffected persons to the government ; and that they who became Methodists * were, at the same time, made loyal subjects. He reminded his antagonists, that when one of the English bishops had been asked what could be done to stop these new preachers, the prelate had replied, " If they preach contrary to Scripture, confute them " by Scripture ; if contrary to reason, confute them by ' reason. But beware you use no other weapons than these, cither in opposing error or defending the- 158 METHODISM IN IRELAND. truth." lie complained that, instead of fair and honourable argument, he had been assailed at Cork Avith gross falsehoods, mean abuse, and base scur- rility. He challenged any of his antagonists, or any Avlio would come forward to meet him on even ground, writing as a gentleman to a gentleman, a scholar to a scholar, a clergyman to a clergyman. " Let them," said he, " thus show me wherein I have preached or written amiss, and I will stand rej^roved before all the world ; but let them not continue to put persecution in the place of reason : either j}7ivate per- secution, stirring up husbands to threaten or beat their wives, parents their children, masters their servants ; gentlemen to ruin their tenants, labourers, or trades- men, by turning them out of their favour or cottages ; employing or buying of them no more, because they worship God according to their own conscience : or open, bare-faced, noon-day Co)'k persecutio7i, breaking open the houses of His Majesty's Protestant subjects, destroying their goods, spoiling or tearing the very clothes from their backs ; striking, bruising, wound- ing, murdering them in the streets ; dragging them through the mire, without any regard to age or sex, not sparing even those of tender years ; no, nor women, though great with child ; but, with more than Pagan or Mahometan barbarity, destroying infants that were yet unborn." He insisted, truly, that this was a common cause ; for, if the Methodists were not protected, what protection would any men have ? what security for their goods or lives, if a mob were to be both judge, jury, and executioner ? "I fear God, and honour the King," said he. " I earnestly desire to be at peace with all men. I have not, willingly, given any offence, either to the magistrates, the clergy, or any of the inhabitants of the city of Cork ; neither do I desire any thing of them, but to METHODISM IN IRELAND. 159 be treated (I will not say as a clergyman, a gentle- man, or a Christian,) with such justice and humanity as are due to a Jew, a Turk, or a Pagan." Whiteiield visited Ireland, for the first time, in the ensuing year, and found himself the safer for the late transactions. Such outrages had compelled the higher powers to interfere ; and when he arrived at Cork, the populace was in a state of due subordination. He seems to have regarded the conduct of Wesley and his lay preachers with no favourable eye : some dreadful offences, he said, had been given ; and he condemned all politics, as below the children of God ; alluding, apparently, to the decided manner in which Wesley always inculcated obedience to government as one of the duties of a Christian ; making it his boast, that whoever became a Methodist, became at the same time a good subject. Though his success was not so brilliant as in Scotland, it was still sufficient to en- courage and cheer him. " Providence," says he, " has wonderfully prepared my way, and overruled every thing for my greater acceptance. Every where there seems to be a stirring among the dry bones ; and the trembling lamps of God's people have been supplied with fresh oil. The word ran, and was glorified." Hundreds prayed for him when he left Cork ; and many of the Catholics said that, if he would stay, they would leave their priests ; but on a -second expedition to Ireland, Whitefield narrowly escaped with his life. He had been well received, and had preached once or twice, on week days, in Oxminton Green ; a place which he describes as the Moorfields of Dublin. The Ormond Boys, and the Liberty Boys (these were the current denominations of the mob-factions at that time) generally assembled there every Sunday — to fight ; and Whitefield, mind- ful, no doubt, of his success in a former enterprise under like circumstances, determined to take the field IGO METHODISM IN IRELAND. on that day, relying on the interference of the officei's and soldiers, Avhose barracks were close by, if he should stand in need of protection. The singing, praying, and preaching went on without much in- terruption ; only, now and then, a few stones, and a few clods of dirt, Avere thrown. After the sermon, he prayed for success to the Prussian arms, it being in time of war. Whether this prayer offended the party-spirit of his hearers, — or whether the mere fact of his being a heretic, who went about seeking to make proselytes, had excited in the Catholic part of the mob a determined spirit of vengeance, — or whether, without any principle of hatred or personal dislike, they considered him as a bear, bull, or badger, Avhom they had an opportunity of tormenting, — the barracks, through which he intended to return, as he had come, were closed against him ; and when he endeavoured to make his way across the green, the rabble assailed him. '' Many attacks," says he, " have I had from Satan's children, but now you would have thought lie had been permitted to have given me an effectual parting blow." Volleys of stones came from all quarters, while he reeled to and fro under the blows, till he was almost breathless, and covered Avith blood. A strong beaver hat, which served him for a while as a scull-cap, was knocked off at last, and he then re- ceived many blows and wounds on the head, and one large one near the temple. " I thought of Stephen," says he, " and was in great hopes that, like him, I should be despatched, and go off, in this bloody triumph, to the immediate presence of my Master." The door of a minister's house was opened for him in time, and he staggered in, and was sheltered there, till a coach could be brought, and he was conveyed safely away. The bitter spirit of the more ignorant Catholics -■ was often exemplified. The itinerants were frequently THOMAS WALSH. 161 told, that it would be doing both God and the Church service to burn all such as them in one fire ; and one of them, when he first went into the county of Kerry, was received with the threat that they would kill him, - and make whistles of his bones. Another was nearly murdered by a ferocious mob, one of whom set his foot upon his face, swearing that he would tread the Holy Ghost out of him. At Kilkenny, where the Catholics were not strong enough to make a riot with ^ much hope of success, they gnashed at Wesley with their teeth, after he had been preaching in an old bowling-green, near the Castle ; and one of them cried, ^ " Och ! what is Kilkenny come to ! " But it was from among the Irish Catholics that Wesley obtained one of the most interesting of his coadjutors, and one of the most efficient also during his short life. Thomas Walsh, whom the Methodists justly reckon among their most distinguished members, was the son of a carpenter at Bally Lynn, in the county of Limerick. His parents were strong Romanists : they taught him the Lord's Prayer and the Ave Maria in Irish, which was his mother tongue, and the Hundred- and-thirtieth Psalm in Latin ; and he was taught also, that all who diifer from the Church of Rome are in a state of damnation. At eight years old he went to school to learn English ; and was afterwards placed with one of his brothers, who was a schoolmaster, to learn Latin and mathematics. At nineteen he opened a school for himself. The brother, by whom he was instructed, had been intended for the priesthood : he was a man of tolerable learning, and of an inquiring mind, and seeing the errors of the Romish Church, he renounced it. This occasioned frequent disputes with Thomas Walsh, who was a strict Catholic ; the one alleging the traditions and canons of the Church, the other appealing to the law and to the testimony, VOL. II. M >-v.^..tJrv> L-C...,..,^ (R, fU^f <^<^>>XX >v.»/-^ (L^^it^^'. o^ 1G2 METHODISM IN IRELAND. " My brother, wliy do you not read God's word?" the elder would say. " Lay aside prejudice, and let us reason together." After many struggles between the miso-ivin^js of his mind, and the attachment to the opinions in which he had been bred up, and the tliought of his parents, and shame, and the fear of man, this state of suspense became intolerable, and he prayed to God in his trouble. " All things are known to Thee," he said, in his prayer; "and Thou seest that I want to worship Thee aright ! Show me the way wherein I ought to go, nor suffer me to be de- ceived by men!" He then went to his brother, determined either to convince him, or to be convinced. Some other persons of the Protestant persuasion were present: they brought a Bible, and with it Nelson's " Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England;" and, with these books before them, they discussed the subject till midnight. It ended in his fair and complete con- version. " I was constrained," said he, " to give place to the light of truth : it was so convincing, that I had nothing more to say. I was judged of all ; and at length confessed the Aveakness of my former reason- ings, and the strength of those which were opposed to me. About one o'clock in the morning I retired to my lodging, and, according to my usual custom, went to prayer ; but now only to the God of heaven. I no longer prayed to any angel or spirit ; for I Avas deeply persuaded, that ' there is but one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' Therefore I resolved no longer to suffer any man to beguile me into a voluntary humility, in Avorshipping either saints or angels. These latter I considered as ' ministering spirits, sent to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation.' But Avith regard to any Avorship being paid them, one of themselves said, * See thou do it not ; Avorship God, God only.' All t THOMAS WALSH. 1G3 my sophisms on this head were entirely overthrown by a few hours candid reading the Holy Scriptures, which were become as a lantern to my feet, and a lamp to my paths, directing me in the way wherein I should go." Soon afterwards he publicly abjured the errors of the Church of Rome.* * His disposition would have made him a saint in that church, but his principles were truly catholic, in the proper sense of that abused- word. " I bear them witness," says he, speaking of the Romanists, " that they have a zeal for God, though not according unto knowledge. Many of them love justice, mercy, and truth ; and may, notwithstanding many errors in sentiment, and therefore in practice, (since, as is God's majesty, so is his mercy,) be dealt with accordingly. There have been, doubtless, and still are, amongst them, some burning and shining lights ; persons who (whatever their particular sentiments may be) are devoted to the service of Jesus Christ, according as their light and opportunities admit. And, in reahty, whatever opinions people may hold, they are most approved of God whose temper and behaviour correspond with the model of his holy word. This, however, can be no justification of general and public unscriptural tenets, such as are many of those of the Church of Rome. It may be asked, then, why did I leave their com- munion, since I thought so favourably of them ? I answer, Because I was abundantly convinced that, as a church, they have erred from the right way, and adulterated the truths of God with the inventions and traditions of men ; which the Scriptures, and even celebrated writers of themselves, abundantly testify. God is my witness, that the sole motive which induced me to leave them, was an unfeigned desire to know the way of God more perfectly, in order to the salvation of my soul. For although I then felt, and do yet feel, my heart to be, as the prophet speaks, deceitful and desperately wicked, with regard to God ; yet I was sincere in my reformation, having from the Holy Spirit an earnest desire to save my soul. If it should still be asked. But could I not be saved ? I answer. If I had never known the trutli of the Scriptures concerning the way of salvation, nor been convinced that their principles were anti-scriptural, then I might possibly have been saved in her com- munion, the merciful God making allowance for my invincible igno- rance. But I freely profess, that now, since God hath enlightened my mind, and given me to see the truth, as it is in Jesus, if I had still con- tinued a member of the Church of Rome, I could not have been saved. With regard to others, I say nothing : I know that every man must bear his own burden, and give an account of himself to God. To our own Master, both they or I must stand or fall, for ever. But love, however, and tender compassion for their souls, constrained me to pour out a prayer to God in their behalf: — All souls are thine, O Lord God ; and Thou wiliest all to come to the knowledge of the truth, and be saved. For this end Thou didst give thy only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. I beseech M 2 1G4 METHODISM IN IRELAND. This had been a sore struggle : a more painful part of his progress was yet to come. Pie read the Scrip- tures diligently, and the works of some of the most eminent Protestant divines : his conviction was con- firmed by this course of study ; and, from perceiving clearly the fallacious nature and evil consequences of the doctrine of merits, as held by the Romanists, a dismal view of human nature opened uj)on him. His soul was not at rest : it was no longer harassed by doubts ; but the peace of God was wanting. In this state of mind, he happened one evening to be passing along the main street in Limerick, when he saw a great crowd on the Parade, and turning aside to know for what they were assembled, found that Robert Swindells, one of the first itinerants in Ireland, was then delivering a sermon in the open air. The preacher was earnestly enforcing the words of our Redeemer — words which are worth more than all the volumes of philosophy : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ! Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for 1 am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls ! For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Walsh was precisely in that state which rendered him a fit recipient for the doctrines which he now first heard. He caught the fever of Methodism, and it went through its regular course with all the accustomed symptoms.* Some weeks he remained in a miserable condition : he could find no rest, either by night or day. " When I prayed," thee, O eternal God, show thy tender mercies upon those poor souls who have been long deluded by the god of this world, the Pope, and his clergy. .lesus, thou lover of souls, and friend of sinners, send to them thy light and thy truth, that they may lead them. Oh let thy bowels yearn over them, and call those straying sheep, now perishing for the lack of knowledge, to the light of thy word, which is able to make them wise to salvation, through faith which is in Thee." THOMAS WALSH. 165 says lie, " I was troubled ; when I beard a sermon, I was pierced as witb darts and arrows." He could neitber sleep nor eat : bis body gave way under tbis mental suffering, and at lengtb be took to bis bed. After a while the reaction began : fear and wretch- edness gradually gave place to the love of God, and the strong desire for salvation : and the crisis was brought on at a meeting, Avhere, be says, " the power of the Lord came down in the midst of them : the windows of heaven were opened, and the skies poured down righteousness, and bis heart melted like wax before the fire."* To the psychologist it may be * Alas ! What more or worse could a young infidel spitaller, fresh from the lectures of some facetious infidel anatomist or physiologist, have wished, than to have the sense of the utter vileness and helpless- ness of man left to himself, gradually followed by the conviction of an Almighty Helper — than to have " the love op God and the STKONG DESIRE FOR SALVATION," represented as so many regular symp- - toms and crises of a bodily disease? Oh ! I am almost inclined to send this my copy of his work to 11. Southey, with the notes, for my heart bears him witness that he ofFendeth not willingly. P.S. (three years at least later than the above). — And I, who had forgotten and was unconscious that 1 had written the preceding note, had, but a few days ago, and but a few pages back, written one to the very purpose, and in the very same spirit, which I had condemned in Southey. "^ Judge not, lest ye be judged." But as to the point itself, verily I know not what to say more than this, — that if I decide in favour of the opinion that these experiences have their proper seat and origin in the nervous system, and are to be solved pathologically, it is not for want of a strong inclination to believe the contrary. But the descriptions, even of such men as Haliburton and Walsh, are so vague, so entirely sensational .' — nothing in the mind that was not there before; only a glow, a vividness over all, as in dreams after 1 have taken a dose of calomel, or as I have described the fishermen with their nets on the ice, in the blaze of a winter sunset on the Lake of Ratzeburg. Combine the state of mind and body that follows the sudden re- moval of violent pain, with the freshness and delicious tenderness of convalescence, and add to these the elevation of religious hopes and calls to duties aweful as the immortal soul — and nothing, it seems to me, remains unsolved but the sudden outcry, the birth-throe. Nothing } But is not this (Zinzendorf might reply) only not all .'' However essentially insensible the prevenient and coincident operation of the Divine Spirit on the will, yet the will cannot be denied to exert an action on the body; which action is itself indeed likewise insen- M 3 166 METHODISM IN IRELAND. interesting to know by what words tliis state of mind was induced. It was by the exclamation of the prophet, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ; this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength ? " a passage which, with that that follows, is in the highest strain of lyric sublimity : it might seem little likely to convey comfort to a spirit which had long- been inconsolable ; but its effect was like that of a spark of fire upon materials which are ready to burst into combustion. He cried aloud in the congregation; and, when the throe was past, declared that he had now found rest, and was filled with joy and peace in believing. " And now," says he, " I felt of a truth, that faith is the substance, or subsistence, of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. God, and the things of the invisible world, of which I had only heard before, by the hearing of the ear, appeared no^v in their true light, as substantial realities. Faith srave me to see a reconciled God, and an all-sufficient Saviour. The kingdom of God was within me. I drew water out of the wells of salvation. I walked and talked with God all the day long : whatsoever I believed to be his will, I did with my whole heart. I could unfeignedly love them that hated me, and pray for them that despitefully used and jDersecuted me. The commandments of God Avere my delight : I not only rejoiced evermore, but prayed without ceasing, and in every thing gave thanks : whether I sible (inasmuch as the will too is spiritual) ; but the consequent of whiclij viz. the act or reaction of the body, must be sensible. Be it so ! Yet in what would this differ (except in the manner of expression) from the former hypothesis, that the experience in question consists of a nervous explosion ovccmoiied by mental efforts? If Southey were by, he would perhaps inform me, up to what age he had been able to trace the Mora- vian notion of a Durchbruch, Diarrhexis, or thorough-break of the new life! — whether any thing like it is to be found in the Fathers, or in Epiphanias's account of the heretical sects! — S. T. C. THOMAS WALSH. 167 ate or drank, or whatever I did, it was in the name of the Lord Jesus, and to the glory of God." This case is the more remarkable, because the subject was of a calm and thoughtful mind, a steady and well- regulated temper, and a melancholy temperament. He had now to undergo more obloquy and ill-will than had been brought upon him by his renunciation of the errors of the Romish Church. That change his relations thought was bad enough ; but, to become a Methodist, was worse, and they gave him up as undone for ever : and not his relations only, nor the Romanists. " Acquaintances and neighbours," says he, " rich and poor, old and young, clergy and laity, were all against me. Some said I was an hypocrite; others, that I Avas mad ; others, judging more fa- vourably, that I was deceived. Reformed and unre- formed I found to be just alike ; and that many who spoke against the Pope and the Inquisition were themselves in reality of the same disposition." Convinced that it was his duty now to become a minister of that Gospel which he had received, he offered his services to Mr. Wesley, as one who be- lieved, and that not hastily or lightly, but after ardent aspirations, and continued prayer and study of the Scriptures, that he was inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit to take upon himself that office. He had prepared himself by diligent study of tlie Scrip- tures, which he read often upon his knees : and the prayer which he was accustomed to use at such times, may excite the admiration of those even in whom it shall fail to iind sympathy : " Lord Jesus, I • lay my soul at thy feet, to be taught and governed ? ^ --h. < by Thee. Take the veil from the mystery, and show me the truth as it is in Thyself, Be Thou my sun^ and star, by day and by night ! " Wesley told him it was hard to judge what God had called him to, till ^ trial had been made. He encouraged him to make 168 METHODISM IN IRELAND. the trial, and desired liim to preach in Irish. The command of that language gave him a great advan- tage. It was long ago said in Ireland, "When you plead for your life, plead in Irish." Even the poor Catholics listened willingly, when they were addressed in their mother tongue : his hearers frequently shed silent tears, and frequently sobbed aloud, and cried for mercy ; and in country towns the peasantry, who, going there upon market-day, had stopt to hear the preacher, from mere wonder and curiosity, were oftentimes melted into tears, and declared that they could follow him all over the Avorld. One, who had laid aside some money, which he intended to be- queath, for the good of his soul, to some priest or friar, offered to bequeath it to him if he would accept it. In conversation, too, and upon all the occasions which occurred in daily life — at inns, and upon the highway, and in the streets — this remarkable man omitted no opportunity of giving religious exhortation to those who needed it ; taking care ahvays not to shock the prejudices of those whom he addressed, and to adapt his speech to their capacity. Points of dis- pute, whether they regarded the difference of churches, or of doctrines, he wisely avoided : sin, and death,- and judgement, and redemption, were his themes; - and upon these themes he enforced so powerfully, at such times, that the beggars, to whom he frequently addressed himself in the streets, would fall on their knees, and beat their breasts, weeping, and crying for mercy. Many calumnies were invented to counteract the effect which this zealous labourer produced wherever he went. It was spread abroad that he had been a servant boy to a Romish priest ; and having stolen his master's books, he learned by that means to preach. But it was not from the Catholics alone that he met with opposition. He was once waylaid near the town THOMAS WALSH. 169 of Rosgrea, by about fourscore men, armed with sticks, and bound by oath in a confederacy against him : they were so liberal a mob, that, provided they could reclaim him from Methodism, they appeared not to care what they made of him ; and they insisted upon bringing a Romish priest, and a minister of the Church of England, to talk with him. Walsh, with great calmness, explained to them, that he contended with no man concerning opinions, nor preached against particular churches, but against sin and wickedness in all. And he so far succeeded in mitigating their disposition toward him, that they offered to let him go, provided he would swear never again to come to Rosgrea. Walsh would rather have suffered martyrdom than have submitted to such an oath ; and martyrdom was the alternative which they proposed ; for they carried him into the town, where the whole rabble surrounded him ; and it was deter- mined that he should either swear, or be put into a well. The courage with Avhich he refused to bind himself by any oath or promise, made him friends even among so strange an assembly : some cried out vehemently that he should go into the well ; others took his part : in the midst of the uproar, the parish minister came up, and, by his interference, Walsh was permitted to depart. At another country town, about twenty miles from Cork, the magistrate, who was the rector of the place, declared he would commit him to prison, if he did not promise to preach no more in those parts. Walsh replied, by asking if there were no swearers, drunkards. Sabbath-breakers, and the like, in those parts ; adding that, if, after he should have preached there a few times, there appeared no reformation among them, he would never come there again. Not satisfied with such a proposal, the magistrate committed him to prison : but Walsh was popular in that town ; the people manifested 170 METHODISM IN IRELAND. a great interest in his behalf; he preached to them from tlie prison- window, and it was soon thought advisable to release him. He was more cruelly - handled by the Presbyterians in the north of Ireland: the usage which he received from a mob of that per- suasion, and the exertions which he made to escape from them, threw him into a fever, which confined him for some time to his bed : and he professed that, in all his journeyings, and in his intercourse among people of many or most denominations, he had met with no such treatment ; no, not even from the most enraged of the Romanists themselves. The life of Thomas Walsh might ahnost convince a Catholic that saints are to be found in other communions, as well as in the Church of Rome. Theopathy was, in him, not merely the ruling, it was the only passion : his intellect was of no common order ; but this passion, in its excess, acted like a disease upon a mind that was by constitution melan- choly. To whatever church he had belonged, the elements of his character would have been the same : the only difference would have been in its manifest- ation. As a Romanist, he might have retired to a cell or an hermitage, contented with securing his own salvation, by perpetual austerity and prayer, and a course of continual self-tormenting. But he could not have been more dead to the world, nor more entirely possessed by a devotional spirit. His friends described him as appearing like one who had returned from the other world : and perhaps it was this un- earthly manner which induced a Romish priest to assure his flock that the Walsh who had turned heretic, and went about preaching, was dead long since ; and that he who preached under that name, Avas the Devil, in his shape. It is said that he walked through the streets of London with as little attention to all things around him, as if he had been in a THOMAS WALSH. 171 wilderness, unobservant of whatever would have attracted the sight of others, and as indifferent to all sounds of excitement, uproar, and exultation, as to the passing wind. He shoAved the same insensibility to the influence of fine scenery and sunshine: the only natural object, of which he spoke with feeling, was the starry firmament, — for there he beheld infinity. With all this, the zeal of this extraordinary man was such, that, as he truly said of himself, the sword was too sharp for the scabbard. At five-and-twenty he might have been taken for forty years of age ; and he literally wore himself out before he attained the age of thirty, by the most unremitting and unmerciful labour, both of body and mind. His sermons were seldom less than an hour long, and they were loud as well as long. Mr. Wesley always warned his - preachers against both these errors, and considered Walsh as in some degree guilty of his own death, by the excessive exertion which he made at such times, notwithstanding frequent advice, and frequent resolutions, to restrain the vehemence of his spirit. He was not less intemperate in study. Wesley ac- knowledged him to be the best biblical scholar whom he had ever kno^wn : if he were questioned concern- ing any Hebrew word in the Old, or any Greek one in the New Testament, he would tell, after a pause, how often it occurred in the Bible, and what it meant in every place. Hebrew was his favourite study: he regarded it as a language of divine origin, and there- fore perfect : " O truly laudable and worthy study ! " he exclaims concerning it : " 0 industry above all praise ! whereby a man is enabled to converse with God, with holy angels, with patriarchs, and with pro- phets, and clearly to unfold to men the mind of God from the language of God ! " And he was persuaded that he had not attained the full and familiar know- 172 METHODISM IN IRELAND. ledge of it, which he believed that he possessed, with- out special assistance from Heaven. At this study he frequently sate up late; and his general time of risinjr was at four. AVhen he was entreated to allow himself more sleep, by one who saw that he was wasting away to death, his reply was, " Should a man rob God ? " His friends related things of him which would have been good evidence in a suit for canonisation. Sometimes he Avas lost, they say, in glorious absence, on his knees, with his face heaven- ward, and arms clasped round his breast, in such composure, that scarcely could he be perceived to breathe. His soul seemed absorbed in God ; and from the serenity, and " something resembling splen- dour, wliich appeared on his countenance, and in all his gestures afterwards, it might easily be discovered what he had been about." Even in sleep, the devo- tional habit still predominated, and " his soul went out in groans, and sighs, and tears to God." They bear witness to his rapts and ecstasies, and record circumstances which they themselves believed to be proofs of his communion with the invisible world. With all this intense devotion, the melancholy of his disposition always predominated : and though he held the doctrines of sanctification and assurance, and doubted not but that his pardon was sealed by the blood of the covenant, no man was ever more distressed in mind, nor laboured under a greater dread of death. Even when he was enforcing the vital truths of religion, with the whole force of his intellect, and with all his heart, and soul, and strength,' thoughts would come across him Avhicli he considered as diabolical suggestions ; and he speaks with horror of the agony which he endured in resisting them. Indeed hp was thoroughly persuaded that he was an especial object of hatred to the Devil. This per- suasion supplied a ready solution for the nervous THOMAS WALSH. 173 affections to which he was subject, and, in all like- lihood, frequently produced those abhorred thoughts, which were to him a confirmation of that miserable belief. Romish superstition affords a remedy for this disease ; for, if relics and images fail to avert the fit, the cilice and the scourge amuse the patient with the belief that he is adding to his stock of merits, and distress of mind is commuted for the more tolerable ~ sense of bodily pain. For many years Mr. Wesley kept up an interchange of preachers between England and Ireland ; and when Walsh was in London, he preached in Irish at a place called Short's Garden, and in Moorfields. Many of his poor countrymen were attracted by the desire of hearing their native tongue ; and as others also gathered round, wondering at the novelty, he ad- dressed them afterwards in English. But, on such occasions, mere sound and sympathy will sometimes do the work, without the aid of intelligible words.* It is related in Walsh's Life, that once, in Dublin, when he was preaching in Irish, among those who were affected by the discourse, there was one man " cut to the heart," though he did not understand the language. Whatever language he used, he was a powerful preacher; and contributed more than any other man to the diffusion of Methodism in Ireland. All circumstances were as favourable for the progress * The most extraordinary convert that ever was made, was a certain William Heazley, in the county of Antrim, a man who was deaf and dumb from his birth. By mere imitation, and the desire of being like his neighbours, he was converted, in the 25th year of his age, from a profligate life ; for his delight had been in drinking, cock-fighting, and other brutal amusements. On the days when the leader of the Society was expected, he used to watch for him, and run from house to house to assemble the people ; and he would appear exceedingly mortified if the leader did not address him as he did the others. This man followed the occupation of weaving linen, and occasionally shaving, which was chiefly a Sunday's work ; but after his conversion he never would shave any person on the Sabbath. 174 METHODISM IN IRELAND. of Methodism in that country, as they were adverse to it in Scotland : the inefficiency of the Established Church ; the total want, not of discipline alone, but of order ; and the ardour of the Irish character, of all people the most quick and lively in their affections. iVnd as his opposition to the Calvinistic notions made Wesley unpopular among the Scotch, in Ireland he obtained a certain degree of favour for his decided opposition to the Romish Church ; while he was too wise a man ever to provoke hostility, by introducing any disputatious matter in his sermons. After a few years he speaks of himself as having, he knew not how, become an honourable man there : " The scan- dal of the cross," says he, " is ceased, and all the kingdom, rich and poor. Papists and Protestants, behave with courtesy, nay, and seeming good-will." Perhaps he was hardly sensible how much of this was owing to the change which had impercei)tibly been wrought in his own conduct, by the sobering influence of time. The ferment of his spirit had abated, and his language had become far less indis- creet ; nor indeed had he ever, in Ireland, provoked the indignation of good men, by the extravagances which gave such just offence in England at the be- ginning of his career. Some of the higher clergy, therefore, approved and countenanced his labours ; and it would not have been difficult, in that country, to have made the Methodists as subservient to the interests of the Established Church, as the Regulars are to the Church of Rome. Among so susceptible a people, it might be ex- pected that curious effects would frequently be pro- duced by the applica;tion of so strong a stimulant. A lady wrote from Dublin to Mr. Wesley in the follow- ing remarkable words : " Reverend Sir, The most miserable and guilty of all the human race, who knew you when she thought herself one of the hap- METHODISM IN IRELAND. 175 piest, may be ashamed to write, or speak to you, in her present condition ; but the desperate misery of my state makes me attempt any thing that may be a means of removing it. My request is, that you, dear Sir, and such of your happy people who meet in band, and ever heard the name of that miserable wretch P. T., Avould join in fasting and prayer on a Tuesday, the day on which I was born, tliat the Lord would have mercy on me, and deliver me from the power of the Devil, from the most uncommon blasphemies, and the ex- pectation of hell, which I labour under, without power to pray, or hope for mercy. May be the Lord may change my state, and have mercy on me, for the sake of his people's prayer. Indeed I cannot pray for my- self; and, if I could, I have no hopes of being heard. Nevertheless, He, seeing his people afflicted for me, may, on that account, deliver me from the power of the Devil. Oh, what a hell have I upon earth ! I would not charge God foolishly, for he has been very merciful to me ; but I brought all this evil on myself by sin, and by not making a right use of his mercy. Pray continually for me ; for the prayer of faith will shut and open heaven. It may be a means of my deliverance, which will be one of the greatest miracles of mercy ever known." If Mr. Wesley received this letter in time, it cannot be doubted but that he would have complied with the request. The unhappy writer was in Swift's Hos- pital ; and, perhaps, in consequence of not receiving an answer to her letter, she got her mother to address a similar one to the preacher at Cork, and he ap- pointed two Tuesdays to be observed, as she had requested, both in that city and at Limerick. There may be ground for reasonable suspicion that Me- thodism had caused the disease. The Cork preacher was apprised, by a brother at Dublin, of the manner in which it operated the cure : " I have to inform 176 METHODISM IN IRELAND. you of the mercy of God to Miss T. She was brought from Swift's Hospital on Sunday evening ; and on Tuesday night, about ten o'clock, she was in the utmost distress. She thought she saw Christ and Satan fighting for her ; and that she heard Christ say, * I will have her ! ' In a moment, hope sprung up in her heart ; the promises of God flowed in upon her : she cried out, I am taken from hell to heaven ! She now declares she could not tell whether she was in the body or out of it. She is much tempted, but in her right mind, enjoying a sense of the mercy of God. She remembers all that is past, and knows it was a punishment for her sins." As nearly twenty years elapsed before Wesley published these letters, it may be inferred that the cure was permanent. " Are there any drunkards here ? " said a preacher one day in his sermon, applying his discourse in that manner which the Methodists have found so effectual. A poor Irishman looked up, and replied, " Yes, I am one ! " And the impression which he then received, enabled him to throw off his evil habits, and become, from that day forward, a reclaimed man. The Me- thodists at Wexford met in a long barn, and used to fasten the door, because they were annoyed by a Ca- tholic mob. Being thus excluded from the meeting, the mob became curious to know what was done there : and taking counsel together, they agreed that a fellow should get in and secrete himself before the congrega- tion assembled, so that he might see all that was going on, and, at a proper time, let in his companions. The adventurer could find no better means of concealment than by getting into a sack which he found there, and lying down in a situation near the entrance. The people collected, secured the door as usual, and, as usual, began their service by singing. The mob col- lected also, and, growing impatient, called repeatedly upon their friend Patrick to open the door; but Pat METHODISM IN IRELAND. 177 happened to have a taste for music, and he liked the singing so well, that he thought, as he afterwards said, it would be a thousand pities to disturb it. And when the hymn was done, and the itinerant began to pray, in spite of all the vociferation of his comrades, he thought that, as he had been so well pleased with the singing, he would see how he liked the prayer ; but, when the prayer proceeded, " the power of God," says the relater, " did so confound him, that he roared out with might and main ; and not having power to get out of the sack, lay bawling and screaming, to the astonishment and dismay of the congregation, who probably supposed that Satan himself was in the barn. Somebody, at last, ventured to see what was in the sack; and helping him out, brought him up, confessing his sins, and crying for mercy." This is the most comical case of instantaneous conversion that ever was recorded, and yet the man is said to have been thoroughly converted. A memorable instance of the good effects produced by Methodism was shown, in a case of shipwreck upon the Isle of Cale, off the coast of the county of Down. There were several Methodist societies in that neigh- bourhood, and some of tlie members went Avrecking with the rest of the people, and others bought, or received presents of the plundered goods. As soon as John Prickard, who was at that time travelling in tlie Lisburn circuit, heard of this, he hastened to in- quire into it, and found that all the societies, except one, had, more or less, " been partakers of the accursed thing." Upon this he preached repentance and resti- tution ; and, with an almost broken heart, read out sixty-three meml^ers on the following Sunday, in Downpatrick ; giving notice, that those who would make restitution should be restored, at a proper time ; but that for those who wovdd not, their names should VOL. II. N 178 METHODISM IN IRELAND. be recorded in the general steward's book, Avitli an account of their crime and obstinacy. This severity produced much of its desired effect, and removed the reproach whicli would otherwise have attached to the Methodists. Some persons, who did not belong to the Society, but had merely attended as hearers, were so mucli affected by the exhortation and the example, that thev desired to make restitution with them. The owners of the vessel empowered Prickard to allow salvage; but, with a proper degree of austerity, he refused to do this, because the people, in the first instance, had been guilty of a crime. This affair deservedly raised the character of the Methodists in those parts ; and it was observed, by the gentry in the neighbourhood, that if the ministers of every other persuasion had acted as John Prickard did, most of the goods might have been saved. " Although I had many an aching head and pained breast," says one of the itinerants, speaking of his campaigns in Ireland, "yet it was delightful to see hundreds attending to my blundering preaching, Avith streaming eyes, and attention still as night." " The damp, dirty, smoky cabins * of Ulster," says another, * There is a letter of advice from Mr. Wesley to one of his Irish preachers (written in 1769), which s:;ives a curious picture of the people for whom such advice could be needful. — '' Dear brother," he says, *' I shall now tell you the things which have been more or less upon my mind ever since I was 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 good for both. Be steadily serious. There is no country upon earth where this is more necessary than Ireland, as you are generally encompassed with those who, with a little encouragement, wouhl laugh or trifle from morning till night. In every town, visit all you can, from house to house ; but on this, and every other occasion, avoid all familiarity with women : this is deadly poison, both to them and to you. You cannot be too wary in this respect. 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 Cliristian. Be cleanly: in this let the Methodists take pattern by the Quakers. METHODISM IN IRELAND. 179 " were a good trial ; but what makes a double ameuds for all these inconveniences, to any preacher who loves the word of God, is, that our people here are in general the most zealous, lively, affectionate Christians we have in the kingdom." Wesley himself, while he shuddered at the ferocious character of Irish history, loved the people ; and said he had seen as real cour- tesy in their cabins as could be found at St. James's or the Louvre. He found them more liberal than the English Methodists *, and he lived to see a larger society at Dublin than any in England, except that in the metropolis. Avoid all nastiness, dirt, slovenliness, both in your person, clothes, house, ^^v-*- aX«JVv/A. and all about you. Do not stink above ground ! Ij~^ j-W i>-a/-<-- ' Let thy mind's sweetness have its operation t^piy^ £AM^' Upon thy person, clothes, and habitation.' — Herbert. / //jl/ Whatever clothes you have, let them be whole: no rents, no tatters, ''^.i/jL ffO—^fh-^ 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 to see ^^ > J ' _i^ you mend your lives. Let none ever see a ragged Methodist. Clean -'^ ia-<-- i* •< yourselves of lice : take pains in this. Do not cut off your hair ; but •; ^c-^^-o-t*^ clean it, and keep it clean. Cure yourself and your family of the itch : - /.^ d^iSi. " a spoonful of brimstone will cure you. To let this run from year to '^ ', T year, proves both sloth and uncleanness : away with it at once; let not '^^'J--^**^*^*^ the North be any longer a proverb of reproach to all the nation. Use '^ Q-^'^^iAJi no snuff, unless prescribed by a physician. I suppose no other nation '^ f>v__«>«^ ^ in Europe is in such vile bondage to this silly, nasty, dirty custom, as > the Irish are. Touch no dram : it is liquid fire ; it is a sure, though ^Mt.'<^2^L«''>T/ slow poison countries in the evil is so impute the blindness which is so exceeding common throughout the nation. I particularly desire, wherever you have preaching, that there may be a little house. Let this be got without delay, ^V^herever it is not, let none expect to see me." * " The meeting-house at Athlone was built and given, with the ground on which it stood, by a single gentleman. In Cork, one person, Mr. Thomas Jones, gave between three and four hundred pounds to- wards the preaching-house. Towards that in Dublin, Mr. Lunell gave four hundred pounds. I know no such benefactors among the Metho- dists in England." — Journal xvi. p. 23. e. Touch no dram : it is liquid fire ; it is a sure, though Kk-'<^'2-^i-£''y^ ; it saps the very springs of life. In Ireland, above all ^ O 1 the world, I would sacredly abstain from this, because < ^ ^ so general; and to this, and snuff, and smoky cabins, I j ^^^^o. 180 CHAPTER XXIV. WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. It is with the minds of men as witli fermented liquors ; they are long in ripening, in proportion to their strength. Both the AVesleys had much to work off ; and the process, therefore, was of long continu- ance. In Charles it was perfected about middle life. His enthusiasm had spent itself, and his opinions Avere modified by time, as well as sobered by experience. In the forty-first year of his age, he was married by his brother, at Garth, in Brecknockshire, to Miss Sarah Gwynne. " It was a solemn day," says John, " such as became the dignity of a Christian marriage." For a while he continued to itinerate, as he had been wont ; but, after a few years, he became a settled man, and was contented to perform the duties and enjoy the comforts of domestic life. John also began to think of marriage, after his brother's example, though he had published "Thoughts on a Single Life," wherein he advised all unmarried persons, who were able to receive it, to follow the counsel of our Lord and of St. Paul, and " remain single for the kingdom of heaven's sake." He did not, indeed, suppose that such a precept could have been intended for the many, and assented fully to the sen- tence of the apostle, who pronounced the " forbidding to marry to be a doctrine of devils." Some notion, however, that the marriage state was incompatible with holiness, seems, in consequence perhaps of this treatise, to have obtained ground among some of his followers at onetime; for it was asked, at the Confer- ence of 1745, whether a sanctified believer could be WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 181 capable of marriage. The answer was, " AVhy should he not ? " And probably the question was asked for the purpose of thus condemning a preposterous opinion. When he himself resolved to marry, it appears that he made both his determination and his choice without the knowledge of Charles ; and that Charles, when he discovered the aiFair, found means, for reasons which undoubtedly he must have thought sufficient, to break off the match. But John was offended, and for a time there was a breach of that union between them which had never before been disturbed. It was not long before he made a second choice, and, unfortunately for himself, no one then interfered. The treatise which he had written in recommenda- tion of celibacy, placed him in an unfortunate situa- tion ; and, for the sake of appearances, he consulted certain religious friends, that they might advise him to follow his own inclination. His chief counsellor was Mr. Perronet, vicar of Shoreham. " Having re- ceived a full answer from Mr. Perronet," he says, " I was clearly convinced that I ought to marry. For many years I remained single, because I believed I could be more useful in a single than in a married state ; and I praised God who enabled me so to do. I now as fully believed, that, in my present circum- stances, I might be more useful in a married state ; into which, upon this clear conviction, and by the advice of my friends, I entered a few days after." He thought it expedient, too, to meet the single men of the Society in London, and show them " on how many accounts it Avas good for those who had received that gift from God, to remain single for the kingdom of heaveji\s sake, unless when a particular case might be an exception to the general rule ! " To those who pro- perly respected Mr. AYesley, this must have been a painful scene : to his blind admirers, no doubt, comic as the situation was, it was an edifying one. ^VifU JK' oi^f^^ ^vvC6-e ~<»ww^-^c -l.' -^ <^ rLt 182 WESLEY IN iNlIUDLE AGE. The lady whom he married was a widow, ])y name Vizelle, with four children *, and an independent for- tune ; but he took care that this should be settled upon herself, and refused to have any command over it. It was agreed also, before their marriage, that he should not preach one sermon, nor travel one mile the less on that account: " if I thought I should," said he, "as well as I love you, I would never see your face more." And in his Journal at this time he says, " I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer it to God, to preach one sermon, or travel one day less, in a married than in a single state. In this respect, surely, it remaineth, that they who have wives, be as though they had none." For a little while she tra- velled with him ; but that mode of life, and perhaps the sort of company to which, in the course of their journeys, she was introduced, soon became intolerable — as it must necessarily have been to any Avoman who did not enter wholly into his views, and partake of his enthusiasm. But, of all women, she is said to have been the most unsuited to him. Fain would she have made him, like Marc Antony, give up all for love ; and being disappointed in that hope, she tormented him in such a manner, by her outrageous jealousy, and abominable temper, that she deserves to be classed in a triad with Xantippe and the Avife of Job, as one of the three bad wives. Wesley, indeed, was neither so submissive as Socrates, nor so patient as the man * One of them quitted the profession of surgery, because, he said, " it made him less sensible of human pain." AV^esley says, wlien he relates this, " I do not know (unless it unfits us for the duties of life) that we can have too great a sensibility of human pain. Metiiinks 1 should be aTraid of losing any degree of this sensibility. And I have known exceeding few iiersons who have carried this tenderne.ss of spirit to excess." He appears to have mentioned the conduct of his son-in-law as to his honour ; but he relates elsewhere the saying of another surgeon in a right manly spirit : — '■ I\Ir. Wesley, you know I would not hurt a fly ; 1 would not give pain to any living thing ; but if it were necessary, I would scrape all the flesh off" a man's bones, and never turn my licad aside." WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 183 of Uz. He knew that he was by nature the strono-er vessel, of the more worthy gender, and lord and master by law ; and that the words, hoiiour and obey^ were in the bond. " Know me," said he, in one of his letters to her, " and know yourself. Suspect me no more, asperse me no more, provoke me no more : do not any longer contend for mastery, for power, money, or praise ; be content to be a private insignificant per- son, known and loved by God and me. Attempt no more to abridge me of my liberty, which I claim by the laws of God and man : leave me to be governed hy God and my own conscience ; then shall I govern you with gentle sway, even as Christ the Church." He reminded her that she had laid to his charge things that he knew not, robbed him, betrayed his confidence, revealed his secrets, given him a thousand treacherous wounds, and made it her business so to do, under the pretence of vindicating her own character ; "whereas," said he, " of what importance is your character to mankind ? If you was buried just now, or if you had never lived, what loss would it be to the cause of God ?" This was very true, but not very conciliating; and there are few stomachs Vv^hich could bear to have •humility administered in such doses. " God," said he, in this same letter, " has used many means to curb 5^our stubborn will, and break the impetuosity of your temper. He has given you a dutiful, but sickly, daughter. He has taken away one of your sons ; another has been a grievous cross, as the third probably will be. He has suffered you to be defrauded of much money ; He has chastened you with strong pain ; and stdl He may say. How long liftest thou up thyself against me ? Are you more humble, more gentle, more patient, more placable than you was ? I fear, quite the reverse : 1 fear your natural tempers are rather increased than diminished. Under all these conflicts, it might be an unspeakable N 4 184 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. blessing tliat you have a husband who knows your temper, and can bear with it ; who is still willhig to forgive you .all, to overlook what is past, as if it had not been, and to receive you with open arms ; only not while you have a sword in your hand, with which vou are continually striking at me, though you cannot hurt me. If, notwithstanding, you continue striking, what can I, wliat can all reasonable men think, but that either you are utterly out of your senses, or your eye is not single ; that you married me only for my money ; that, being disappointed, you was almost always out of humour : that this laid you open to a thousand suspicions, which, once awakened, could sleep no more. My dear Molly, let the time past suffice. If you have not (to prevent my giving it to bad women) robbed me of my substance too; if you do not blacken me, on purpose that, when this causes a breach between us, no one may believe it to be your fault ; stop, and consider what you do. As yet the breach may be repaired : you have wronged me much, but not beyond forgiveness. I love you still, and am as clear from all other women as the day I was born." Had Mrs. Wesley been capable of understanding her husband's character, she could not possibly have been jealous; but the spirit of jealousy possessed her, and drove her to the most unwarrantable actions. It is said that she frequently travelled a hundred miles, for the purpose of watching, from a window, who wjis in the carriage with him when he entered a town. She searched his pockets, opened his letters*, put his letters * There is no allusion in Wesley's Journal to liis (lomtstic unhap- piness, imless it be in Journal xi. p. 9. ; where, after noticing some difficulties upon the road, he says, " Between nine and ten, came to Bristol- Here I met with a trial of another kind : but this also shall he for good." His letters throw some light upon this part of his his- tory, which would not be worth elucidating, if it did not at the same time elucidate his character. AVriting to Mrs. S. 11. (Sarah Ryan, a most enthusiastic woman), he says, " Last Friday, after many severe words, my wife left me, vowing she would sec me no more. As I had WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 185 and papers into the hands of his enemies, in hopes that they might be made use of to blast his character; wrote to you the same morning, I began to reason with myself^ till I almost doubted whether I had done well in writing, or whether I ought to write to you at all. After prayer, that doubt was taken away ; yet I was almost sorry that I had written that morning. In the evening, while I was preaching at the chapel, she came into the chamber where I had left my clothes, searched my pockets, and found the letter there which I had finished, but had not sealed. "^Vhile she read it^ God broke her heart ; and I afterwards found her in such a temper as I have not seen her in for several years. She has continued in the same ever since. So I think God has given a sufficient answer with regard to our writing to each other." But he says to the same person, eight years afterwards, "It has frequently been said, and with some appear- ance o? truth, that you' endeavour to monopolise the affections of all that fall into your hands ; that you destroy the nearest and dearest connection they had before, and make them quite cool and indifferent to their most intimate friends. I do not at all speak on my own ac- count ; I set myself out of the question : but, if there be any thing of the kind with regard to other people, I should be sorry both for them and you." There is an unction about his correspondence with this person, which must have appeared like strong confirmation to so jealous a woman as Mrs. Wesley. He says to her, " the conversing with you, either by speaking or writing, is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you without thinking of God. Others often lead me to him ; but it is as it were going round about ; you bring me straight into his presence. You have refreshed my bowels in the Lord. (Wesley is very seldom guilty of this sort of canting and offensive language.) I not only excuse, but love your simplicity ; and whatever freedom you use, it will be welcome. I can hardly avoid trembling for you ! Upon what a pinnacle do you stand ! Perhaps few persons in England have been in so dangerous a situation as you are now. I know not whether any other was ever so regarded, both by my brother and me, at the same time." He questions her, not only about her thoughts, her ima- ginations, and her reasonings, but even about her dreams : " Is there no vanity or folly in your dreams? — no temptation, that almost over- comes you ? And are you then as sensible of the presence of God, and as full of prayer, as when you are waking.''" She replies to this cu- rious interrogation, "As to my dreams, I seldom remember them ; but when I do, I find in general they are harmless." This Sarah Ryan was at one time housekeeper at the School at Kingswood. Her account of herself, whicli is printed in the second volume of the Armi- nian Magazine, is highly enthusiastic, and shows her to have been a woman of heated fancy and strong natural talents. It appears, how- ever, incidentally, in Wesley's letter, that though she professed to have "a direct witness" of being saved from sin, she afterwards "fell from that salvation." And in another place he notices her " littleness of understandin.ir." 186 WESLEY IN :\II1)])L1': AGE. and sometimes laid violent hands upon him, and tore his hair. She frequently left his house, and, upon his earnest entreaties, returned a^^aiii ; till, after having thus disquieted twenty years of his life, as far as it was possible for any domestic vexations to disquiet a man whose life was passed in locomotion, she seized on part of his Journals, and many other papers, which were never restored, and departed, leaving word that she never intended to return. He simply states the fact in his Journal, saying, that he knew not what the cause had been ; and he briefly adds, Non earn reliqui., non dimisi, non revocaho; I did not forsake her, I did not dismiss her, I will not recall her. Thus, sum- marily, was a most injudicious marriage dissolved. Mrs. AYesley lived ten years after the separation, and is described in her epitaph as a Avoman of exemplary piety, a tender parent, and a sincere friend : the tomb- stone says nothing of her conjugal virtues. But even if John Wesley's marriage had proved as happy in all other respects as Charles's, it would not have produced upon him the same sedative effect. Entirely as these two brothers agreed in opinions and principles, and cordially as they had acted together during so many years, there was a radical difference in their dispositions. Of Charles it has been said, by those Avho knew him best, that if ever there was a human being who disliked power, avoided pre-emi- nence, and shrunk from praise, it was he : whereas no conqueror or poet was ever more ambitious than John Wesley. Charles could forgive an injury ; but never again trusted one whom he had found treache- rous. John could take men a second time to his confidence, after the greatest wrongs and the basest usage: perhaps, because he had not so keen an insight into the characters of men as his brother ; perhaps, because he regarded them as his instruments, and thought that all otlicr considerations must gi^■e way WESLEY IN BIIDDLE AGE. 187 to the interests of the spiritual dominion which he had acquired. It may be suspected that Charles, when he saw the mischief and the villainy, as well as the follies, to which Methodism gave occasion ; and when he perceived its tendency to a separation from the Church, thought tiiat he had gone too far, and looked with sorrow to the consequences which he foresaw. John's was an aspiring and a joyous spirit, free from all regret for the past, or apprehension for the future : his anti- cipations were always hopeful ; and, if circumstances arose contrary to his wishes, which he was unable to control, he accommodated himself to them, made what advantage of them he could, and insensibly learnt to expect with complacency, as the inevitable end of his career, a schism which at the commencement he would have regarded with horror, as a dutiful and conscientious minister of the Church of England. In the first Conference it was asked, " Do you not entail a schism on the Church? Is it not probable that your hearers, after your death, will be scattered into all sects and parties ? or that they will form them- selves into a distinct sect?" The answer was, "We are persuaded the body of our hearers will, even after our death, remain in the Church, unless they be thrust out. We believe, notwithstanding, either that they will be thrust out, or that they will leaven the whole Church. We do, and will do, all we can to prevent those consequences which are supposed likely to happen after our death; but we cannot, mth a good conscience, neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while Ave live, for fear of consequences which may possibly or probably happen after we are dead." Five years afterwards the assistants Avere charged to exhort all those who had been brought up in the Church, con- stantly to attend its service, to question them indivi- dually concerning this, to set the example themselves, and to alter every plan which interfered Avith it. "Is 188 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. there not," it Avas said, " a cause for this ? Are we not, unawares, by little and little, tending to a sepa- ration from the Clnirch? Oh, remove every tendency thereto with- all diligence ! Let all our preacliers g() to Church. Let all our people go constantly. Receive the sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, — a groat and prevailing evil: warn them likewise against despising the prayers of the Church ; against calling our Society a church, or the Church ; against calling our preachers ministerf<, our houses ineetiiig-houses: call them plain preaching- houses. Do not license them as such. The proper form of a petition to the Judges is, ' A. B. desires to have his house in C. licensed for public worship.' Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a Dissenter, but a Methodist preacher. It is time enough when you are prosecuted, to take the oaths ; thereby you are licensed." The leaven of ill-will towards the Church was introduced among the Methodists by those dissenters who joined them. Wesley saw whence it proceeded, and was prepared to resist its effect by the feelings which he had imbibed from liis father*, as well as by his sense of duty. But there were other causes which increased and strengthened the tendency that had thus been given. It is likely that, when the Nonju- rors disappeared as a separate party, many of them would unite with the Methodists, being a middle course between the Clnirch and the dissenters, Avliicli required no sacrifice either of principle or of pride. Having joined them, their leaning would naturally be toward a separation from the Establishment. Ijut the main cause is to be found in the temper of the lay * " A thousand times," says he, " have I found my father's words true : ' You may have peace with the Dissenters, if you do not so humour them as to dispute with them. But if you do, they will md- fucc and out-lung you ; and, at the end, you will be where you were at the beginning,' " WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 189 preachers, who, by an easy and obvious process, Avere led to conclude, that they were as much authorised to exercise one part of the ministerial functions as an- other. They had been taught to consider, and were accustomed to represent the clergy in the most unfa- vourable light. Wesley sometimes reprehended this in strong terms : but, upon this point, he was not consistent; and whenever he had to justify the appoint- ment of lay preachers, he was apt, in self-defence, to commit the fault which, at other times, he condemned. " I am far," says he, in one of his sermons, " from desiring to aggravate the defects of my brethren, or to paint them in the strongest colours. Far be it from me to treat others as I have been treated mvself ; to return evil for evil, or railing for railing. But, to speak the naked truth, not with anger or contempt, as too many have done, I acknowledge that many, if not most of those that were appointed to minister in holy things, with whom it has been my lot to con- verse, in almost every part of England or Ireland, for forty or fifty years last past, have not been eminent either for knowledge or piety. It has been loudly affirmed, that most of those persons now in connection with me, who believe it their duty to call sinners to repentance, having been taken immediately from low trades — tailors, shoemalvcrs, and the like, are a set of poor, stupid, illiterate men, that scarcely know their right hand from their left ; yet I cannot but say, that I would sooner cut off my right hand than suffer one of them to speak a word in any of our chapels, if I had not reasonable proof that he had more knowledge in the Holy Scriptures, more knowledge of himself, more knowledge of God, and of the things of God, than nine in ten of the clergymen I have conversed with, either at the universities or elsewhere." The situation in which Wesley stood led him to make this comparison, and not to make it fairl)^ It 190 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. induced liiin ulso to listen to those Avho argued in favour of a separation from the Church, and to sum up their reasonings, with a l)ias in their favour. " Thcv Avho plead for it," said he, "have weighed the point long and deeply, and considered it with earnest and continued prayer. They admit, if it be lawful to abide therein, then it is not lawful to separate : but they aver it is not lawful to abide therein; for, though they allow the Liturgy to be, in general, one of the most excellent of all human compositions, they yet think it both absurd and sinful to declare such an assent and consent as is required, to any merely human composition. Though they do not object to the use of forms, they dare not confine themselves to them ; and, in this form, there are several things which they apprehend to be contrary to Scripture. As to the laws of the Church, if they include the canons and decretals, (both which are received as such in our courts,) they think the latter are the very dregs of popery, and that many of the former (the canons of 1603) are as grossly wicked as absurd; that the spirit Avhich they breathe is, throughout, truly popish and anti-christian ; that nothing can be more diabolical than the ipso facto excommunication so often de- nounced therein ; and that the whole method of executing these canons, the process used in our spiritual courts, is too bad to be tolerated, not in a Christian, but in a jMalionnnedan or Pagan nation. AVith regard to the ministers, they doubt whether there are not many of them whom God hath not sent, inasmuch as they neither live the Gospel, nor teach it; neither, indeed, can they, since they do not know it. They doul)t the more, because these ministers them- selves disclaim tliat inward call to the ministry, which is at least as necessary as the outward ; and they are not clear whether it be lawful to attend the ministra- tions of those whom God has not sent to minister. WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 191 They think also, that the doctrines actually taught, by a great majority of the church ministers, are not only wrong, but fundamentally so, and subversive of the whole Gospel: therefore, they doubt whether it be lawful to bid them God speed, or to have any fellowship with them. I will freely acknowledge," he adds, " that I cannot answer these arguments to ray own satisfaction. As yet," he pursued, " we have not taken one step farther than we were convinced was our bounden duty. It is from a full conviction of this that we have preached abroad, jDrayed extem- pore^ formed societies, and permitted preachers who were not episcopally ordained. And were we pushed on this side, were there no alternative allowed, we should judge it our bounden duty, rather wholly to sepa- rate from the Church, than to give up any one of these points ; therefore, if we cannot stop a separation without stopping lay preachers, the case is clear, we cannot stop it at all. But, if we permit them, should we not do more ? — should we not appoint them, rather ? since the bare permission puts the matter quite out of our hands, and deprives us of all our influence. In great measure, it does : therefore, to appoint them is far more expedient, if it be lawful : but is it lawful for presbyters, circumstanced as we are, to appoint other ministers ? This is the very point wherein we desire advice, being afraid of leaning to our own understanding." An inclination to episcopise was evidently shown in this language; but Wesley did not yet venture upon the act, in deference, perhaps, to his brother's determined and principled opposition. Many of his preachers, however, were discontented with the rank which they held in public opinion, thinking that they were esteemed inferior to the dissenting ministers, because they did not assume so much : they there- fore urged him to take upon himself the episcopal 192 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. office, and ordain them, that they might administer the ordinances ; and, as he could not be persuaded to this, they charged him with inconsistency, for tole- rating lay preaching, and not lay administering. This cliarge he repelled : " My principle," said he, " is this : I submit to every ordmance of man, wherever I do not conceive there is an absolute necessity for acting contrary to it. Consistently with this, I do tolerate lay preaching, because I conceive there is an absolute necessity for it, inasmuch as were it not, thousands of souls would perish everlastingly. Yet 1 do not tolerate lay administering ; because I do not conceive there is any such necessity for it, seeing it does not appear that one soul will perish for want of it." This was, of course, called persecution, by those whom his determination disappointed ; and they accused him of injustice in denying them the liberty of acting according to their own conscience. They thought it quite right that they should administer the Lord's Supper, and believed it would do much good : he thought it quite wrong, and believed it would do much hurt. " I have no right over your consciences," he said, " nor you over mine : therefore, both you and I must follow our own conscience. You believe it is a duty to administer : do so, and therein follow your own conscience. I verily believe it is a sin, which, consequently, I dare not tolerate ; and herein I follow mine." And he argued, that it was no perse- cution to separate from his society those who prac- tised what he believed was contrary to the will and destructive of the word of God. It does not appear that any of his preachers with- drew from him on this account : the question was not one upon which, at that time, a discontented man could hope to divide the society ; and, if they did not assent to ^Ir. Wesley's arguments, they acquiesced in his will. Secessions, however, and expulsions, from WESLEY IN JilDDLE AGE. 193 other causes, not unfrequently took place : and once he found it necessary to institute an examination of his preachers, because of certain scandals which had arisen. The person with whom the offence began was one James Wheatley. At first he made himself remarkable, by introducing a luscious manner of preaching, which, as it was new among the Metho- dists, and at once stimulant and flattering, soon became popular, and obtained imitators. They who adopted it assumed to themselves the appellation of Gospel preachers, and called their brethren, in con- tempt, legalists, legal wretches, and doctors in divinity. Wesley presently perceived the mischief that was done by these men, whose secret Avas, to speak much of the promises, and little of the com- mands: " They corrupt their hearers," said he: "they feed them with sweetmeats, till the genuine wine of the kingdom seems quite insipid to them. They give them cordial upon cordial, which makes them all life and spirits for the present : but, meantime, their appetite is destroyed, so that they can neither retain nor digest the pure milk of the word. As soon as that flow of spirits goes off, they are without life, Avithout poAver, Avithout any strength or vigour of soul; and it is extremely difiicult to recover them, because they still cry out. Cordials ! Cordials ! of which they haA^e had too much already, and have no taste for the food which is convenient for them. Nay, they have an utter aversion to it, and this confirmed by principle, having been taught to call it husks, if not poison. HoAV much more to those bitters, Avhicli are previously needful to restore their decayed appetite !" AVheatley Avas a quack in physic, as Avell as in divinity, and he was soon detected in fouler practices. Complaint being at length made of his infamous li- centiousness, the two l^rothers inquired into it, and obtained complete proof of his guilt. Upon this they VOL. II. 0 194 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. delivered into his hands a written sentence of sus- pension, in these terms : " Because you have wrought folly in Israel, grieved the Holy Spirit of God, betrayed your own soul into temptation and sin, and the souls of many others, whom you ought, even at the peril of your own life, to have guarded against all sin ; because you have given occasion to the enemies of God, wherever they shall know these things, to blaspheme the ways and truth of God ; we can in no wise receive you as a fellow-labourer, till we see clear proofs of your real and deep repentance. The least and lowest proof of such repentance which we can receive is this, — that, till our next Conference, you abstain both from preaching and from practising physic. If you do not, we are clear : we cannot answer for the consequences." They were not aware at the time of the extent of this hypocrite's crimi- nality ; but enough was soon discovered to make it necessary for them to disclaim him by public adver- tisements. The matter became so notorious at Norwich, that the affidavits of the women whom he had endeavoured to corrupt, were printed and hawked about the streets. The people were ready to tear him to pieces, as he deserved ; and the cry against the Methodists was such, in consequence, that Charles Wesley said, Satan or his apostles could not have done more to shut the door against the Gospel in tliat place for ever. This was a case of individual viUainy, and produced no other injury to Methodism than an immediate scandal, which was soon blown over. But it is the nature of mental,, as well as of corporeal diseases, to propagate themselves, and schism is one of the most prolific of all errors. One separation had already taken place between the Methodists and the jMora- vians ; the Calvinistic question had made a second. A minor schism was now made, by a certain James Kelly, who, having commenced liis career under the WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 195 patronage of Whitefield, ended in forming a heresy of liis own, which had the merit, at least, of being a humaner scheme than that of his master, however un- tenable in other respects. Shocked at the intolerable notion of reprobation, and yet desirous of holding the tenet of election, he fancied that sin was to be consi- dered as a disease, for which the death of our Redeemer was the remedy ; and that, as evil had been introduced into human nature by the first Adam, who was of the earth, earthly, so must it be expelled by the second, who is from heaven, and therefore heavenl)^ Pursu- ing this motion, he taught that Christ, as a Mediator, was united to mankind, and, by his obedience and sufferings, had as fully restored the whole human race to the Divine favour, as if all had obeyed or suffered in their own persons. So he preached a finished sal- vation, which included the final restitution of all fallen intelligences. Sin being only a disease *, could not deserve punishment : it was in itself, and in its conse- quences, a sufficient evil ; for while it existed, dark- ness and unbelief accompanied it, and occasioned a privation of that happiness which the Almighty de- signed for all his creatures ; but, in the end, all would be delivered, and the elect were only chosen to be the first fruits — the pledges and earnest of the general harvest. Relly had for his co-adjutor one William Cudworth, of whom Wesley observed, after an inter- view with him, " that his opinions were all his own, quite new, and his phrases as new as his opinions, yea, and phrases too, he affirmed to be necessary to salva- tion ; maintaining, that all who did not receive them worshipped another God : and that he was as incapa- ble as a brute beast of being convinced, even in the * James Relly should have read an old treatise upon the Sinfulness of Sin, which, notwithstanding its odd title, is the work of a sound and powerful intellect. If I remember rightly, it is by Bishop Reynolds. o 2 196 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. smallest point." On another occasion he remarks, that Cudworth, Rell}', and their associates abhorred him as much as they did the pope, and ten times more than they did the Devil. The Devil, indeed, was no object of abhorrence with them : like Uncle Toby, tliey were sorry for him ; and, like Origen, they ex- pected his reformation. They formed a sect, Avhich continues to exist in America, as well as in England, by the name of the Kellyan Universalists ; and it is said that Washington's chaplain was a preacher of this denomination. The tendency of these opinions was to an easy and quiet latitudinarianism. Antinoraianism, with which they were connected, Avas far more mischievous, when combined with enthusiasm; and this was the evil to which ]\Iethodism ahvays perilously inclined. There is in the Antinomian scheme, and indeed in all pre- destinarian schenies, an audacity which is congenial to certain minds. They feel a pride in daring to pro- fess doctrines which are so revolting to the common sense and feelinn-s of mankind. Minds of a similar temper, but in a far worse state, maintain the notion of the necessity of human actions *, l)ut reject a first cause. It is from a like effrontery of spirit that this last and worst corruption proceeds ; and as the causes are alike, so also the practical consequences of anti- noniianism and atheism would be the same, if men were always as bad as their opinions ; for the professors of both have emancipated themselves from any other restraint than what may be imposed by the fear of human laws. Wesley was mistaken in supposing the doctrine, that there is no sin in believers, was never heard of * Archbishop Sancroft says well of tlie fatalist : " He uses necessity as the old philosophers did an occult quality, though to a different purpose : tlial was their refuge for ignorance ; this is his sanctuary for sin." WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 197 till the time of Count Ziiizendorf. It is as old in England as the Reformation *, and might undoubt- edly be traced in many an early heresy. The Mora- vians had the rare merit of sometimes acknowledging their errors, and correcting them : on this point, they modified their language till it became reasonable ; but the Methodists had caught the error, and did not so easily rid themselves of it. " God thrust us out," says Wesley, speaking of himself and his brother, " utterly against our will, to raise a holy people. When Satan could no otherwise prevent this, he threw Calvinism in our way, and then Antino- mianism, which struck at the root both of inward and outward holiness." f He acknowledged that they had, unawares, leaned too much toward both ; and that the truth of the Gospel lies within a hair's breadth of them : " So," said he, " that it is altogether foolish and sinful, because we do not quite agree either with one or the other, to run from them as far as ever we can." The question, " Wherein may we come to the very edge of Calvinism ?" was proposed in the second Conference; and the answer was, "In ascribing all good to the free grace of God ; in denying all natural . * Burnet speaks of certain " corrupt Gospellers, who thought, if they magnified Christ much, and depended on his merits and intei'ces- sion, they could not perish, which way soever they led their lives. And special care was taken in the homilies to rectify this error." + This pernicious doctrine was well explained in the first Conference : " Q. What is Antinomianism? A. The doctrine which makes void the law through faith. Q. What are the main pillars thereof? A. 1 . That Christ abolished the moral law. 2. That therefore Christians are not obliged to observe it. 3. That one branch of Christian liberty, is liberty from obeying the commandments of God. 4. That it is bondage to do a thing, because it is commanded ; or forbear it, because it is forbidden. 5. That a believer is not obliged to use the ordinances of God, or to do good works, 6. That a preacher ought not to exhort to good works : not un- believers, because it is hurtful ; not believers, because it is useless." o 3 108 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. free-will, and all power antecedent to grace; and in excluding all merit from man, even for what lie has or does by the grace of God." * This was endeavour- ing to split the hair. " AVherein may we come to the edge of Antinomianism ? " "svas asked likewise ; and the answer was less objectionable: "In exalting the merits and love of Christ ; in rejoicing evermore." In endeavouring to approach the edge of this peril- ous notion, Wesley went sometimes too near. But his general opinion could not be mistaken ; and when any of his followers fell into the error, he contended against it zealously. It was a greater hindrance, he said, to the word of God, than any, or all others put together : and he sometimes complains, that most of the seed which had been sown during so many years, had been rooted up and destroyed by "the wild boars, the fierce, unclean, brutish, blasphemous Anti- nomians." t From this reproach, indeed, which attaches * If we substitute "actual," for " natural," in the preceding sen- tence, the error is confined to the words, "and in excluding all merit from man, even for Avhat he has or does by the grace of God," in- stead of which, we might safely put the following: "^ and by including all merit of man, for what he has or does by the grace of God, in the merits of the Mediator, perfect God, and perfect man ; by which, and by the imputation of which, all human merit is, and is possible. But ■ I dare not condemn those of the early Reformers who looked with suspicion on the application of the word to individuals, even so ex- plained, and thus cautiously guarded. For if that popular and com- mon-sense view of men as individuals other than the Son of Man be meant, — which view alone the generality of Christians can understand, — or if any view but that of the transcendent union, in which we have our being, personality, and freedom in the being, person, and will of God, — then it is clear that the term merit is used in two diverse senses, as applied to Christ, and applied to man. — S. T. C. t The annexed extract from Wesley's Journal will show that this language is not too strong : " I came to AVensbury. The Antinomian teachers had laboured hard to destroy this poor people. I talked an hour with the chief of them, Stephen Timmins. I was in doubt whether pride had not made him mad. An uncommon wildness and fierceness in his air, his words, and the whole manner of his behaviour, almost induced me to ihink God had, for a season, given him up into the hands of Satan. In the evening I preached at Birmingham. WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 199 to many of his Calviiiistic opponents, lie was entirely clear, and the great body of his society has continued so. But his disposition to believe in miraculous mani- festations of divine favours, led him sometimes to encourage an enthusiasm which impeached his own judgement, and brought a scandal upon Methodism. Amono; the converts to Methodism at this time were Mr. Berridge, vicar of Everton, in Bedfordshire, and Mr. Hickes, vicar of Wrestlingworth, in the same neighbourhood. These persons, by their preaching, produced the same contagious convulsions in their hearers, as had formerly prevailed at Bristol ; and though time had sobered Mr. Wesley's feelings, and matured his judgement, he was so far deceived, that he recorded the things which occurred, not as psy- chological, but as religious cases. They were of the most frightful and extraordinary kind. An eye witness described the church at Everton as crowded with persons from all the country round ; " the windows," he says, " being filled, within and without, and even the outside of the pulpit, to the very top, so that Mr. Berridge seemed almost stifled with their breath ; yet," the relator continues, " feeble and sickly Here another of their pillars, J W ', came to me, and looking over his shoulder, said, ' Don't think I want to be in your society; but if you are free to speak to me, you may.' I will set down the con- versation, dreadful as it was, in the very manner wherein it passed, that every serious person may see the true picture of Antinomianism full grown ; and may know what these men mean by their favourite phrase of being perfect in Christ, not in themselves. ' Do you believe you have nothing to do with the law of God.'*' ' I have not. I am not under the law. I live by faith.' — 'Have you, as living by faith, a right to every thing in the world .'' ' 'I have. All is mine, since Christ is mine.' — ' May you then take any thing you will, any where .'' suppose, out of a shop, without the consent or knowledge of the owner ? " 'I may, if I want it ; for it is mine ; only I wiU not give offence.' — "^ Have you also a right to all the women in the world.''' 'Yes, if they consent.' — 'And is that not a sin ? ' 'Yes, to him that thinks it a sin ; but not to those whose hearts are free.' The same thing that wretch Roger Ball affirmed in Dublin. Surely these are the first-born children of Satan !" o 4 200 WESLEV IN I^riDDLE AGE. as lie is, lie was continually strengthened, and his voice, for the most part, distinguishable in the midst of all the outcries. When the power of religion begun to be spoke of, the presence of God really filled the ])lace ; and while poor sinners felt the sentence of death in their souls, what sounds of distress did 1 hear ! The greatest number of them who cried, or fell, were men ; but some women, and several chil- dren, felt the power of the same Almighty Spirit, and seemed just sinking into hell. This occasioned a mixture of various sounds; some shrieking, some roaring aloud. The most general was a loud breathing, like that of people half-strangled, and gasping for life ; and, indeed, almost all the cries were like those of human creatures dying in bitter anguish. Great numbers wept without any noise ; others fell down as dead ; some sinking in silence, some with extreme noise and violent agitation, I stood on the pew seat, as did a young man in the opposite pew, an able-bodied, fresh, healthy country- man; but, in a moment, while he seemed to think of nothing less, down he dropt, with a violence incon- ceivable. The adjoining pews seemed shook with his fall : I heard afterwards the stamping of his feet, ready to break the boards, as he lay in strong con- vulsions at the bottom of the pew. When he fell, Mr. B 11 and I felt our souls thrilled with a momentary dread ; as, when one man is killed by a cannon-ball, another often feels the wind of it. Among the children who felt the arrows of the Almighty, I saw a sturdy boy, about eight years old, who roared above his felfows, and seemed, in his agony, to struggle with the strength of a grown man. His face was red as scarlet ; and almost all on whom God laid his hand, turned either very red, or almost black." The congregation adjourned to Mr. Berridge's WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 201 house, whither those who were still in the fit were carried : the maddened people were eager for more stimulants, and the insane vicar was as willing to ad- minister more, as they were to receive it. " I stayed in the next room," says the relator, " and saw a girl, whom 1 had observed peculiarly distressed in the church, lying on the floor as one dead, but without any ghastliness in her face. In a few minutes we were informed of a woman filled with peace and joy, who was crying out just before. She had come thirteen miles, and is the same person who dreamed Mr. Berridge would come to his village on that very day whereon he did come, though without either knowing the place or the way to it. She w^as con- vinced at that time. Just as we heard of her de- liverance, the girl on the floor began to stir. She Avas then set in a chair, and, after sighing a while, suddenly rose up, rejoicing in God. Her face was covered with the most beautiful smile I ever saw. She frequently fell on her knees, but was generally running to and fro, speaking these and the like words : "Oh, what can Jesus do for lost sinners! He has forgiven all my sins ! I am in Heaven ! I am in Heaven ! Oh, how he loves me, and how I love him!" Meantime I saw a thin pale girl weep- ing with sorrow for herself, and joy for her companion. Quickly the smiles of Heaven came likcAvise on her, and her praises joined with those of the other. I also then laughed with extreme joy ; so did Mr. B 11, who said it w^as more than he could well bear; so did all who knew the Lord, and some of those who were waiting for salvation, till the cries of them who were struck with the arrows of conviction were almost lost in the sounds of joy. Mr. Berridsfe about this time retired : we continued praising God with all our might, and his work went on. I had for some time observed a young woman 202 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. all in tears, but now her countenance changed : the unspeakable joy appeared in her face, which, quick as liirhtninir, was filled with smiles, and became a crimson colour. About the same time John Keeling, of Potton, fell into an agony ; but he grew calm in about a quarter of an hour, though without a clear sense of pardon. Immediately after, a stranger, well dressed, who stood facing me, fell backward to the wall, then forward on his knees, wringing his hands, and roaring like a bull. His face at first turned quite red, then almost black. He rose and ran against the Avail, till Mr. Keeling and another held him. He screamed out, 'Oh, what shall I do! what shall I do ! Oh, for one drop of the blood of Christ ! ' As he spoke, God set his soul at liberty : he knew his sins were blotted out; and the rapture he was in seemed too great for human nature to bear. He had come forty miles to hear Mr. Berridge. " I observed, about the time that Mr. Coe (that was his name) began to rejoice, a girl eleven or twelve years old, exceedingly poorly dressed, who appeared to be as deeply wounded, and as desirous of salvation, as any. But I lost sight of he'r, till I heard the joyful sound of another born in Sion, and found, upon inquiry, it was her — the poor, disconsolate, gipsy- lookini*: child. And now did I see such a sisrht as I do not expect again on this side eternity. The faces of the three justified children, and, I think, of all the believers present, did really shine ; and such a beauty, such a look of extreme happiness, and, at the same time, of divine love and simplicity, did 1 never see in human faces till now. The newly justified eagerly embraced one another, weeping on each other's necks for joy, and besought both men and women to helj) them in praising God." The same fits were produced by Mr. Hickes's preaching at Wrestling worth, whither this relator proceeded: and there also the WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 203 poor creatures who were under the paroxysm were carried into the parsonage, where some lay as if they were dead, and others lay struggling. In both churches several pews and benches were broken by the violent struggling of the sufferers ; " yet," says the narrator, "it is common for people to remain un- affected there, and afterward drop down in their way home. Some have been found lying as dead in the road; others in Mr. Berridge's garden, not being able to walk from the church to his house, though it is not two hundred yards." The person who thus minutely described the progress of this powerful con- tagion, observes, that few old people experienced any thing of what he called the work of God, and scarce any of the rich ; and, with that uncharitable spirit, which is one of the surest and worst effects of such superstition, he remarks, that three farmers, in three several villages, who set themselves to oppose it, all died within a month. Such success made Berridge glorious in his own eyes, as well as in those of all the fanatics round about. He travelled about the country, making Everton still the centre of his excursions ; and he confesses that, on one occasion, when he mounted a table upon a common near Cambridge, and saw nearly ten thousand people assembled, and many gownsmen among them, he paused after he had given out his text, thinking of " something pretty to set off with ; but," says he, " the Lord so confounded me (as in- deed it was meet, for I was seeking not his glory, but my own), that I was in a perfect labyrinth, and found that, if T did not begin immediately, I must go down without speaking ; so I broke out with the first word that occurred, not knowing whether I should be able to add any more. Then the Lord opened my mouth, enabling me to speak near an hour, without any kind of perplexity, and so loud, that every one might hear." 201 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. For a season this man produced a more violent influ- enza of fanaticism tliaii had ever followed upon either Whitefield's or AVesley's preaching. The people flocked to hear him in such numbers, that his church could not contain them, and they adjourned into a field. " Some of them," says an eye-witness, " Avho were here pricked to the heart, were affected in an astonishing manner. The first man I saw wounded would have dropped, but others, catching him in their arms, did indeed prop him up ; but were so far from keeping him still, that he caused all of them to totter and tremble. His own shaking exceeded that of a cloth in the wind. It seemed as if the Lord came upon him like a giant, taking him by the neck, and shaking all his bones in pieces. One woman tore up the ground with her hands, filling them with dust, and with the hard-trodden grass, on which I saw her lie with her hands clinched, as one dead, when the mul- titude dispersed : another roared and screamed in a more dreadful agony than ever I heard before. I omit the rejoicing of believers, because of their number, and the frequency thereof; though the manner was strange, some of them being quite overpowered with divine love, and only showing enough of natural life to let us know they were overwhelmed with joy and life eternal. Some continued long as if they Avere dead, but with a calm sweetness in their looks. I saw one Avho lay two or three hours in the open air, and beino; then carried into the house, continued insensible another hour, as if actually dead. The first sign of life she showed was a rapture of praise, intermixed with a small joyous laughter." It may excite asto- nishment in other countries, and reasonable regret in this, that there should be no authority capable of restraining extravagances and indecencies like these. Berridge had been curate of Stapleford, near Cam- bridge, several years ; and now, after what he called WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 205 liis conversion, his heart was set upon preaching a " Gospel- sermon " there, which, he said, he had never done before. Some fifteen hundred persons assembled in a field to hear him. The contagion soon began to show itself among those who ^v^ere predisposed for it : others, of a different temper, mocked and mimicked these poor creatures in their convulsions ; and some persons, who were in a better state of mind than either, indignant at the extravagance and indecency of the scene, called aloud to have those wretches horse- whipped out of the field. " Well (says the fanatical writer) may Satan be enraged at the cries of the people, and the prayers they make in the bitterness of their souls, seeing we know these are the chief times at which Satan is cast out." — "I heard a dreadful noise, on the farther side of the congrega- tion (says this writer), and turning thither, saw one Thomas Skinner coming forward, the most horrible human figure I ever saw. His large wig and hair were coal-black ; his face distorted beyond all description. He roared incessantly, throwing and clapping his hands together with his whole force. Several were terrified, and hastened out of his way. I was glad to hear him, after a while, pray aloud. Not a few of the triflers grew serious, while his kindred and ac- quaintance were very unwilling to believe even their own eyes and ears. They would fain have got him away; but he fell to the earth, crying, ' ]\Iy burden! my burden ! I cannot bear it!' Some of his brother scoffers were calling for horsev/hips, till they saw him extended on his back at full length : they then said he was dead ; and indeed the only sign of life was the working of his breast, and the distortions of his face, while the veins of his neck were swelled as if ready to burst. He was, just before, the chief captain of Satan's forces : none was by nature more fitted for mockery; none could sv/enr more heroically to whip 20G WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. out of tlic close all who were affected by the preach- ing." Berridge bade the people take warning by him, while he lay roaring and tormented on the irround. " His aoonies lasted some hours ; then his body and soul were eased." It is to be regretted that, of the many persons who have gone through this disease, no one should have recorded his case who was capable of describing his sensations accurately, if not of analysing them. Berridge and Hickes are said to have " awakened " about four thousand souls in the course of twelve nionths. Imposture in all degrees, from the first natural exaggeration to do^wnright fraud, kept pace with enthusiasm. A child, seven years old, saw visions, and " astonished the neighbours with her in- nocent and aweful manner of relating them." A young man, whose mother affirmed that he had had fits, once a-day, at least, for the last two years, began to pray in those fits ; protesting afterwards, that he knew not a word of what he had spoken, but was as ignorant of the matter as if he had been dead all the while. This impostor, when he was about to exhibit, stiffened himself like a statue ; " his very neck seemed made of iron." After he had finished, his body grew flex- ible by degrees, but seemed to be convulsed from head to foot ; and when he thought proper to recover, he said, " he was quite resigned to the will of God, who gave him such strength in the inner man, that he did not find it grievous, neither could ask to be delivered from it." " I discoursed," says the credu- lous relator of these things, " with Anne Thorn, who told me of much heaviness following the visions with which she had been favoured ; but said she was, at intervals, visited still with so much overpowering love and joy, especially at the Lord's Supper, that she often lay in a trance for many hours. She is tAventy-one WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 207 years old. We were soon after called into the garden, where Patty Jenkins, one of the same age, was so overwhelmed with the love of God, that she sunk down, and appeared as one in a pleasant sleep, only with her eyes open. Yet she had often just strength to utter, with a low voice, ejaculations of joy and praise ; but no words coming up to what she felt, she frequently laughed while she saw his glory. This is quite unintelligible to many, for a stranger intermed- dleth not with our joy. So it was to Mr. M., who doubted whether God or the Devil had filled her with love and praise. Oh, the depth of human wisdom ! Mr. R., in the mean time, was filled with a solenm awe. I no sooner sate down by her, than the Spirit of God poured the same blessedness into my soul." Whether this were folly or fraud, the consequences that were likely to result did not escape the appre- hension of persons who, though themselves affected strongly by the disease, still retained some command of reason. They began to doubt whether such trances were not the work of Satan: with the majority, how- ever, they passed for effects of grace. Wesley, who believed and recorded them as such, inquired of the patients, when he came to Everton, concerning their state of feeling in these trances. The persons, who appear to have been all young women and girls, agreed, " that when they went away^ as they termed it, it was always at the time they were fullest of the love of God : that it came upon them in a moment, without any previous notice, and took away all their senses and strength : that there were some exceptions, but, generally, from that moment, they were in another world, knowing nothing of what was done or said by all that were round about them."* He had now an * I regret that Southey is acquainted only with the magnetic cases of Mesmer and his immediate followers, and not with the incomparably more interesting ones of Gmelin, Weinholt, Eschemmeycr, Wohlfast, 208 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. opportunity of observing a case. Some persons were singing hymns in Berridge's house, about live in the afternoon, and presently Wesley was summoned by Berridge himself, with information that one of them, a oirl of fifteen, was fallen into a trance. " I went down immediately," says Mr. Wesley, " and found her sitting on a stool, and leaning against the wall, with her eyes open, and fixed upward. I made a motion, as if going to strike ; but they continued immoveable. Her face showed an unspeakable mixture of reverence and love, while silent tears stole down her cheek. Her lips were a little open, and sometimes moved, but not enough to cause any sound. I do not know whether I ever saw a human face look so beautiful. Sometimes it was covered with a smile, as from joy mixing with love and reverence ; but the tears fell still, though not so fast. Her pulse was quite regular. In about half an hour, I observed her countenance change into the form of fear, pity, and distress. Then she burst into a flood of tears, and cried out, ' Dear Lord ! they will be damned ! they will all be damned ! ' But, in about five minutes, her smiles returned, and only love and joy appeared in her face. About half an hour after six, I observed distress take place again, and soon after she wept bitterly, and cried ' Dear Lord, they loill go to hell ! the world icill go to hell !' Soon after (Jvc. — men whose acknowledged merits as naturalists and physicians, with their rank and unimpeached integrity, raise their testimony ahove suspicion, in point of veracity at least, and of any ordinary delusion. The case Wesley saw, is in all its features identical with that of the Khamerin, and with a dozen others in the seventh or ecstatic grade. The facts it would be now quite absurd to question ; but their direct relation to the magnetic treatment^ as effect to cause, remains as doubt- ful as at the beginning. And these cases of the Methodists tend strongly to support the negative. And yet it is singular, that of the very many well-educated men who have produced effects of this kind, or under whose treatment such phenomena have taken place, not one should have withstood the conviction of their having exerted a direct causative agency : though several have earnestly recommended the suppression of the practice altogether, as rarely beneficial, and often injurious, nay, calamitous. — S. T. C. WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 209 slie said, ' Cry aloud ! spare not ! ' and in a few mo- ments her look was composed again, and spoke a mixture of reverence, joy, and love. Then she said aloud, ' Give God the glory ! ' About seven her senses returned. I asked, ' Where have you been ?' — 'I have been with my Saviour.' — ' In heaven or on earth?' — 'I cannot tell; but I was in glory!' — 'Why, then, did you cry?' — 'Not for myself, but for the world ; for I saw they were on the brink of hell.' — ' Whom did you desire to give the glory to God? ' — ' Ministers that cry aloud to the world ; else they will be proud ; and then God will leave them, and they will lose their own souls.' " With all his knowledge of the human heart, (and few persons have had such opportunities of extensive and intimate observation,) Wesley had not discovered, that when occasion is afforded for imposture of this kind, the propensity to it is a vice to which children and young persons are especially addicted. If there be any natural obliquity of mind, sufficient motives are found in the pride of deceiving their elders, and the pleasure which they feel in exercising the monkey- like instinct of imitation.* This is abundantly proved by the recorded tales of witchcraft in this country, in New England, and in Sweden ; and it is from subjects like this girl, whose acting Wesley beheld with reve- rential credulity, instead of reasonable suspicion, that the friars have made regular-bred saints, such as Eosa of Peru, and Catharine of Sienna. With regard to the bodily effects that ensued, whenever the spiritual influenza began, there could be no doubt of their reality ; but it had so much the appearance of an influenza, raging for a while, affecting those within * This is a just and happy remark; but in cases like this of Wesley's, no one ever saw it, who did not instantly see that it was an actual product of some strange state of the nervous system, utterly unimitable by voli- tion.—S.T.C. VOL. II. P 210 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. its sphere, and then dying away, that Wesley could not be so fully satisfied concerning the divine and supernatural exciting cause, as he had been when first the disease manifested itself at Bristol, and as he still desired to be. "I have generally observed," said he, " more or less of these outward symptoms to attend the iDeginning of a general work of God. So it was in New England, Scotland, Holland, Ireland, and many parts of England ; but, after a time, they gradually decrease, and the work goes on more quietly and silently. Those whom it pleases God to employ in his work, ought to be quite passive in this respect : they should choose nothing, but leave entirely to him all the circumstances of his own work." Returning to Everton, about four months after- wards, he found " a remarkable difference as to the manner of the work. None now were in trances, none cried out, none fell down, or were convulsed. Only some trembled exceedingly ; a low murmur was heard, and many were refreshed with the 'multitude of peace^ The disease had spent itself, and the reflec- tions which he makes upon this change, show that others had begun to suspect its real nature, and that he himself was endeavouring to quiet his own sus- picions. " The danger icas,''^ says he, " to regard extraordinary circumstances too much, — such as outcries, convulsions, visions, trances ; as if these Avere essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger ?>, to regard them too little ; to condemn them altogether ; to imagine they had nothing of God in them, and were a hindrance to his work; whereas the truth is, 1. God suddenly and strongly convinced many that they were lost sinners, the natural consequences whereof were sudden outcries, and strong bodily convulsions. 2. To strengthen and encourage them that believed, and to make his work more apparent, he favoured several WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 211 of them with divine dreams ; others with trances and visions. 3. In some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace. 4. Satan likewise mimicked this work of God, in order to discredit the whole work ; and yet it is not wise to give up this part^ any more than to give up the whole. At first it was, doubtless, wholly from God : it is partly so at this day ; and He will enable us to discern how far, in every case, the work is pure, and when it mixes or degenerates. Let us even suppose that, in some few cases, there was a mixture of dissimulation ; that persons pretended to see or feel what they did not, and imitated the cries or convulsive motions of those who were really over- powered by the Spirit of God ; yet even this should not make us either deny or undervalue the real work of the Spirit. The shadow is no disparagement of the substance, nor the counterfeit of the real dia- mond." His tone, jDcrhaps, was thus moderated, because, by recording former extravagances of this kind in full triumph, he had laid himself open to attacks which he had not been able to repel. Warburton had censured these things with his strong sense and powers of indignant sarcasm ; and they had been ex- posed still more effectually by Bishop Lavington, of Exeter, in " A Comparison between the Enthusiasm of Methodists and of Papists." Here Wesley, who was armed and proof at other points, was vulnerable. He could advance plausible arguments, even for the least defensible of his doctrines ; and for his irregu- larities, some that were valid and incontestable. On that score he was justified by the positive good which Methodism had done, and was doing ; but here he stood convicted of a credulity discreditable to himself, and dangerous in its consequences ; the whole evil of scenes so disorderly, so scandalous, and so frightful, was distinctly seen by his opponents; and perhaps r 2 212 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. they did not make a sufficient allowance for the phe- nomena of actual disease, and tlie manner in which, upon their first appearance, they were likely to affect a mind, heated as his had been at the commencement of liis career. In all his other controversies, Wesley preserved that urbane and gentle tone, which arose from the genuine benignity of his disposition and manners; but he replied to Bishop Lavington with asperity : the attack had galled him ; he could not but feel that his opponent stood upon the vantage ground ; and, evading the main charge, he contented himself in his reply * with explaining away certain passages, which were less obnoxious than they had been made to appear, and disproving some personal charges f which the Bishop had repeated upon evi- dence that appeared, upon inquiry, not worthy of the credit he had given to it. But Wesley's resentments were never lasting : of this, a passage in his Journal, written a few years afterwards, affords a pleasing proof. Having attended service at Exeter Cathedral, he says, " I was well pleased to partake of the Lord's Supper with my old opponent. Bishop Lavington. Oh, may we sit down together in the kingdom of our Father ! " He understood the happiness of his tem- per in this respect, and says of it, " I cannot but stand amazed at the goodness of God. Others are most assaulted on the weak side of their soul ; but * His Journal shows that he undertook the task with no alacrity. " 1 began writing a letter to the Comparer of the Papists and ]\Iethod- ists. Heavy work ; such as I should never choose ; but sometimes it must be done. Well might the ancient say, ' God made practical divinity necessary ; the Devil, controversial.' But it is necessary. We must resist the Devil, or he will not flee from us." -|- On this point it is proper to state, that he does justice to the Bisliop in his Journal. For when he notices that, calling upon the person who was named as the accuser, she told him readily and re- peatedly, that she "never saw or knew any harm by him," he adds, " yet I am not sure that she has not said just the contrary to others. If so, she, not I, must give account for it to God." WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 213 with me it is quite otherwise. If I have any strength at all, (and I have none but what I received^) it is in forgiving injuries ; and on this very side am I assaulted more frequently than on any other. Yet leave me not here one hour to mvself, or I shall betray myself and Thee ! " Warburton, though a more powerful opponent, as- sailed him with less effect. Wesley replied to him in a respectful tone, and met the attack fairly. He entered upon the question of Grace, maintained his own view of that subject, and repeated, in the most explicit terms, his full belief, that the course which he and his coadjutors had taken was approved by miracles. " I have seen with my eyes," said he, " and heard with my ears, several things which, to the best of my judgement, cannot be accounted for by the ordinary course of natural causes, and which I there- fore believe ought to be ascribed to the extraordinary interposition of God. If any man choose to call these miracles, I reclaim not. I have weighed the pre- ceding and following circumstances ; I have strove to account for them in a natural way ; but could not, without doing violence to my reason." He instanced the case of John Haydon, and the manner in which he himself, by an effort of faith, had thrown off a fever. The truth of these facts, he said, was sup- ported by the testimony of competent witnesses, in as high a degree as any reasonable man could desire : the witnesses were many in number, and could not be deceived themselves ; for they saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears. He disclaimed for himself any part in these and the other cases, which might appear to redound to his praise : his Avill, or choice, or desire, he said, had no place in them ; and this, he argued, had always been the case with true miracles ; for God interposed his mira- culous powers always according to his own sovereign p 3 214 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. will ; not according to the will of man ; neither of him by whom he wrought, nor of any other man whatso- ever. So many such interpositions, he affirmed, had taken place, as would soon leave no excuse either for denying or despising them. " We desire no favour" said he, " but the justice, that diligent inquiry may be made concerning them. We are ready to name the persons on whom the power was shown, which be- longeth to none but God, (not one or two, or ten or twelve, onl}^,) — to point out their places of abode; and we engage they shall answer every pertinent question fairly and directly ; and, if required, shall give all their answers upon oath, before any who are empowered to receive them. It is our particular request, that the circumstances which went before, which accompanied, and which followed after the facts under consideration, may be thoroughly exa- mined, and punctually noted down. Let but this be done, (and is it not highly needful it should, at least by those who would form an exact judgement ?) and we have no fear that any reasonable man should scruple to say, " This hath God wrought." It had never entered into Wesley's thoughts, when he thus appealed to what were called the outward signs, as certainly miraculous, that they were the manifestations of a violent and specific disease, pro- duced by excessive excitement of the mind, commu- nicable by sympathy, and highly contagious. We are yet far from understanding the Avliole power of the mind over the body ; nor, perha])s, will it ever be fully understood. It was very little regarded in Wesley's time : these phenomena therefore were con- sidered by the jMethodists, and by those who beheld them, as wholly miraculous ; by all other persons, as mere exhibitions of imposture. Even Charles Wesley, when he discovered that much Avas voluntary, had no suspicion that the rest might be natural ; and John, WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 215 in all cases where any thing supernatural was pre- tended, was, of all men, the most credulous. In the excesses at Everton he had, however reluctantly, perceived something which savoured of fraud ; and, a few years afterward, circumstances of much greater notoriety occurred, when, from the weakness of his mind, he encouraged at first a dangerous enthusiasm, which soon broke out into open madness. Among his lay preachers, there was a certain George Bell, who had formerly been a life-guardsman. Mr. Wesley published, as plainly miraculous, an account of an instantaneous cure wrought by this man : it was a surgical case*, and must therefore either have * "Dec. 26. 1760. I made a particular inquiry into the case of Mary Special, a young woman then in Tottenham-court-road. She said, * Four years since, 1 found much pain in my breasts, and after- wards hard lumps. Four months ago my left breast broke, and kept running continually. Growing worse and worse, after some time I was recommended to St. George's Hospital. 1 was let blood many times, and took hemlock thrice a day ; but I was no better, the pain and the lumps were the same, and both my breasts were quite hard, and black as soot ; when, yesterday se'nnight, I went to Mr. Owen's, where there was a meeting for prayer. Mr. Bell saw me and asked. Have you faith to be healed ? I said, yes. He prayed for me, and in a moment, all my pain was gone. But the next day 1 felt a little pain again : I clapped my hands on my breasts, and cried out, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole ! It was gone ; and, from that hour I have had no pain, no soreness, no lumps or swelling, but both my breasts were perfectly well, and I have been so ever since.' Now," says Mr. Wesley, " here are plain facts : 1. she was ill ; 2. she is well ; 3. she became so in a moment. Which of these can, with any modesty, be de- nied ? " It is not a little remarkable, that after Bell had become de- cidedly crazy, recovered his wits, forsaken the Methodists, and professed himself a thorough unbeliever, Mr. Wesley should still have believed this story, and have persisted in asking the same question, without sus- pecting any deceit in either party. The fraud lay in the woman, Bell being a thorough enthusiast at that time.* * Is it ascertained that Wesley did not make inquiry at St. George's Hospital .'' Wesley published it immediately. It would be odd that neither physician, surgeon, apothecary, sister, or student should have come forward to undeceive the public, or Wesley at least. As to the fact itself, Southey's " must either or '' is grounded on imper- fect knowledge of the complaint here described. It was not a surgical (i. e. not medical) case, though one that by courtesy surgeons in London may take in hand. Nay, it is of that class which have been found most V 4 216 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. been miracle or fraud. A judicious inquiry would have shown that Bell, who was not in a sane mind, had been a dupe in this business; but Wesley con- tented himself with the patient's own relation, accre- dited it without scruple, and recorded it in a tone of exultation. Bell was at that time crazy, and any doubt which he might have entertained of his own supernatural gifts, was removed by this apparent miracle, the truth of which was thus attested. Others who listened to him became as crazy as himself; and Wesley was persuaded that, " being full of love," they were actually " favoured with extraordinary revela- tions and manifestations from God. But by this very thing," says he, " Satan beguiled them from the sim- plicity that is in Christ. By insensible degrees, they were led to value these extraordinary gifts more than the ordinary grace of God ; and I could not convince them, that a grain of humble love was better than all these gifts put together." In the height of George Bell's extravagance, he at- tempted to restore a blind man to sight, touched his eyes with spittle, and pronounced the word Eplqihatha. The ecclesiastical authorities ought to have a power of sending such persons to Bedlam, for the sake of religion and of decency, and for the general good ; but such madmen in England are suffered to go abroad, and bite whom they please with impunity. The failure of the blaspliemous experiment neither undeceived him nor his believers ; and they accounted foi* it by saying, that the patient had not faith to be healed. Wesley had begun to suspect the sanity of these enthusiasts, because they had taken up a notion, often and most influenced hy stimulants of imagination, sudden acts of active and passive volition, and (next akin to these) by regulated friction — touching, or breathing, and the like. Had the second case, that of the blind man, been amaurotic, or a case of disordered function, not or- ganic disease or defect, in all probability the enthusiastic sturdy life- guards-man would have cured it. — S. T. C". WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 217 from a text in tlie Revelations, that they should live for ever. As, however, one of the most enthusiastic happened to go raving mad, and die, he thought the delusion would be checked ; as if a disease of the reason could be cured by the right exercise of the diseased faculty itself! Moreover, with their enthu- siasm personal feelings were mixed up, of dislike to- wards him and his brother, arising from an impatience of their superiority ; and this feeling induced Max- field to stand forward as the leader of the innovators, though he was not the dupe of their delusions. Mr. Wesley desired the parties to meet him, that all mis- understandings might be removed. Maxfield alone refused to come. " Is this," said Wesley, " the fii'st step towards a separation ! Alas for the man, alas for the people ! " It is said that no other event ever grieved him so deeply as the conduct of Maxfield ; for it at once impeached his judgement, and wounded him as an act of ingratitude. Maxfield was the first person whom he had consented to hear as a lay preacher, and the first whom he authorised to co- operate with him in that character : and so highly did he value him, that he had obtained ordination for him from the Bishop of Londonderry. This prelate was one of the clergy who encouraged Mr. Wesley in Ireland ; and when he performed the ceremony, he said to Maxfield, " Sir, I ordain you to assist that good man, that he may not work himself to death ! " But of all the lessons which he learnt from Wesley, it now appeared that that of insubordination was the one in which he was most perfect. The breach, however, was not immediate : some concessions were made by. Maxfield; and Wesley, after a while, addressed a letter to him and his associates, especially George Bell, telling them what he disliked in their doctrines, spirit, and outward behaviour. He objected to their teaching that man might be as per- 218 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. feet as an angel ; that he can be absolutely perfect ; that he can be infallible, or above being tempted ; or, that the moment he is pure in heart, he cannot fall from it. To this, however, his OAvn language had given occasion ; for the doctrine which he taught, of " a free, fuU, and present salvation, from all the guilt, all the power, and all the in-being of sin," differs but a hair's breadth from the tenet which he now justly condemned. He objected to their saying, " that one saved from sin needs nothing more than looking to Jesus, — needs not to hear or think of any thing else; believe^ believe^ is enough : that he needs no self-exa- mination, no times of private prayer; needs not mind little or outward things ; and that he cannot be taught by any person who is not in the same state." He dis- liked, he said, " something that had the appearance of enthusiasm — overvaluing feelings and inward impres- sions ; mistaking the mere work of imagination for the voice of the Spirit ; expecting the end without the means ; and undervaluing reason, knowledge, and wisdom in general." He disliked " something that had the appearance of Antinomianism ; not magnifying the law, and making it honourable ; not enough valuing tenderness of conscience, and exact watchfulness in order thereto ; and using faith rather as contradistin- guished from holiness, than as productive of it." He blamed them for slighting any, the very least, rules of the Bands, or Society ; for the disorder and extrava- gances which they introduced in their public meetings ; and, above all, for the bitter and uncharitable spirit which they manifested toward all who differed from them. And he bade them read this letter of mild reproof, calmly and impartially, before the Lord in prayer ; so, he said, should the evil cease, and the good remain, and they would then be more than ever united to him. Wesley Avas not then aware of Maxfield's intention WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 219 to set up for himself, and hardly yet suspected the insanity of Bell, his colleague. Upon hearing the latter hold forth, he believed that part of what he said was from God, (so willing Avas Wesley to be deceived in such things ! ) and part from an heated imagination ; and seeing, he says, nothing dangerously wrong, he did not think it necessary to hinder him. The next trial, however, convinced him that Bell must not be suffered to pray at the Foundry : " the reproach of Christ," said he, " I am willing to bear, but not the reproach of enthusiasm, if I can help it." That no- thing might be done hastily, he suffered him to speak, twice more ; " but," says he, " it was worse and worse. He now spoke, as from God, what I knew God had not spoken ; I therefore desired that he would come thither no more." The excommunication, indeed, could no longer be delayed *, for George Bell had commenced prophet, and proclaimed every Avhere that the world was to be at an end on the 28th of February following. This, however, was the signal for separation : several hundreds of the Society in London threw up their tickets, and withdrew from their connection with Wesley, saying, " Blind John is not capable of teach- ing us, — we will keep to Mr. Maxfield !" for Maxfield was the leader of the separatists ; and Bell, notwith- * Wesley was evidently conscious that he had delayed it too long, and that he had lost credit, by being, or appearing to be, for a time deceived by this madman. The apology which he makes is any thing but ingenuous. "^ Perhaps," he says, " reason (unenlightened) makes me simple. If I knew less of human nature, I should be more apt to stumble at the weakness of it ; and if I had not too^ by nature or by grace, some clearness of apprehension. It is owing to this (under God) that 1 never staggered at all at the reveries of George Bell. I saw in- stantly, from the beginning, and at the beginning, what was right, and what was wrong ; but I saw, withal, ' I have many things to speak, but ye cannot bear them now.' Hence many imagine I was imposed upon, and applauded themselves on their own greater perspicuity, as they do at this day. But if you knew it, said his friend to Gregorio Lopez, Avhy did you not tell me? I answer with him, 'I do not speak all I know, but what I judge needful.' '' 220 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. standing his prophetic pretensions, appeared only as one of his followers. He, indeed, was at this time a downriglit honest madman. The part which Maxfield acted was more suspicious : he neither declared a belief or disbelief in the prediction ; but he took advan- tage of the prophet's popularity, to collect a flock among his believers, and form an establishment for himself. Often as the end of the world has been prophesied by madmen, such a prediction has never failed to ex- cite considerable agitation. Wesley exerted himself to counteract the panic which had been raised ; and, on the day appointed, he exposed, in a sermon, the utter absurdity of the supposition that the world would be at an end that night. But he says that, not- withstanding all he could say, many were afraid to go to bed, and some wandered about the fields, being persuaded that, if the world did not end, at least London would be swallowed up by an earthquake. He had the prudence, before the day arrived, to insert an advertisement in the provincial newspapers, dis- claiming all connection with the prophet or the pro- phecy ; a precaution which was of great service to poor George Story ; for, in the course of itinerating, he ar- rived at Darlington on the day appointed. The people in that neighbourhood had been sorely frightened ; but fear had given place to indignation, and, in their wrath, they threatened to pull down the Methodist preaching- house, and burn the first preacher who should dare to show his face among them. Little as Story was of an enthusiast, he told the mistress of the house, if she would venture the house, he would venture him- self; and, upon producing the advertisement in the Newcastle paper, and reading it to the people, they were satisfied, and made no further disturbance. George Bell recovered his senses, to make a deplorable use of them : passing from one extreme to another, the WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 221 ignorant enthusiast became an ignorant infidel ; turned fanatic in politics, as he had done in religion; and having gone through all the degrees of disaifection and disloyalty, died, at a great age, a radical reformer. This affair, if it made Wesley more cautious for awhile, did not lessen his habitual credulity. His dis- position to believe whatever he was told, however improbable the fact, or insufficient the evidence, was not confined to preternatural tales. He listened to every old woman's nostrum for a disease, and col- lected so many of them, that he thought himself qualified at last to commence practitioner in medicine. Accordingly he announced in London his intention of giving physic to the poor, and they came for many years in great numbers, till the expense of distributino- medicines to them was greater than the Society could support. At the same time, for the purpose of enablino- people to cure themselves, he published his collection of receipts, under the title of " Primitive Physic; or, an easy and natural Method of curing most Diseases." In his preface he showed, that the art of healino- was originally founded on experiments, and so became traditional : inquiring men, in process of time, beo-an to reason upon the facts which they knew, and formed theories of physic, which, when thus made theoretical, was soon converted into a mystery and a craft. Some lovers of mankind, however, had still from time to time endeavoured to bring it back to its ancient footing, and make it, as it was at the beginning, a plain intelli- gible thing; professing to know nothing more than that certain maladies might be removed by certain medi- cines ; and his mean hand, he said, had made a like attempt, in which he had only consulted experience, common sense, and the common interest of mankind. The previous directions which he gave for prevent- ing diseases, were in general judicious. He advised early hours, regular exercise, plain diet, and temper- 222 WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. ance; and he pointed out, not without effect, the physical benefits which resulted from a moral and religious life. " All violent and sudden passions," he said, " dispose to, or actually throw people into, acute diseases. The slow and lasting passions, such as grief, and hopeless love, bring on chronical diseases. Till the passion which caused the disease is calmed, medi- cine is applied in vain. The love of God, as it is the sovereign remedy of all miseries, so, in particular, it effectually prevents all the bodily disorders the pas- sions introduce, by keeping the passions themselves witliin due bounds ; and, by the unspeakable joy, and perfect calm serenity and tranquillity it gives the mind, it becomes the most poAverful of all the means of health and long life." In his directions to the sick, he recommends them to " add to the rest (for it is not labour lost) that old unfashionable medicine, prayer ; and to have faith in God, who ' killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.' " The book itself must have done great mischief, and probably may still continue so to do ; for it has been most extensively circulated *, and it evinces throughout a lamentable want of judgement, and a perilous rashness, advising sometimes means of ridi- culous inefficacy in the most dangerous cases, and sometimes remedies so rude, that it would be mar- vellous if they did not destroy the patient. He believed, however, that he had cured himself of what * The current edition, which is now before me, is the twenty-eighth. The cold bath is prescribed for ague, just before the cold fit ; for pre- venting apoplexy ; for weak infants, every day ; and for cancer. For films in the sight, the eyes are to be touched with lunar caustic every day ; or sibethion occulcntdlr, dried slowly, and finely pulverised, is to be blown into them. For niphylis, an ounce of quicksilver every morn- ing ; and for the twisting of the intestines, quicksilver, ounce by ounce, to the amount of one, two, or three pounds ! Toasted cheese is recom- mended for a cut ; and, for a rupture in children, " boil a spoonful of egg-sliells, dried in an oven, and powdered, in a pint of milk, and feed the child constantly with bread boiled in this milk !" WESLEY IN MIDDLE AGE. 223 was pronounced to be a confirmed consumption, and had every symptom of it, by his favourite prescription for pleurisy, a plaster of brimstone and white of egg, spread upon bro^yn paper. Upon applying this, the pain in his side, he says, was removed in a few minutes, the fever in half an hour ; and from that hour he began to recover strength. His death had been so fully expected, that Whitefield wrote him a farewell letter, in the most affectionate terms, and a consolatory one to his brother Charles. And he him- self, not knowing, he says, how it might please God to dispose of him, and to prevent vile panegyric, wrote his own epitaph, in these words : HERE LIETH THE BODY OF JOHN WESLEY, A BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE BURNING : WHO DIED OF A CONSUMPTION, IN THE FIFTY-FIRST YEAR OF HIS AGE, NOT LEAVING, AFTER HIS DEBTS ARE PAID, TEN POUNDS BEHIND HIM ; PRAYING GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT! " He ordered that this (if any) inscription should be placed on his tombstone." 221 CHAPTER XXV. PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. DEATH OF WHITEFIELD. FINAL BREACH BETWEEN WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. AYhitefield had not continued long at enmity with AVesley. He was sensible that he had given him great and just offence by publishing the story of the lots, and he acknowledged this, and asked his pardon. Wesley's was a heart in which resentment never could strike root : the difference between them, therefore, as far as it was personal, was made up; but, upon the doctrines in dispute, they remained as widely separate as ever, and their respective followers were less charitable than themselves. White field also had become a married man. He had determined upon this in America, and opened his intentions in a characteristic letter to the parents of the lady whom he v/as disposed to choose. He told them, that he found a mistress was necessary for the management of his increasing family at the Orphan House ; and it had therefore been much impressed upon his heart that he should marry, in order to have a help meet for him in the work whereunto he was called. " This," he proceeded, " comes (like Abra- ham's servant to Rebekah's relations) to know whether you think your daughter. Miss E., is a proper person to engage in such an undertaking ? If so, whether you will be pleased to give me leave to propose marriage unto her ? You need not be afraid of sending me a refusal ; for, I bless God, if I know any thing of my own heart, I am free from that PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. 225 foolish passion which the world calls love. I write, only because I believe it is the Avill of God that I should alter my state ; but your denial will fully con- vince me, that your daughter is not the person appointed by God for me. But I have sometimes thought Miss E. would be my helpmate, for she has often been impressed upon my heart. After strong crying and tears at the Throne of Grace for direction, and after unspeakable trouble with my own heart, I write this. Be pleased to spread the letter before the Lord ; and if you think this motion to be of Him, be pleased to deliver the enclosed to your daughter. If not, say nothing ; only let me know you disapprove of it, and that shall satisfy 3'our obliged friend and servant in Christ." The letter to the lady was written in the same temper. It invited her to partake of a way of life which nothing but devotion and en- thusiasm like his could render endurable. He told her he had great reason to believe it was the Divine will that he should alter his condition, and had often thought she was the person appointed for him ; but he should still wait on the Lord for direction, and heartily entreat him, that if this motion were not of Him, it might come to nought. " I much like," said he, " the manner of Isaac's marrying with Rebekah ; and think no marriage can succeed well, unless both parties concerned are like-minded with Tobias and his wife. I make no great profession to you, because I believe you think me sincere. The passionate expressions which carnal courtiers use, I think, ought to be avoided by those that would marry in the Lord. I can only promise, by the help of God, to keep my matrimonial vow, and to do what I can towards helping you forward in the great work of your sal- vation. If you think marriage will be any way prejudicial to your better part, be so kind as to send me a denial." The Moravian arrangement for pairing VOL. II. Q 226 PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. their members would have been very convenient for a person of this temper. The reply which he received informed liim, that the lady was in a seeking state only, and surely, he said, that would not do : he must have one that was full of faith and the Holy Ghost. Such an one he thought lie had found in a widow at Abergavenny, by name James, who ^v^as between thirty and forty, and, by his own account, neither rich nor beautiful, but having once been gay, was now " a despised follower of the Lamb." He spoke of his marriage in language which would seem profane, unless large allowances were made for the indiscreet and offensive phraseology of those who call themselves religious professors. The success of his preaching appears at this time to have intoxicated him : he fancied that something like a gift of prophecy had been imparted to him ; and when his wife became pregnant, he announced that the child would be a boy, and become a preacher of the Gospel. It proved a boy, and the father publicly baptized him in the Tabernacle, and, in the presence of a crowded congregation, solemnly devoted him to the service of God. At the end of four months the child died; and Whitefield then acknowledged that he had been under a dehision : " Satan," he said, " had been permitted to give him some wrong impressions, whereby he had misapplied several texts of Scripture." The lesson was severe, but not in vain, for it saved him from any future extravagances of that kind. His marriage was not a happy one * ; and the death of his wife is said, by one of his friends, to have " set his mind much at liberty." It is asserted that she did * It is not likely to be so, as may be judged from what he says to one of liis married IViends : " I hope you are not iiiniis ii.roriK.'i. Take heed, my dear li., take heed ! Time is short. It remains that those who have wives, be as though they had none. Let nothing intercept or interrupt your communion with the Bridegroom of the Church." PEOGRESS or CAI.V1NIST1C METHODISM. 227 not behave in all respects as she ought; but it is admitted, that their disagreement was increased by some persons who made pretensions to more holiness than they possessed. Whitefield was irritable, and impatient of contradiction ; and, even if his temper had been as happily constituted as Wesley's, his habits of life must have made him, like Wesley, a most uncomfortable husband. His popularity, however, was greatly on the in- crease. So great, indeed, was his confidence in his powers over the rudest of mankind, that he ventured npon preaching to the rabble in Moorfields during the Whitsun holidays, when, as he said, Satan's children kept up their annual rendezvous there. This was a sort of pitched battle with Satan, and White- iield displayed some generalship upon the occasion. He took the field betimes, with a large congregation of" praying people" to attend him, and began at six in the morning, before the enemy had mustered in strength. Not above ten tliousand persons were assembled waiting for the sports ; and, having nothing else to do, they, for mere pastime, presently flocked round his field-pulpit. "Glad was I to find," says he, " that I had for once as it were got the start of the Devil." Encouraged by the success of his morn- ing preaching, he ventured there again at noon, when, in his own words, " the fields, the whole fields, seemed, in a bad sense of the word, all white, ready, not for the Redeemer's, but Beelzebub's harvest. All his agents Avere in full motion ; drummers, trum- peters, merry-andrews, masters of puppet-shows, exhibitors of wild beasts, players, &c. &c., all busy in entertaining their respective auditories." He esti- mated the crowd to consist of from twenty to thirty thousand persons ; and thinking that, like St. Paul, he should now, in a metaphorical sense, be called to fight with wild beasts, he took for his text, " Great is Q 2 228 PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISAI. Diana of the Epliesians." " You may easily guess," says he, " that there was some noise among the crafts- men, and that I was honoured with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me, while eno-ao^ed in callino; them from their favourite but lying vanities. My soul was, indeed, among lions ; but far the greatest part of my congregation, which was very large, seemed for a while to be turned into lambs." He then gave notice that he would preach again at six in the evening. " I came," he says, " 1 saw, — but what ? Thousands and thousands more than before, if possible, still more deeply engaged in their unhappy diversions, but some thousands amongst them waiting as earnestly to hear the Gospel. This Satan could not brook. One of his choicest servants was exhibiting, trumpeting on a large stage ; but, as soon as the people saw me in my black robes, and my pulpit, 1 think all, to a man, left him and ran to me. For a while I was enabled to lift up my voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound. God's people kept praying, and the enemy's agents made a kind of roaring at some dis- tance from our camp. At length they approached nearer, and the merry-andrew (attended by others, who complained that they had taken many pounds less that day, on account of my preaching,) got upon a man's shoulders, and advancing near the pulpit, attempted to slash me with a long heavy whip several times, but always, with the violence of his motion, tumbled down." Soon afterwards, they got a re- cruiting sergeant, with his drums, fifes, and followers, to pass through the congregation. But AVhitefield, by his tactics, baffled this manixuvre : he ordered them to make way for the king's officers : the ranks opened, and when the party had marched through, closed again. When the uproar became, as it some- times -did, such as to overpower his single voice. PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. 229 he called the voices of all his people to his aid, and began singing ; and thus, what with singing, praying, and preaching, he continued, by his own account, three hours upon the ground, till the darkness made it time to break up. So great was the impression which this wonderful man produced in this extra- ordinaiy scene, that more than a thousand notes were handed up to him, from persons who, as the phrase is, were brought under concern by his preaching that day, and three hundred and fifty persons joined his congregation. On the Tuesday he removed to Mary-le-bone fields, a place of similar resort. Here a Quaker had pre- pared a very high pulpit for him, but not having fixed the supports well in the ground, the preacher found himself in some jeopardy, especially when the mob endeavoured to push the circle of his friends against it, and so to throw it down. But he had a narroAver escape after he had descended ; " for as I was passing," says he, " from the pulpit to the coach, I felt my wig and hat to be almost ojfF : I turned about, and observed a sword just touching my temples. A young rake, as I afterwards found, was determined to stab me ; but a gentleman, seeing the sword thrusting near me, struck it up with his cane, and so the destined victim providentially escaped." The man who made this atrocious attempt, probably in a fit of drunken fury, was seized by the pe(^ple, and would have been handled as severely as he deserved, if one of Whitefield's friends had not sheltered him. The following day Whitefield returned to the attack in Moorfields : and here he gave a striking example of that ready talent which turns every thing to its purpose. A merry-andrew, finding that no common acts of buffbonery were of any avail, got into a tree near the pulpit, and, as much perhaps in despite as in insult, exposed his bare posteriors to the preacher, in the sight of all the Q 3 230 PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. people. The more brutal mob applauded him mth loud laughter, Avhile decent j^ersons Avere abashed ; and Whitefield himself was for a moment confounded; but instantly recovering himself, he appealed to all, since now they had such a spectacle before them, whether he had wronged human nature in saying, with Bishop Hall, that man, when left to himself, is half a fiend and half a brute ; or, in calling him, with William Law, a motley mixture of the beast and devil ! The appeal was not lost upon the crowd, whatever it might be upon the wretch by whom it was occasioned. A circumstance at these adventurous preachings is mentioned, which affected Whitefield himself, and must have produced considerable effect upon others : — several children, of both sexes, used to sit round him, on the pulpit, while he preached, for the purpose of handing to him the notes, which were delivered by persons upon whom his exhortations had acted as he desired. These poor children were exposed to all the missiles with which he was assailed: however much they were terrified or hurt, they never shrunk; "but, on the contrary," says he, "every time I was struck, they turned up their little w^eeping eyes, and seemed to wish they could receive the blows for me." Shortly after his separation from Wesley, some Calvinist dissenters built a large shed for him, near the Foundry, upon a piece of ground Avhich was lent for the purpose, till he should return to America. From the temporary nature of the structure, they called it a Tabernacle, in allusion to the moveable j^lace of worsliip of the Israelites during their journey in the wilderness ; and the name being in puritanical taste, became the designation of all the chapels of the C'alvinistic Methodists. In this jilace AVhiteficld was assisted by Cennick and others, who sided with him at the division ; and he employed lay preachers with PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. 231 less reluctance than Wesley had done; because the liking which he had acquired in America for the old Puritans had in some degree alienated his feelings from the Church, and his predestinarian opinions brought him in contact Avith the Dissenters. But Whitefield had neither the ambition of foundino; a separate community, nor the talent for it ; he would have contented himself with being the founder of the Orphan House at Savannah, and with the effect which he produced as a roving preacher; and Calvinistic Methodism, perhaps, might never have been embodied into a separate sect, if it had not found a patroness in Selina Countess of Huntingdon. This "noble and elect lady," as her followers have called her, was daughter of Wasliington Earl of Ferrers, and widow of Theophilus Earl of Hunting- don. There was a decided insanity in her family. Her sisters-in-law, Lady Betty and Lady Margaret Hastings, were of a religious temper : the former had been the patroness of the first Methodists at Oxford ; the latter had become a disciple, and at length married Wesley's old pupil and fellow-missionary Ligham. Lady Margaret communicated her opinions to the Countess : the Wesleys were called in to her, after a dangerous illness, which had been terminated by the new birth ; and her husband's tutor, Bishop Benson, who was sent for afterwards, in hopes that he might restore her to a saner sense of devotion, found all his arguments ineffectual : instead of receiving instruc- tions from him, she was disposed to be the teacher, quoted the Homilies against him, insisted upon her own interpretation of the Articles, and attacked him upon the aweful responsibility of his station. All this is said to have irritated him : the emotion which he must needs have felt, might have been more truly, as well as more charitably, interpreted : and when he left her, he lamented that he had ever laid his hands Q 4 232 TROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. upon George Wliitefiekl. " My lord," she replied, "mark my words! -when you come upon your dying bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with complacence." " During the Earl's life she restrained herself, in deference to his wishes ; but, becoming mistress of herself, and of a liberal income, at his death, she took a more decided and public part, and, had means per- mitted, would have done as much for Methodism as the Countess Matilda did for the Papac}^ Upon AVhitefield's return from America, in 1748, he was invited to her house at Chelsea, as soon as he landed. And after he had officiated there twice, she wrote to him, inviting him again, that some of the nobility might hear him. " Blessed be God," he says, in his reply, "that the rich and great begin to have an hearing ear : I think it is a good sign that our Lord intends to give, to some at least, an obedient heart. Plow wonderfully does our Redeemer deal with souls ! If they will hear the Gospel only under a ceiled roof, ministers shall be sent to them there ; if only in a church or a field, they shall have it there. A word in the lesson, when I was last with your ladyship, struck me, — Paid j^reached pi'ivately to those that icere of reputation. This must be the way, I presume, of dealing with the nobility, who yet know not the Lord." This is characteristic ; and his answer to a a second note, respecting the time, is still more so: "Ever since the reading your ladyship's condescending letter, my soul has been overpowered with His pre- sence who is all in all. When your ladyship styled me your friend^ I was amazed at your condescension ; but when I thought that Jesus was my friend, it quite overcame me, and made me to lie prostrate before him, crying. Why me ? — why me ? 1 just now rose from the ground, after praying the Lord of all lords to water your soul, honoured madam, every moment. PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. 233 As there seems to be a door opening for tlie nobility to hear the Gospel, I will defer my journey, and, God willing, preach at your ladyship's. Oh that God may be with me, and make me humble ! I am ashamed to think your ladyship will admit me under your roof; much more am I amazed that the Lord Jesus will make use of such a creature as I am; — quite asto- nished at your ladyship's condescension, and the unmerited superabounding grace ai)d goodness of Him who has loved me, and given Himself for me." \Yes- ley would not have written in this strain, which, for its servile adulation, and its canting vanity, might well provoke disgust and indignation, were not the real genius and piety of the writer beyond all doubt. Such, however, as the language is, it was natural in Whitefield, and not ill suited for the person to whom it was addressed. Lord Chesterfield and Boliiigbroke were among his auditors at Chelsea: the Countess had done well in inviting those persons who stood most in need of repentance. The former complimented the preacher with his usual courtliness; the latter is said to have been much moved at the discourse : he invited White- field to visit him, and seems to have endeavoured to pass from infidelity to Calvinism, if he could. Lady Huntingdon, flattered, perhaps, by the applause which was bestowed upon the performance, appointed White- field one of her chaplains. He, at this time, writing to Mr. Wesley, says, " What have you thought about an union ? I am afraid an external one is impracti- cable. I find, by your sermons, that we differ in principles more than I thought, and I believe we are upon two different plans. My attachment to America will not permit me to abide very long in England ; consequently I should but weave a Penelope's web if I formed societies ; and, if I should form them, I have not proper assistants to take care of them. I intend, 234 TROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METUODISM. therefore, to go about preaching the Gospel to every creature." In saying that he had " no party to be at the head of," and that, through God's grace, he would have none, Whitefield only disclaimed the desire of placing himself in a situation which he was not com- petent to fill : at this very time he was sufficiently willing that a party should be formed, of which he might be the honorary head, while the management was in other hands : for he told tlie elect lady that a leader was wanting ; and that that honour had been put on her ladyship by the great Head of the Church, — an honour which had been conferred on few, but which was an earnest of what she was to receive, before men and angels, when time should be no more. That honour Lady Huntingdon accepted. She built cha- pels in various places, which were called hers, and jDrocured Calvinistic clergymen to officiate in them. After a time, a sufficient supply of ordained ministers could not be found, and some began to draw back, when they perceived that the course of action in which they were engaged tended manifestly to schism. This, however, did not deter her ladyship from pro- ceeding : she followed the example of Mr. Wesley, and employed laymen without scruple; and as the chapels were called Lady Huntingdon's chapels, the persons who officiated were called Lady Huntingdon's preachers. At length she set up a seminary for such preachers, at Trevecca, in South Wales ; and this was called Lady Huntingdon's College, and the Calvinist Methodists went by the name of Lady Huntingdon's connection. The terms of admission were, that the students should be truly converted to God, and resolved to dedicate themselves to his service. During three years they were to be boarded and instructed gratuitously, at her ladyship's cost, and supplied every year with a suit of clotlies : at the end of that time they Avere either to PKOGRESS OF CALVJNISTIC METHODISM. 235 take orders, or enter the ministry among dissenters of any denomination. Sincere devotee as the Countess was, she retained much of the pride of birth. For this reason White- field, who talked of her amazing condescension in patronising him, would have been more acceptable to her than Wesley, even if he had not obtained a pre- ference in her esteem because of his Calvinism ; and perhaps this disposition inclined her, unconsciously, to favour a doctrine which makes a privileged order of souls. Wesley, therefore, who neither wanted, nor would have adniitted, patron or patroness to be the temporal head of the societies which he had formed, and was as little likely to act a subordinate part under Lady Huntingdon as under Count Zinzendorf, seems never to have been cordially liked by her, and gra- dually grew into disfavour. The reconciliation with Whitefield was, perhaps, produced more by a regard to appearances on both sides, than by any feeling on either. Such a wound as had been made in their friendship always leaves a scar, however well it may have healed. They interchanged letters, not very frequently; and they preached occasionally in each other's pulpits ; but there was no cordial intercourse, no hearty co-operation. Whitefield saw, and disap- proved, in Wesley, that ambition of which the other was not conscious in himself, largely as it entered into the elements of his character : and Wesley, on the other hand, who felt his own superiority in intel- lect and knowledge, regarded probably as a weak- ness the homage Avhich was paid by Whitefield to persons in high life. Yet they did justice to each other's intentions and virtues : and old feelings some- times rose again, as from the dead ; like the blossoming of spring flowers in autumn, which remind us that the season of hope and of joyance is gone by. It is plea- 236 PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM. sunt to observe, tliat this tenderness increased as they advanced toward the decline of life. When Whitetield returned from America to England for the last time, Wesley Avas struck with the change in his appearance : " he seemed," says he, in his Journal, " to be an old man, being fairly worn out in his Master's service, though he has hardly seen fifty years ; and yet it pleases God that I, who am now in my sixty-third year, find no disorder, no weakness, no decay, no dif- ference from what I was at five-and- twenty; only that I have fewer teeth, and more grey hairs." Lady Huntingdon had collected about lier a knot of Calvinistic clergy, some of them of high birth, and abounding as much with bigotry and intolerance as with zeal. Whitefield, however, at this time, to use Wesley's language, breathed nothing but peace and love. " Bigotry," said he, " cannot stand before him, but hides its head wherever he comes. My brother and I conferred with him every day ; and, let the honourable men do what they please, we resolved, by the grace of God, to go on hand in hand, through honour and dishonour." Accordingly Wesley preached in the Countess's chapel, where, he says, many were not a little surprised at seeing him, and where it ap- ptiars that he did not expect to be often invited ; for he adds, that he was in no concern whether he preached there again or not. Whitefield and Howel Harris (a man whose genuine charity was no ways corrupted by his opinions) attended at the next Conference. This union continued till Whitefield returned to America, in 1769, and died there in the following- year. A fear of outliving his usefulness liad often depressed him : and one day, wlien, giving way to an irritable temper, he brought tears from one who had not deserved such treatment, he burst into tears liim- sclf, and exclaimed, " I shall live to be a poor peevish old man, and every body will be tired of me ! " He DEATH OF WHITEFIELD. i>37 wished for a sudden death ; and that blessing was so far vouchsafed him, that the ilhiess which proved fatal was only of a few hours' continuance. It was a fit of asthma : when it seized him first, one of his friends expressed a wish that he would not preach so often ; and his reply was, " I had rather ivear out, than rust out." He died at Newbury Port, in New England; and, according to his own desire, was buried before the pulpit, in the Presbyterian Church of that town. Every mark of respect was shown to his remains ; all the bells in the town tolled, and the ships in the har- bour 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 black : the governor and council met at the state-house in deep mourning, and went in procession to hear a funeral sermon. Funeral honours also were performed throughout the tabernacles in England. He had been asked who should preach his funeral sermon, in case of his dying abroad ; Avhether it should be his old friend Mr. Wesley ; and had always replied, He is the man. Mr., Wesley, therefore, b}^ desire of the execu- tors, preached at the Tabernacle in Tottenham-court- road (the high-church of the sect) ; and in many other places did the same, wishing, he said, to show all possible respect to the memory of so great and good a man. Upon this occasion he expresses a hope, in his Journal, that God had now given a blow to that bigotry which had prevailed for many years : but it broke out, ere long, with more virulence than ever. Notwithstanding Mr. Wesley's endeavours to guard his followers against the Antinomian errors, the stream of Methodism had set in that way. It is a course which enthusiasm naturally takes, wherever, from a blind spirit of antipathy to the Romanists, solifidianism is preached. To correct this perilous tendency, (for, of all doctrinal errors, there is none of 238 UREACH WITH THE CALVINISTS. wliicli the practical consequences are so pernicious,) Wesley said, in the Conference of 1771, "Take heed to your doctrine ! we have leaned too much toward Calvinism. 1. With regard to man' s faithfuhiess : our Lord himself taught us to use the expression, and we ouo-ht never to be ashamed of it. 2. With regard to icorkinq for life : this also the Lord has expressly com- manded us. Labour, epya^s^s, literally, icork for the meat that endureth to everlasting life. 3. We have re- ceived 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 ivell. Whoever repents, should do u-orlcs meet for repentance. And if this is not in order to find favour, what does he do them for? Is not this salvation by works ? Not by the merit of works, but by works as a condition. What have we then been disputing about for these thirty years? I am afraid, about loords. As to merit itself, of which we have been so dreadftdly afraid, we are rewarded according to our works, yea, because of our ivorks. How does this differ from for the sake of our works ? And how differs this from secundum 7nerita operum, as our works deserve? Can you split this hair ? I doubt I cannot. Does not talking of a justi- fied or 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 tem- pers, and our outward behaviour." This language — candid, frank, and reasonable as it is — in every way honourable to Mr. Wesley, shocked the high-flying Calvinists. The alarm was taken at Trcvecca ; and, notwithstanding the specious liberality which had been professed. Lady Huntingdon declared, that whoever did not fully disavow these minutes. MR. FLETCHER. 239 must quit the college. The students and masters were called upon to deliver their sentiments in writing, without reserve. The superintendent, in so doing, explained, vindicated, and approved the doctrine of Mr. Wesley, though he considered the wording as un^ guarded, and not sufficiently explicit ; and he resigned his appointment accordingly, wishing that the Countess might find a minister to preside there less insufficient than himself, and more willing to go certain lengths in party spirit. Jean Guillaume de la Flechere, who thus with- drew from Trevecca, was a man of rare talents, and rarer virtue. No age or country has ever produced a man of more fervent piety, or more perfect charity ; no church has ever possessed a more apostolic minister. He was born at Nyon, in the Pays de Vaud, of a respectable Bernese family, descended from a noble house in Savoy. Having been educated for the ministry at Geneva, he found himself unable to sub- scribe to the doctrine of predestination, and resolved to seek preferment as a soldier of fortune. Accor- dingly he went to Lisbon, obtained a commission in the Portuguese service, and was ordered to Brazil. A lucky accident, which confined him to his bed when the ship sailed, saved him from a situation where his fine intellect would have been lost, and his philan- thropic piety would have had no room to display itself. He left Portugal for the prospect of active service in the Low Countries ; and that prospect also being disappointed by peace, he came over to England, improved himself in the language, and became tutor in the family of Mr. Hill, of Fern Hall in Shropshire. The love of God and of man abounded in his heart ; and finding among the Methodists that sympathy which he desired, he joined them, and for a time took to ascetic courses, of which he afterwards acknow- 240 MR. FLETCHER. ledged the error. He lived on vegetables, and for some time on milk and water, and bread: he sat up two whole nights in every week, for the purpose of praying, and reading and meditating on religious things ; and on the other nights never allowed himself to sleep, as long as he could keep his attention to the book before him. At length, by the advice of his friends, Mr. Hill, and of Mr. Wesley, whom he consulted, he took orders in the English Church. The ordination took place in the Chapel Royal, St. James's, and, as soon as it was over, he went to the Methodist Chapel in West-street, where he assisted in administering the Lord's Supper. Wesley had never received so seasonable an assistance. " How wonderful are the ways of God!" said he, in his Journal. When my bodily strength failed, and none in England were able and willing to assist me, He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerland, and an help meet for me in every respect. Where could I have found such another ! " It proved a more efficient and important help than JMr. Wesley could then have anticipated. Mr. Fletcher (for so he now called himself, being completely anglicised,) incurred some displeasure by the decided manner in which he connected himself with the Methodists. Neither his talents nor his vir- tues were yet understood beyond the circle of his friends. By Mr. Hill's means, however, he was pre- sented to the vicarage of Madely, in Shropshire, about three years after his ordination. It is a populous vil- la "-e, in which there were extensive collieries and iron- works ; and the character of the inhabitants was, in consequence, what, to the reproach and curse of Eng- land, it generally is, wherever mines or manufactures of any kind have brought together a crowded popula- tion. Mr. Fletcher had at one time officiated there as curate : he now entered upon his duty with zeal ME. FLETCHER. 241 proportioned to the arduous nature of the service which he had pledged himself to perform. That zeal made liim equally disregardful of appearances and of danger. The whole rents of his small patrimonial estate in the Pays deVaud were set apart for charitable uses, and he drew so liberally from his other funds for the same purpose, that his furniture and wardrobe were not spared. Because some of his remoter pa- rishioners excused themselves for not attending the morning service, by pleading that they did not awake early enough to get their families ready, for some months he set out every Sunday at five o'clock, with a bell in his hand, and went round the most distant parts of the parish, to call up the people. And Avherever hearers could be collected in the surrounding country, within ten or fifteen miles, thither he Avent to preach to them on week days, though he seldom got home before one or two in the morning. At first, the rabble of his parishioners resented the manner in which he ventured to reprove and exhort them in the midst of their lewd revels and riotous meetings ; for he would frequently burst in upon them, without any fear of the consequence to himself. The publicans and maltmen were his especial enemies. A mob of colliers, Avho were one day baiting a bull, determined to pull him off his horse as he went to preach, set the dogs upon him, and, in their own phrase, bait the parson ; but the bull broke loose, and dispersed them before he arrived. In spite, however, of the opposition which his eccentricities excited, not from the ignorant only, but from some of the neighbouring clergy and magis- trates, he won upon the people, rude and brutal as they were, by the invincible benevolence which was manifested in his whole manner of life ; till at length his church, Avhich at first had been so scantily attended that he was discouraged as well as mortified by the smallness of the conii:rea;ation, bciian to overflow. VOL. IL K 242 FINAL BREACH BETWEEN Such was the person who, without any emolument, had undertaken the charge of superintenduig, in oc- casional visits, the college at Trevecca, and who with- drew from that charge when Lady Huntingdon called upon all persons in that seminary to disavow the doctrines of Mr. Wesley's minutes, or leave the place. He had at that time no intention or apprehension of taking any farther part in the dispute. Shortly after- wards the Honourable Walter Shirley, one of her ladyship's chaplains, and of the Calvinistic clergy who had formed a party under her patronage, sent forth a circular letter, stating, that whereas "Sir. Wesley's next Conference was to be held at Bristol, it was proposed by Lady Huntingdon, and many other Christian friends, to have a meeting in that city at the same time, of such principal persons, both clergy and laity, who disapproved of the obnoxious minutes; and as the doctrines therein avowed were thought injuri- ous to the very fundamental principles of Christianity, it was farther proposed, that these persons should go in a body to the Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said minutes ; and in case of a refusal, sign and publish their protest against them. " Your presence, Sir," the letter proceeded, " is parti- cularly 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, 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." Lodgings were to be provided for the persons who attended. The proceedings were not so furious as might have been expected from a declaration of war like this. WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 243 The heat of the Calvinistic party seemed to have spent itself in the first explosion. Mr. Wesley was truly a man of peace ; and when the Conference and the anti- council met, the result, unlike that of most other pitched disputations upon points of theology, was something like an accommodation. The meeting was managed with perfect temper on both sides, and with a conciliatory spirit on the part of Shirley hhnself ; a man whose intentions were better than his judgement. Mr. Wesley and the Conference declared, that, in framing the obnoxious minutes, no such meaning was intended as was imputed to them. "We abhor," they said, "the doctrine of justification by works, as a most perilous and abominable doctrine; and as the 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 Jesus Christ, for justi- fication or salvation, either in life, death, or the day of judgement ; 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 justification, either in whole or in part." Mr. Shirley declared himself satisfied Avith this declaration, and the interview was concluded with prayer, and professions of peace and love. These were but fallacious appearances : the old question had been mooted, and the dispute broke out with greater violence than ever.* On the part of the * The sort of recantation which was made in this declaration gave occasion to the following verses by one of the hostile party : Whereas the religion and fate of three nations Depend on the importance of our conversations ; Whereas some objections are thrown in our way. And words have been construed to mean what they say ; Be it known, from henceforth, to each friend and each brother, Whene'er we say one thing, we mean quite another. R 2 *.> 244 FINAL BHEACII BETWEEN AriiiiiiiuMs it was carried on by Walter Selloii, who was originally a baker, then one of AVesley's lay preachers, and had afterwards, by means of Lady Huntingdon's influence, obtained orders ; by Thomas Olivers, who, like a sturdy and honest Welshman as he was, refused, at the Conference, to subscribe the declaration ; and by Mr. Fletcher. On the part of the Calvinists, the most conspicuous writers were the brothers Kichai-d (afterwards Sir Richard) and Rowland Hill, and Augustus Montague Toplady, vicar of Broad Hembury in Devonshire, iSTever were any writings more thoroughly saturated with the essential acid of Calvinism than those of the predestinarian champions. It would scarcely be credible that three persons, of good birth and education, and of unquestionable good- ness and piety, should have carried on controversy in so vile a manner, and with so detestable a spirit, — if the hatred of theologians had not, unhappily, become proverbial. Berridge of Everton also, who was buifoon as well as fanatic, engaged on their side ; and even Harvey's nature Avas so far soured by his opinions, that he wrote in an acrimonious style against Mr. Wesley, whose real piety he knew, and whom he had once regarded as his spiritual father. The ever-memorable Toplady, as his admirers call him, and who, they say, " stands paramount in the ple- nitude of dignity above most of his contemporaries," was bred at Westminster, and, according to his own account, converted at the age of sixteen, by the sermon of an ignorant lay preacher, in a barn in Ireland. He was an injudicious man, hasty in forming conclusions, and intemperate in advancing them : but his intellect was quick and lively, and his manner of writing, though coarse, was always vigorous, and sometimes fortunate. A little before that Conference which brought out the Avhole Calvin istic force against Wesley, Mr. Toplady published a Treatise upon absolute WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 245 Predestination, chiefly translated from the Latin of Zanchius. Mr. Wesley set forth an analysis of this treatise, for the purpose of exposing its monstrous doctrine, and concluded in these words : " The sum of all 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 ." Toplady denied the consequences, and accused Mr. Wesley of intending to palm the paragraph on the world as his. " In almost any other case," said he, " a similar forgery would transmit the criminal to Virginia or Maryland, if not to Tyburn. The satanic guilt of the person who could excogitate and publish to the world a position like that, baffles all power of description, and is only to be exceeded (if exceedable) by the satanic shamelessness which dares to lay the black position at the door of other men." Most certainly Mr. Wesley had no intention that this passage should pass for Mr. Toplady's writing. He gave it as the sum of his doctrine ; and, stripping that doctrine of all disguise, exposed it thus in its naked monstrosity. After vindicating himself by stating this, he left Olivers to carry on the contest with his incensed antagonist. This provoked Toplady the more. " Let Mr. Wesley," said he, " tight his own battles. I am as ready as ever to meet him, with the sling of reason and the stone of God's word in my hand. But let him not fight by proxy ; let his cobblers keep to their stalls ; let his tinkers mend their brazen vessels ; let his barbers confine themselves to their blocks and basins ; let his blacksmiths blow more suitable coals than those of nice controversy ; every man in his own order." And, because Olivers had been a shoemaker, he attacked him on that score B 3 24fi FINAL BHEACII BETWEEN with abusive ridicule, both in prose and in rhyme.* But Avlien he spoke of Wesley himself, and Wesley's doctrines, it was with a bitterer temper. The very titles which he affixed to his writino;s were in the manner of ]\Iartin Marprelate, — " ]\Iore Work for Mr. John Wesley;" — "An Old Fox tarred and feathered:" it seemed as if he had imbibed the spirit of sectarian scurrility from the truculent libellers of the puritanical age, with whom he sympathised almost as much in opinions as in temper. Blunders and blasphemies, he said, were two species of commodities in which Mr. * He makes "W^'esley speak of him thus^ in a doggerel dialogue : I've Thomas OUver, the cobler^ (No stall in England holds a nobler,) A wight of talents universal, Whereof I'll give a brief rehearsal : He wields^ beyond most other men. His awl, his razor, and his pen ; My beard he shaves, repairs my shoe, y\nd writes my panegyric too ; He, with one brandish of his quill. Can knock down Toplady and Hill ; With equal ease, whene'er there's need. Can darn my stockings and my creed ; Can drive a nail, or ply the needle. Hem handkerchief, and scrape the fiddle ! Chop logic as an ass chews thistle, More skilfully than you can whistle ; And then, when he philosophises. No son of Crispin half so wise is. Of all my ragged regiment. This cobler gives me most content : ]\Iy forgeries and faith's defender. My barber, champion, and shoe-mender. In private, however, Toplady did justice to this antagonist. After a chance interview with him, which, for its good humour, was credit- able to both parties, he says, to a correspondent, " To say the truth, I am glad I saw Mr. Olivers, for he appears to be a person of stronger sense, and better behaviour, than I imagined. Had his understanding been cultivated by a liberal education, I believe he would have made some figure in life." I have never seen Oliver's pamphlet, but he had the right side of the argument ; and if he had not maintained his cause with respectable ability, his treatise would not have been sanctioned (on such an occasion) by Wesley, and praised by Fletcher. WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 247 Wesley had driven a larger traffic than any other blunder-merchant this country had produced. Con- sidered as a reasoner, he called him one of the most contemptible writers that ever set pen to paper. And, " abstracted from all warmth, and from all pre- judices," says he, " I beheve him to be the most rancorous hater of the Gospel system that ever ap- peared in this island." The same degree of coolness and impartiality appeared when he spoke of the doc- trines which he opposed. He insisted that Socinus and Arminius were the two necessary supporters of a free-willer's coat of arms ; " for," said he, in his vigorous manner, " Arminianism is the head, and Socinianism the tail, of one and the selfsame serpent ; and, when the head works itself in, it will soon draw the tail after it." A tract of Wesley's, in which the fatal doctrine of Necessity is controverted and ex- posed, he calls " the famous Moorfields powder, whose chief ingredients are an equal portion of gross Heathenism, Pelagianism, Mahometanism, Popery, Manich?eism, Ranterism, and Antinomianism, culled, dried, and pulverised, and mingled with as much palpable Atheism as you can scrape together." And he asserted, and attempted to prove, that Arminianism and Atheism came to the same thing. A more unfair reasoner has seldom entered the lists of theological controversy ; and yet he was not sO uncharitable as his writings, nor by any means so bad as his opinions might easily have made him. He much questioned whether an Arminian could go to heaven ; and, of course, must have supposed that Wesley, as the arch- Arminian of the age, bore about him the stamp of reprobation. Nevertheless, in one of his letters, he says, " God is Avitness how earnestly I wish it may consist with the Divine will to touch the heort, and open the eyes, of that unhappy man! I hold it as much my duty to pray for his conversion, as to ex- B 4 248 FINAL BREACH BETWEEN pose the futility of his railings against the truths of the Gospel." And, upon a report of Wesley's death, he would have stopped the publication of one of his bitter diatribes, for the purpose of expunging what- ever reflected with asperity upon the dead. There was no affectation in this : the letters in which these redeeming feelings appear, were not intended, or ex- pected, to go abroad into the world. The wise and gentle Tillotson has observed, that we shall have two wonders in heaven : the one, how many come to be absent, whom we expected to find there ; the other, liow many are there, whom we had no hope of meeting. Toplady said of Mr. Fletcher's works, that, in the very few pages which he had perused, the serious passages were dulness double-condensed, and the lighter passages impudence double-distilled: " so hardened was " his own " front," to use one of his own expressions, " and so thoroughly was he drenched in the petrifying water of a party." If ever true Christian charity was manifested in polemical writing, it was by Fletcher of Madely. Even theological controversy never in the slightest degree irritated his heavenly temper. On sending the manuscript of his first " Check to Antinomianism " to a friend, much younger than himself, he says, " I beg, as upon my bended knees, you would revise and correct it, and take off quod durius sonat in point of ivorks, reproofs and style. I have followed my light, which is but that of smoking flax; put yours to mine. I am charged hereabouts Avith scattering firebrands, ar- rows, and death. Quench some of my brands ; blunt some of my arrows ; and take off all my deaths, ex- cept that which I design for Antinomianism." " For the sake of candour," he says, in one of his prefaces, " of truth, of peace, — for the reader's sake, and, above all, for the sake of Christ, and the honour of WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 249 Christianity, whoever ye are that shall next enter the lists against us, do not wiredraw the controversy, by uncharitably attacking our persons, and absurdly judging our spirits, instead of weighing our argu- ments, and considering the Scriptures which we pro- duce ; nor pass over fifty solid reasons, and a hundred plain passages, to cavil about non-essentials, and to lay the stress of your answer upon mistakes which do not affect the strength of the cause, and which we are ready to correct as soon as they shall be pointed out. I take the Searcher of Hearts, and my judicious, unprejudiced readers to witness, that, through the whole of this controversy, far from concealing the most plausible objections, or avoiding the strongest arguments which are or may be advanced against our reconciling doctrine, I have carefully searched them out, and endeavoured to encounter them as openly as David did Goliah. Had our opponents followed this method, I doubt not but the controversy would have ended, long ago, in the destruction of our prejudices, and in the rectifying of our mistakes. Oh ! if we preferred the unspeakable pleasure of finding out the truth, to the pitiful honour of pleasing a party, or of vindicating our own mistakes, how soon would the useful fan of scriptural, logical, and brotherly contro- versy purge the floor of the Church ! — how soon would the light of truth, and the flame of love, burn the chafl^ of error, and the thorns of prejudice, with fire unquenchable ! " In such a temper did this saintly man address himself to the Avork of controversy ; and he carried it on with correspondent candour, and with distinguished ability. His manner is difluse, and the florid parts, and the unction, betray their French origin ; but the reasoning is acute and clear ; the spirit of his writings is beautiful, and he was master of the subject in all its bearings. His great object was to conciliate the 250 FINAL BREACH BKTWEEN two purtles, and to draw the line between the soliiidian and Pelagian errors. For this purpose he composed a treatise, which he called an " Equal Check to Pha- risaism and Antinomianism ; or, Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth, and to balance a Multitude of opposite Scriptures." Herein he brought together, side by side, the opposite texts, and showed how they qualified each other : the opinion which he inferred seems to correspond more nearly with that of Baxter than of any other divine. He traced, histori- cally, the growth of both the extremes against which he contended. Luther, being an Augustinian monk, brought -svitli him, from his convent, the favourite opinions of Augustine, to which he became the more attached, because of the value which the Romanists affixed to their superstitious works, and the fooleries and abominations which had sprung from this cause.* Most of the Reformers, and more especially Calvin, took the same ground. The Jesuits, seeing their error, inclined the Romish Church to the opposite ex- treme ; and after a while, Jansenius formed a Cal- vinistic party among the Catholics, while Arminius tempered the doctrine of the reformed churches. Antinomianism was the legitimate consequence on the one part, and Mr. Fletcher thought that the English clergy were tending toward Pelagianism on the other. His great object was to trim the balance, and above all, to promote Christian charity and Christian union. " My regard for unity," said he, " recovers my droop- ing spirits, and adds new strength to my wasted body (he was believed, at that time, to be in the last stage of a consumption) ; I stop at the brink of the * Thus the old author of Neonomianism Unmasked, places "the Calvinian Society in Gracious-street, at the sign of the Geneva Arms, just opposite to the sign of Cardinal Hellarniiiie's Head, at the foot of the bridge that crosses Reformation River, that divides between the Protestant and Popish cantons." WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 251 grave, over which I bend ; and as the blood oozing from my decayed lungs does not permit me vocally to address ray contending brethren, by means of my pen I will ask them, if they can properly receive the holy communion^ while they luilfully remain in disunion with tlieir brethren, from Avhom controversy has needlessly parted them!" He was then about to leave England, for what appeared to be a forlorn hope of deriving benefit from his native air ; but, before his departure, he expressed a desire of seeing those persons with whom he had been engaged in this con- troversy, that, " all doctrinal differences apart, he might testify his sincere regret for having given them the least displeasure, and received from them some condescending assurance of reconciliation and good will. All of them had not generosity enough to ac- cept the invitation ; they who did, were edified, as well as affected, by the interview ; and some of them, who had had no personal acquaintance with him be- fore, " expressed the highest satisfaction," says his biographer, " at being introduced to the company of one whose air and countenance bespoke him fitted rather for the society of angels than the conversation of men." Upon the score of controversial offences, few men have ever had so little need to ask for- giveness. When Mr. Fletcher offended his antagonists, it was not by any personalities, or the slightest breathing of a malicious spirit, but by the ironical manner in which he displayed the real nature of their monstrous doctrine. For his talents were of the quick mercurial kind ; his fancy was always active, and he might have held no inconsiderable rank, both as a humorous and as an empassioned Avriter, if he had not confined himself wholly to devotional subjects. But his happy illustrations had the effect of provoking his opponents, Mr. Wesley also, by the unanswerable manner in which 252 FINAL IJllKACII JJKTWICKN he treated the Culvmistic question, drew upon himself the fierce resentment of a host of enemies. They were confounded ; but they would not be convinced ; and tliey assailed him with a degree of rancorous hatred, which, even in theological controversy, has never been exceeded. " He was as weak as he was vicious," they said : "he was like a monkey, an eel, or a squirrel, perpetually twisting and twining all manner of ways. There was little probity, or common honesty, disco- verable in that man — that Arminian priest : he was incapable of appreciating real merit; and his blasphemous productions were horror to the soul, and torture to the ear. And for his doctrine — the cursed doctrine of free-will, it was the most God- dishonouring and soul-distressing doctrine of the day ; it was one of the prominent features of the Beast ; it was the enemy of God, and the offspring of the wicked one ; the insolent brat of hell. Arminianism was the spiritual pestilence which had given the Protestant churches the plague : like a mortal scorpion, it carries a sting in its tail, that affects with stupefaction, in- sensibility, and death, all whom it strikes." The unforgivable offence which drew upon Wesley and his doctrine this sort of obloquy, with which volumes have been filled, was the sermon upon Free Grace, that had been the occasion of the breach with Whiteheld. It is one of the most able and eloquent of all his discourses ; a triumphant specimen of em- passioned argument. " Call it by whatever name you please," said he, attacking the Calvinistic doctrine, " Election, Preterition, Predestination, or Repro- bation, it comes to the same thing. The sense is plainly this : By virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly dannied ; it l)eing impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter sliould be saved." WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 253 He proceeded to show, that it made all preaching vain*, as needless to the elect, and useless to the reprobate; and therefore that it could not be a doctrine of God, because it makes void his ordinance : that it tended to produce spiritual pride in some, absolute despair in others, and to destroy our zeal for good works : that it made revelation contradictory and useless; and that it was full of blasphemy, — "of such blasphemy," said he, "as I should dread to mention, but that the honour of our gracious God, and the cause of truth, will not suffer me to be silent. In the cause of God," he pursues, " and from a sincere concern for the glory of his great name, I will men- tion a few of the horrible blasphemies contained in this horrible doctrine. But first I must warn every one of you that hears, as ye will answer it at the great day, not to charge me, as some have done, with blaspheming, because I mention the blasphemy of others. And the more you are grieved with them that do thus blaspheme, see that ye ' confirm your love towards them' the more, and that your heart's desire, and continual prayer to God, be, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ! ' " This premised, let it be observed, that this doctrine represents our blessed Lord, ' Jesus Christ, the righteous, the only-begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth,' as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that he every where speaks as if he were willing that all men should be saved ; there- fore, to say he was not willing that all men should be * But why so? If the end be necessary, must not the means be so likewise ? Does God think by abstractions, generahsations, and logical antitheses, as we do? (Yet even we, not conclusively — except where we have taken the mechanism of our finite understanding (0poj?;yua <7ap/cdc) as our master, instead of using it as our instrument.) In the eye of God, are not all things means, in relation to himself, and all things ends, relatively to the agent and creature? — S. T. C. 254 FINAL BREACH BETWEEN saved, is to represent him as a mere ]iy[)Ocrite and dissembler. It cannot be denied, that the gracious words which came out of his mouth are full of invitations to all sinners : to say, then. He did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent him as a gross deceiver of the j^eople. You cannot deny that he says, ' Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden ! ' If, then, you say He calls those that cannot come, those whom he knows to be unable to come, those whom he can make able to come, but will not, how is it possible to describe greater insincerity ? You represent him as mocking his helpless creatures, by offering what he never intends to give. You describe him as saying one thing, and meaning an- other ; as pretending the love which he had not. Him, in whose mouth was no guile, you make full of deceit, void of common sincerity : then, especially when drawing nigh the city, he wept over it, and said, ' 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not!' (TJQsXryO-a xai ou;« r]5sXr'o-ciT£.) Now, if you say they ivould, but he would not, you represent him (which who could hear !) as weeping crocodile tears over the prey which he had doomed to destruction ! " Such blasphemy this, as, one would think, might make the ears of a Christian to tingle ! But there is yet more behind; for, just as it honours the Son, so doth this doctrine honour the Father. It destroys all his attributes at once : it overturns both liis justice, mercy, and truth. Yes, it represents the Most Holy God as worse than the devil ; as more false, more cruel, and more unjust. More false, because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said he willeth all mankind to be saved : more unjust, because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God, when you say, that WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 255 God condemned millions of souls to everlastino- fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, for continuing in sin, which, for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid : and more cruel, because that unliappy spirit ' seeketh rest, and findeth none,' so that his own restless misery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others. But God ' resteth in his high and holy place ; ' so that to suppose him, out of his mere motion, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or not, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him, as we caimot impute even to the great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the Most High God (he that hath ears to hear, let him hear!) as more cruel, false, and unj ust than the devil ! " This is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of Predestination. And here 1 fix my foot. On this I join issue with ever}' assertor of it. You represent God as worse than the devil ; more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will prove it by Scripture. Hold ! What will you prove by Scripture? that God is worse than the devil ? It cannot be. Whatever that Scrif)ture proves, it never proves this : whatever be its true meaning, it cannot mean this. Do you ask what is its true meaning, then? If I say, I know not, you have gained nothing; for there are many Scriptures, the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know, till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know, better it were to say it had no sense at all, than to say it had such a sense as this. It cannot mean, whatever it mean beside, that the God of truth is a liar. Let it mean what it will, it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No Scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works : that is, whatever it prove beside, no Scripture can jDrove Predestination. 256 FINAL BREACH BETWEEN " This is the blasphemy for whicli I Jiblior the doctrine of Predestination ; a doctrine, upon the supposition of which, if one could possibly suppose it for a moment, — call it election, reprobation, or what you please, (for all comes to the same thing,) — one might say to our adversary the devil, ' Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer ? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not, that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands, and that he doth it more eifectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee; but He can irresistibly destroy both body and soul in hell! Thou canst only entice; but His unchangeable decree, to leave thousands of souls in death, compels them to continue in sin till they drop into everlasting burnings. Thou temptest ; He forceth us to be damned, for we cannot resist his will. Thou fool ! why goest thou about any longer, seeking whom thou mayest devour ? Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the destroyer of souls, the murderer of men ? Moloch caused only children to pass through the fire, and that fire was soon quenched; or, the corruptible body being consumed, its torments were at an end ; but God, thou art told, by his eternal decree, fixed before they had done good or evil, causes not only children of a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fire of hell ; that fire which never shall be quenched: and the body Avhich is cast thereinto, being now incorruptible and immortal, will be ever consuming and never con- sumed ; but the smoke of their torment, because it is God's good pleasure, ascendeth up for ever.' " Oh, how would the enemy of God and man rejoice to hear these things were so! How would he cry aloud, and spare not! How would he lift up his voice, and say, To your tents, O Isi'ael ! Flee from the WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 257 face of tills God, or ye shall utterly perish. But whither will ye flee? Into heaven? He is there. Down to hell? He is there also. Ye cannot flee from an omnipresent, almighty tyrant. And whether ye flee or stay, I call Heaven, his throne, and Earth, his footstool, to witness against you : ye shall perish, ye shall die eternally ! Sing, 0 Hell, and rejoice ye that are under the earth ! for God, even the mighty God, hath spoken, and devoted to death thousands of souls, from the rising of the sun, unto the going down thereof. Here, 0 Death, is thy sting ! They shall not, cannot escape, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Here, 0 Grave, is thy victory ! Nations yet unborn, or ever they have done good or evil, are doomed never to see the light of life ; but thou shalt gnaw upon them for ever and ever. Let all those morning stars sing together, who fell witli Lucifer, son of the morning ! Let all the sons of hell shout for joy; for the decree is past, and who shall annul it ? " Yes ! the decree is past ; and so it was before the foundation of the world. But Avhat decree ? Even this : ' I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing ; ' and ' the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth deatli shall die.' This decree, whereby -whom God ' did foreknow, he did predestinate,' was indeed from everlasting: this, w^hereby all who suffer Christ to make them alive, are ' elect according to the foreknowledge of God,' now standeth fast, even as the moon, and the faithful witness in heaven ; and when heaven and earth shall pass away, yet this shall not pass away, for it is as unchangeable and eternal as the being of God that gave it. This decree yields the strongest encouragement to abound in all good works, and in all holiness; and it is a well-spring of joy, of happi- ness also, to our great and endless comfort. This is worthy of God. It is every way consistent with the VOL. II. s , 258 FINAL BIIEACII BETWEEN perfection of liis nature. It gives us the noblest view both of his justice, mercy, and truth. To this agrees the whole scope of the Christian Revelation, as well as all the parts thereof. To this Moses and all the prophets bear witness ; and our blessed Lord, and all his apostles. Thus Moses, in the name of his Lord, ' I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.' Thus Ezekiel (to cite one prophet for all) : ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die ; the son shall not bear (eternally) the iniquity of the father. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.' Thus our blessed Lord : ' If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink !' Thus his great apostle St. Paul : ' God commandeth all men, every where, to repent.' All men, everi/ where; every man, in every place, without any exception, either of place or person. Thus St. James : ' If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him ! ' Thus St. Peter : ' The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' And thus St. John : ' If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but for the sins of tlie Avliole world.' " 0 hear ye this, ye that forget God ! ye cannot charge your death upon him. ' Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die ? saith the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast aAvay from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have trans- gressed ; for why Avill ye die, 0 house of Israel ? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore, turn yourselves, WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 259 and live ye.' — ' As I live, saitli the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel ?' "* A history of Wesley's life would be imperfect, unless it contained this memorable passage, — the most remarkable and the most powerful in all his works. It exasperated beyond measure those who, in their own conceit, had taken out their patent of election, and considered themselves, in Mr. Toplady's language, (himself one of the number,) as " kings f incog. ^ travelling, disguised like pilgrims, to their dominions above." Even temperate Calvinists were shocked, and have said, that Mr. Wesley's " horrid appeal to all the devils in hell gave a sort of infernal tone to the controversy." It is, indeed, in a tremen- dous strain of eloquence, and shows with what indig- nation the preacher, in his zeal for God, and in his love for his fellow- creatures, regarded a doctrine so injurious to both. In an evil hour did the restless mind of man devise for itself the perilous question of fatalism ; and, in a more unhappy one, was it intro- duced into Christian theology. The Fathers of our Church perceived the danger on both sides, and en- • The preceding page is truly excellent ; but still it does not lay the axe to the root of the mischief. Still the Predestinarian will urge — Is God's knowledge and prescience confined to abstract positions ? — to words and generalised synopses, blind to the individual realities from which they were generalised ? I am convinced that the only effective way of dealing with the Predestinarians is that which I have stated in the " Aids to Reflection," and still more precisely and perspicuously in a MS. note in an earlier part of this work, (viz.) by demonstrating the inherent un- reality and inconsequence of all logic and all logical conclusion. — S.T.C. + The expression, however, was adopted from Timothy Rogers, in whose Discourse concerning Trouble of Mind and the Disease of Melancholy, it thus occurs : " A Christian in this world is like a king that travels incognito in a strange land : he is coarsely treated by men that do not know the greatness of his birth and quality ; he travels but in the habit of a pilgrim, and cloaked with heaviness, and hath tears for his meat and drink." — p. 384-. s 2 260 FINAL BREACH BETWEEN deavoured to keep the golden mean. " All men," said tliey, " be to be monished, and chiefly preachers, that, in this high matter, they, looking on both sides, so attemper and moderate themselves, that neither they so preach the grace of God, that they take away thereby free-will, nor, on the other side, so extol free- Avill, that injury be done to the grace of God." And in the directions for preachers, which were set forth in the latter years of James I., it was enjoined, " that no preacher, of what title soever, under the degree of a bishop, or dean at the least, should, from thence- forth, presume to preach, in any popular auditory, deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or of the universality, eflicacy, resistibility, or irresisti- bility of God's grace; but leave those themes rather to be handled by learned men, and that moderately and modestly, by way of use and application, rather than by way of positive doctrines, being fitter for the schools than for simple auditories." The puritans exclaimed against this prohibition, whereby, they said, man made that the forbidden fruit, which God appointed for the tree of life. But, upon this point, even the popes themselves, in the plenitude of their power, were not able to impose silence. Wesley had once a whimsical proof of the horror with which the high-flying Calvinists regarded him. One afternoon, on the road from Newport Pagnel to Northampton, " I overtook," says he, " a serious man, with whom I immediately fell into conversation. He presently gave me to know what his opinions were ; therefore 1 said nothing to contradict them. But that did not content him ; he was quite uneasy to know whether I held the doctrine of the decrees as he did : but I told him, over and over, we had better keep to pi'actical things, lest we should be angry at one another. And so we did for two miles, till he caught me unawares, and dragged me into the dis- WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. 261 pute before I knew where I was. He then grew warmer and warmer, told me I was rotten at heart, and supposed I was one of John Wesley's followers. I told him, ' No, I am John Wesley himself ! ' Upon which, Improvisum aspris veluti qui sentibus anguem Pressit, he would gladly have run away outright ; but being the better mounted of the two, I kept close to his side, and endeavoured to show him his heart, till we came into the street of Northampton." s3 262 CHAPTER XXVI. Wesley's clerical coadjutors. — mr. grimshaw. DR. COKE. THE GREEK BISHOP. WESLEY's credulity. A FEW years before this final and irreparable breach with the Calvinists, Wesley had attempted to form an open and active union between all such clergymen as have more recently arrogated to themselves the ap- pellation of Evangelical, or Gospel ministers. With this hope he sent round a circular letter, to some fifty ministers of the Church of England, wherein he pro- posed that, leaving free disputable points of predes- tination on one side, and perfection on the other; laying no stress upon expressions, and binding them- selves to no peculiar discipline ; but some remaining quite regular, others quite irregular; and others, again, partly the one and partly the other, — they should think and speak kindly of each other, form as it were a defensive league, and each help the other on in his work, and enlarge his influence by all rightful means. If any thing more were meant by this than that each should occasionally accommodate the others with his pulpit, and that they should countenance his itinerant lay preachers, the meaning is not obvious. On this occasion, also, Mr. Wesley looked for an omen ; and relates, with evident complacency, at the end of the letter, that one of his friends having objected to him the impossibility of effecting such an union, he went up stairs, and, after a little prayer, opened Kempis on these words : Expecta Dominum ; viriliter age ; 7ioli dljjlclere ; noli discedcre ; sed corpus et animam e.rpone constanter pro gloria Dei. Wesley's clerical coadjutors. 263 The greater part of the methodising clergy adhered to Lady Huntingdon's party in the dispute. Among those who remained attached to Mr. Wesley, Vincent Perronet, the vicar of Shoreham, was one, who was, either by birth or extraction, a Swiss, and who, in the Romish Church, would have been beatified or canon- ised, for what, in mystical language, would be called his rapts^ as well as for the uniform piety of his life. William Grimshaw, who held the perpetual curacy of Haworth, in one of the wildest parts of the West Riding, was a more active associate. In his uncon- verted state, this person was certainly insane ; and, had he given utterance at that time to the monstrous and horrible ima<2;inations which he afterwards re- vealed to his spiritual friends, he would deservedly have been sent to Bedlam. His change of mind, which was not till he had been ten years in holy orders, was preceded by what he supposed to be a miraculous impression upon his senses, and which may possibly have been an electrical or galvanic effect * : and in the course of his ministry, he was favoured with a vision in a trance ; that is to say, he mistook delirium for reality, f He became, however, a very zealous parish priest ; and his oddities, which procured him the name of Mad Grimshaw, did not prevent him from being very useful among a set of parishioners who are said to have been as wild as the bleak barren country * Mr. Joseph Williams, of Kidderminster, relates the fact from Grimshaw's own testimony : " At last the time of his deliverance came. At the house of one of his friends he lays his hand on a book, and opens it with his face towards a pewter shelf. Instantly his face is saluted with an uncommon flash of heat. He turns to the title-page, and finds it to be Dr. Owen on Justification. Immediately he is sur- prised with such another flash. He borrows the book, studies it, is led into God's method of justifying the ungodly, hath a new heart given him, and now, behold, he prayeth !" •{• The case seems to have been an apoplectic affection of the slightest kind: the detail may be seen in his life by Mr. Myles (p. 14.), as given by himself to Mr. Williams of Kidderminster. A more remarkable case of tlie same kind is noticed in the Quarterly Review, vol. x. pp. 1 17. 118. S 4 264 Wesley's clerical coadjutors. whicli they iiiliaLited, and to have had little more sense of religion than their cattle. The parish contained four hamlets, in each of which he made it a rule to preach three times a month, partly for the sake of the old and infirm, but cliiefly for those who scarcely ever attended the church, be- cause of the distance. As he found that people were willing to hear him, he extended his preaching into his neighbours' parishes, without troubling himself to ask the consent of the minister, or caring whether he liked it or not. In this way he established two circuits of his own, which he went round every fortnight : in the more populous, he preached from four-and-twenty to thirty times in the week ; and, in the other, about half as often ; wherefore he called this his idle week. While he was at home, he had a morning meeting for prayer and exhortation at his own house, at five o'clock in the summer, and at six in mnter. At church he would stop in the midst of the prayers, if he saw any person inattentive, and rebuke the offender; and, while the psalms were singing before sermon, he would go out to see if any persons Avere idling in the churchyard, or in the street, or in the alehouses, and drive as many as he could find into the church before him. These were not the only means which he used for bringing his parishioners into order. Having taken up the dismal puritanical notion, that it is sinful to walk in the fields for recreation on the Sabbath day, he would set out himself, in order to reprove such persons as he detected in the fact. This odd humour led him also, like the Caliph Haroun Alras- chid, in the Arabian Tales, to go out in disguise, and see in what manner his instructions were observed, and how far the people were in reality wdiat they made themselves appear to him. Thus he went to the door of a great professor of charity, and begged a night's lodging, in the character of a poor man, and MK. GRIMSHAW. 265 was turned away with abuse. And he teased a pur- blind woman, by touching her repeatedly with a stick, like a mischievous boy, till, taking him for one, and finding threats insufficient, she gave her tongue the reins, and began to swear. Neither of these were fair trials : but discretion was no part of his character. Such, however, was the effect which he produced by his zeal, his vigilance, and his real worth, that a man who, being on his way for a midwife one Sunday, wanted his horse shod in the village, could not prevail upon the blacksmith to do the job, till they had gone together to Mr. Grimshaw, and he had granted per- mission, being satisfied of the necessity of the case. And it was believed, long after his death, that he had put a stop to the races at Haworth by his prayers, because, when he had often and vainly attempted to dissuade the people from subscribing and promoting these meetings, for the benefit of the publicans, he prayed at length that the Lord would be pleased to put a stop to the evil proceedings in his own way, a heavy rain during the whole three days spoiled the sport, and, after that time, the mischievous custom was not revived. Grimshaw entered entirely into Mr. AVesley's views, acted as assistant in the circuit wherein he resided, and attended the Conference every third year, when it was held at Leeds. When Whitefield or Wesley came to visit him, a scaffold was erected for them in the churchyard, the church not being large enough to hold the concourse that assembled. Prayers, there- fore, were read in the church, the preaching was in the open air, and the sacrament was afterwards ad- ministered to successive congregations, one church-full after another. Whitefield happened, in one of his sermons, to speak as if he believed his hearers had pro- fited much by the exertions of the faithful pastor who had so long laboured among them: but Grimshaw 266 Wesley's clerical coadjutors. stood up, and interrupted him immediately, saying, with a loud voice, " Oh, Sir, for God's sake do not speak so ! I pray you, do not flatter them : I fear the greater part of them are going to hell with their eyes open," His admiration of the itinerants was very great : his house was their home; they preached in his kitchen, and he always gave notice at church when this was to be ; and, that their flock might not be scat- tered after his death, when a more regular and less zealous minister should succeed him, he built a chapel and dwelling-house at his own expense, and settled it upon the Methodist plan. He not only received the preachers as his guests, but as many visitors as his house would hold ; giving up his own bed, and sleep- ing, unknown to them, in the hayloft. No ofiice appeared to him too humble on such occasions — no mark of respect too great for a successful preacher of the Gospel. He was once found cleaning the boots of an itinerant : once he embraced a preacher after his sermon, and said, " The Lord bless thee, Ben ; this is worth a hundred of my sermons ! " and he fell down before another, saying, he was not worthy to stand in his presence. The only son of this singular man was educated at Kingswood, and became a drunkard, " notwithstanding he had been favoured with a reli- gious education," says his father's biographer, " and had been prayed for by some of the holiest men in the land." The severe and injudicious system under which -^ he had suftered at school, and the eccentricities which he had seen at home, may easily explain the wonder. The poor fellow, however, had a sense of his own Avorthlessness and degeneracy; and when he was riding home, in a state of intoxication, would sometimes say to his horse, the one which Grimshaw had ridden upon his circuits, " Once thou carried a saint, but now thou carriest a devil." Disease and strong pain, the bitter consequences of his course of life, brought him to re- DE. COKE. 267 pcntancc and to the grave ; and some of bis last words were, " What will iny father say, when he sees that I am got to heaven ! " Of the few clergymen who entered into Mr. Wesley's views, and heartily co-operated with him, Mr. Grim- shaw was the most eccentric ; Mr. Fletcher the most remarkable for intellectual powers : the one who entered most entirely into the affairs of the Society was Thomas Coke. This person, who held so dis- tinguished a place among the Methodists, and by Avhose unwearied zeal, and indefatigable exertions, that spirit which Mr. Wesley had kindled in England was extended to the remotest parts of the world, was born at Brecknock, in the year 1 747, the only child of respectable and wealthy parents. The father died during his childhood, and the youth, in his seven- teenth year, was entered as a gentleman commoner at Jesus College, Oxford. He escaped from the university "with fewer vices than in those days were generally contracted there; but he brought away a taint of that philosophistical infidelity which was then beginning to infect half-learned men. The works of - Bishop Sherlock reclaimed him : he entered into holy orders, and being in expectation of some considerable preferment, took out his degree of doctor of laws. The disappointment which he experienced from cer- tain persons in power, to whom he had looked as patrons, was of little consequence to him, being possessed of a fair patrimony. He accepted the curacy of South Petherton, in Somersetshire, and entered upon the duties of his office with more than ordinary zeal. His preaching soon filled the church : more room was wanting for the congregation ; and as the vestry would not be persuaded to erect a gallery, he built one at his own expense. This, and the style of his discourses, raised a suspicion that he was inclined to Methodism. The growing inclination 268 Wesley's clerical coadjutors. was streiigtliened by conversation with Maxfield, who happened then to be residing in the neighbourhood, and confirmed by the perusal of Alleine's Alarum to the Unconverted.* He now preached extempora- neously, established evening lectures, and introduced hymns into the Church ; but, by thus going on faster than the parishioners were prepared to follow, he excited a strong spirit of opposition; complaints against him were preferred to the bishop, and to the rector : the former merely admonished him ; by the latter he was dismissed, in a manner which seems to have been studiously disrespectful, before the people publicly, on the Sabbath day : and his enemies had the indecency to chime him out of the church. These insults roused his Welsh blood ; and he determined, with more spirit than prudence, to take his stand near the church on the two following Sundays, and preach to the people when they came out, for the purpose of vindicating himself, gratifying his adherents, and ex- horting his opponents to repentance. These, who were probably the more numerous, were so provoked at this, that they collected stones, for the purpose of pelting him, on his second exhibition ; and the Doctor would hardly have escaped without some serious injury, if a young lady and her brother, whom the people knew and respected, liad not placed themselves one on each side of him. He now took the earliest opportunity of being introduced to Wesley. The latter soon came into Somersetshire in his rounds, and thus notices the meetino; in his Journal: " Here * " A book which multitudes will have cause for ever to be thank- ful for," says Calamy. No book in the English tongue (the Bible ex- cepted) can equal it for the number that hath been dispersed ; for there have been 20,000 of them printed and sold under the title of the Call, or Alarum to the Unconverted, in 8vo. or 12mo. ; and 50,000 of the same book have been sold under the title of the Sure Guide to Heaven, 30,000 of which were at one impression." — Account of the Ejected Ministers, vol. ii. p. 577. DR. COKE. 269 I found a clergyman, Dr. Coke, late a gentleman commoner of Jesus College in Oxford, who came twenty miles on purpose to meet me. I had much conversation with him ; and an union then began, Avhich I trust shall never end." This was in the year 1776. Dr. Coke immediately became a member of the Methodist Society, and was soon regarded as the most efficient of all Mr. Wesley's fellow-labourers. Having wholly given himself up to the Connection, the second place in it was naturally assigned to him. No other of its active members was possessed of equal fortune and rank in society; and all that he had, his fortune, to every shilling, and his life, to every minute that could be employed in active exertions, were devoted to its interests. He was now considered as Mr. Wesley's more immediate re- presentative ; and, instead of being stationed, like the other preachers, in a circuit, he travelled, like Mr. Wesley, as a general inspector, wherever liis presence was thought needful. In Ireland, more particularly, he visited the Societies alternately with Mr. Wesley, so that an annual visitation was always made. Before Mr. Wesley became acquainted with Dr. Coke, Mr. Fletcher had been looked to as the fittest person to act as his coadjutor, and succeed to as much of liis authority as could be deputed to any successor. But Mr. Fletcher shrunk from the invidious distinction, and from the difficulties of the task : he had found his place, and knew where he could be most usefully employed for others, and most happily for himself. The want of clerical assistants had been severely felt by Wesley. Notwithstanding his attachment to the Church of England, and his desire not only to-> continue in union with it himself, but to preserve his people from forming a schism, the tendency to sepa- ration became every year more apparent, from various causes, of which some were incidental ; but others 270 TENDENCY TO SCHISM. arose iiiovitably from the system which he liad es- tablished. A hostile leelino- toward the Church was o retained by the dissenters who united themselves to the Methodists : these proselytes were not numerous, but they leavened the Society. It is likely too, that, as Methodism began to assume consistency and im- portance, just at the time when the Non-jurors were on the point of dissolution, a considerable proportion of that party would rather ally themselves with it, than with the sectarians or the Establishment ; and these persons also would bring with them an un- favourable disposition toward the Church. But the main cause is obviously to be found in the growing influence of the lay preachers, their jealousy of the few clergymen who acted with them, their natural desire of placing themselves upon a level with the ministers of other denominations, and the disrespect with which the Establishment began to be regarded by most of those persons who preferred the preaching at the Chapel to that in the Church. And though Wesley often and earnestly warned them against this, neither his lanouawe nor his conduct were at all times o a consistent. In controversy, and in self-defence, he was sometimes led to speak of the unworthy ministers of the Establishment in terms of indignation, not considering that his remarks would be generally applied by many of his followers. The oTowino; desire of the itinerants to raise them- selves in rank, and of the societies to have the sacra- ment administered by their own preachers, induced Wesley, who, in the continual bustle of his life, some- times acted without due consideration, to take the strange means of obtaining orders for some of his lay assistants from a Greek, who called himself Erasmus, and appeared in London with the title of Bishop of Arcadia. Tliis measure was, in every point of view, injudicious. Charles was decidedly hostile to it, and THE GREEK BISHOP. 271 would never allow the preachers who had been thus ordained to assist him at the communion table. Sta- niforth Avas one ; and he found it so invidious among his colleagues, that he never thought proper to exer- cise the ministerial functions. On the other hand, some, both of the local and itinerant preachers, co- veted the distinction, and prevailed upon the obliging bishop to lay his hands upon them, Avithout Mr.Wes-- ley's consent. Displeased at this disregard of his- authority, he acted with his wonted decision, and at once excluded from the Connection those who would not forego the powers with which they supposed themselves to be invested. It was doubtful whether this Erasmus * was what he pretended to be ; and the whole transaction gave Wesley's enemies an op- portunity of attacking him, which they did not fail to use. Tliey charged him with having violated the oath of supremacy, by thus inducing a foreign prelate to exercise acts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within this realm ; and they alleged that he had even pressed the * Toplady saw a certificate given by this vagrant, as he calls him, to the persons whom he pretended to ordain. It confirmed him in his opinion that the man was an impostor, because it was written, not in the modern Greek, but in the ancient, and of a very mean sort. This is the translation: "Our measure from the grace, gift, and power of the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, given by our Saviour Jesus Christ to his divine and holy apostles, to ordain sub-deacons and deacons, and also to advance to the dignity of a priest! Of this grace, which hath descended to our humility, I have ordained sub-deacon and deacon, at Snow-fields Chapel, on the ipth day of Nov. 1764, and at West-street Chapel, on the 24th of the same month, priest, the Rev. Mr. W. C, according to the rules of the holy apostles and of our faith. Moreover, I have given to him power to minister and teach, in all the world, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, no one forbidding him in the Church of God. Wherefore, for that very purpose, I have made this present letter of recommendation from our humility, and have given it to the ordained Mr. W. C. for his certificate and security. '■' Given and written at London, in Britain, Nov. 24. 1764. " Erasmus, Bishop of Arcadia." Mr. Nightingale says, that inquiry concerning him was made of the patriarch of Smyrna, and that it appeared he really was Bishop of Ar- x. cadia, in Crete. 272 THE GREEK BlSIIOl'. Greek to consecrate liiin a bishop also, that he might then ordain what ministers he pleased. Erasmus Avas said to have refused, because, according to the canons of the Greek Church, more than one bishop must be present to assist at the consecration of a new one. Charles Wesley was even accused, in the Gospel Ma- gazine, of having oiFered the Greek forty guineas, if he would perform the ceremony. This is palpably false : nothing can be so incredible as that Charles Wesley would have made such an offer, except that a bishop of Arcadia in London should have refused it. The charge of simony is, beyond all doubt, purely calumnious — in the spirit of that slander which the Gospel Magazine breathed in all its numbers. But there seems reason to believe that Wesley was willing to have been episcopised upon this occasion. Both brothers retained the fancy of baptizing by immersion, after they had outgrown many other eccentricities ; and Wesley followed this mode some- times in condescension to the whims of others, when he had ceased to attach any importance to it, and must have perceived the exceeding inconvenience of the practice. One of the charges which the virulent Toplady brought against him was, that of having im- mersed a certain Lydia Sheppard in a bathing-tub, in a cheesemonger's cellar in Spitalfields, and holding her so long under water, while he deliberately pro- nounced the words of administration, that she was almost insensible when she was taken out. The story was related on her own authority, which probably was not the best in the world. But Wesley's course of life brought him into contact with persons under every disease of mind, and in all the intermediate stages between madness and roguery. Crazy people, indeed, found their way to him as commonly as they used to do to court, though with less mischievous intentions. CRAZY ENTHUSIASTS. 273 They generally went in a spirit of pure kindness, to enlighten him, and correct his errors. Two ignorant dreamers, while the French prophets had a party in this country, called upon him at the Foundry, saying, they were sent from God to inform him, that very shortly he should be horn'd again ; and they added, that they would stay in the house till it was done, unless he turned them out. Wesley knew how to deal with such prophets as these : he assured them that he would not turn them ovit, showed them into the Society room, and left them to themselves. " It was tolerably cold," he says, " and they had neither meat nor drink." There, however, they sate from morning till evening, then quietly walked off, and troubled him with their company no more. A woman came to him, one day, with a message from the Lord, she said, to tell him he was laying up treasures on earth, taking his ease, and minding only eating and drinking. " I told her," says he, " God knew me better; and, if he had sent her, it would have been with a more proper message." The idle notion, that he was enriching himself, prevailed among persons who might easily have known better. He re- ceived a letter from the Board of Excise, telling him the commissioners could not doubt but that he had plate, for which he had neglected to make an entry, and requiring him immediately to make a proper re- turn. His answer was, " Sir, I have two silver tea- spoons at London, and two at Bristol : this is all the plate which I have at present ; and I shall not buy any more, while so many round me want bread." In the beginning of his career, Wesley perceived that there was more danger of the growth of infidelity than of superstition ; and this opinion was confirmed by his after-experience. He discovered, in the beau- tiful vale of Lorton, that Deism had found its way into the heart of the Cumbrian mountains ; and near VOL. IT. T ■tJ^trr-' 274 INFIDELS. Manchester he found, what he liacl never lieard of m England, a whole clan of infidel peasants, who had been scoffed and argued out of their belief by the valgar ribaldry and impudent ignorance of an ale- ^ house-keeper. Of the persons whom he met with in this unhappy state of mind, some were contented to live without God in the world, and be as the beasts v that perish, as if they had succeeded in annihilating their diviner part. But others confessed the misery of wandering in doubt and darkness. One who, having been a zealous Romanist, had cast off Popery and _^ Christianity together, said to him, " I know there is a God, and I believe him to be the soul of all, the *°^ aniiiia mundi; if he be not rather, as I sometimes think, ^ the To riav, the whole compages of body and spirit every where diffused. But farther than this I know yil^' U ^^^ • ^^^ ^^ dark; my thought is lost. Whence I ^ ' '"^ 'came, I know not; nor what, nor why, I am; nor Avhither I am going. But this I know, I am unhappy ; I am weary of life ; I wish it were at an end." For men in this pitiable state Wesley was an excel- lent physician, and he had not unfrequently the satis- "^ faction of knowing that his advice was not given in ^ vain. He himself had gone through this stage ofx ^ doubt in early life, and has described the perplexity ^ of his mind with great force and feeling. " After carefully heaping up," he says, " the strongest argu- ments which I could find, either in ancient or modern ' authors, for the very being of a God, and (which is ^^ nearly connected with it) the existence of an invisible - world, I have wandered up and down musing with myself, what if all these things which I see around me, this earth and heaven, this universal frame, have -t existed from eternity? What if that melancholy sup- position of the old poet be the real case ? ^ ^ What if the generation of men be exnctly pnrnllel >^ 4 r^.A^lj f^ ^ J Ltx/^ h^ ^d' Wesley's state of doubt. 275 with the generation of leaves — if the earth drop its ^ successive inhabitants just as the tree drops its leaves ? What if that saying of a great man be really true, Post mortem nihil est, et ipsa mors nihil, Death is nothing, and nothing is after death. How am I sure that this is not the case ? — that I have not ' fol- lowed cunningly-devised fables?' * And I have pur- sued the thought till there was no spirit in me, and I was ready to choose strangling rather than life."f On the other hand, there could not be a more dangerous counsellor for persons with a certain tend- ency to derangement, for he seems always to have delighted to believe extraordinary things which he ought to have doubted, and to have encouraged sallies of enthusiasm which he ought to liave repressed. Thus, speaking of a lady who exhibited before him her gift of extempore prayer, he says, " Such a prayer I never heard before ; it was perfectly an original ; odd and unconnected, made up of disjointed frag- • ments, and yet like a flame of fire : every sentence went through my heart, and, I believe, the heart of * I too (but iiuleed what mind of any common sensibility has not ?) have been whirled round in the same eddy : hut I used to find relief in the reflection, that were it so, I should not be putting the question, or capable of doubting it sufficiently even to be conscious of it. I should drop as the leaves; for my impulse to ask respecting it must have a source, and, according to the hypothesis, this source must be God. — S.~T.C. t Wesley introduced a remarkable passage of this kind in one of his f. Ct>-*-«>-^ sermons. " The Devil," said he, " once infused into my mind a'^;/ -^ '^ temptation, that perhaps I did not believe what I was preaching. ' Well '^ then,' said I, ' I will preach it till I do.' But, the Devil suggested, ' ' What if it should not be true ? ' ' Still,' I replied, I will preach it, because, v/hether true or not, it must be pleasing to God, by preparing men better for another world.' ' But what if there should be no other world } ' rejoined the enemy. ' I will go on preaching it,' said I, ' be- cause it is the way to make them better and happier in this.' " This passage is not in Mr. Wesley's works ; but I relate it, with perfect con- fidence, on the authority of the late Dr. Estlin, of Bristol, who heard him preach the sermon, and whom I will not thus cursorily mention without an expression of respectful remembrance. r ovMm- done, and maintained that the supreme power in England had a legal right of laying any tax upon them, for any end beneficial to the whole empire. The right of taxation, he argued, rested upon the same ground as the right of legislation : and the popular argument, that every freeman consented to the laws by which he was governed, was a mere ^ fallacy. A very small part of the people were con- cerned in making laws ; that business could only be done by delegation : those who were not electors had manifestly no part ; and of those who were, when their votes were nearly equally divided, the minority were governed, not only without, but against their own consent. So much with regard to the laws which were enacted in their own times : and how could it be said that any man had consented to those which were made before he was born ? In fact, consent to the laws was purely passive, and no other kind of consent was allowed by the condition of civil life. The Americans had not forfeited the rights of their forefathers, but they could no longer exercise them. They Avere the descendants of men who either had no votes, or who had resigned them by emigration. They Wesley's political conduct. 285 had, therefore, exactly what their ancestors left them ; not a vote in making laws, nor in choosing legislators ; but the happiness of being protected by laws, and the duty of obeying them. During the last war, they had been attacked by enemies, whom they were not able to resist : they had been largely assisted, and, by that means, wholly delivered: the mother country, desiring to be reimbursed for some part of the great expense she had incurred, laid on a small tax, and this reasonable and legal measure had set all America in a flame. How was it possible that such a cause should have produced such an effect ? " I will tell you," said Wesley. "I speak the more freely, because I am unbiassed. I have nothing to hope or fear on either side. I gain nothing, either by the government or by the Americans, and probably never shall; and I have no prejudice to any man in America : I love you as my brethren and countrymen. My opinion is this : we have a few men in England who are determined enemies to monarchy. Whether they hate his present Majesty on any other ground than because he is a king, I know not ; but they cor- dially hate his office, and have for some years been undermining it with all diligence, in hopes of erecting their grand idol, their dear commonwealth, upon its ruins. I believe they have let very few into their design (although many forward it, without knowing any thing of the matter) ; but they are steadily pur- suing it, as by various other means, so, in particular, by inflammatory papers, which are industriously and continually dispersed throughout the towns and coun- try. By this method they have already wrought thousands of the people even to the pitch of madness. By the same, only varied according to your circum- stances, they have likewise inflamed America. I make no doubt but these very men are the original cause of the present breach between England and her colonies. 28 G Wesley's political conduct. And they are still pouring oil into the flame, studiously incensing each against the other, and opposing, under a variety of pretences, all measures of accommodation. So that although the Americans, in general, love the English, and the English, in general, love the Ameri- cans, (all, I mean, that are not yet cheated and exasperated by these artful men,) yet the rupture is- growing wider every day, and none can tell Avhere it- can end. These good men hope it will end in the total defection of North America from England. If this were effected, they trust the English in general would be so irreconcileably disgusted, that they should be able, with or mthout foreign assistance, entirely to overturn the government." Mr. Wesley afterwards perceived, that the class of persons whom he had here supposed to be the prime movers of this unhappy contest, were only aiders and abettors, and that the crisis had come on from natural causes. "I allow," said he, "that the Americans were strongly exhorted, by letters from England, ' never to yield, or lay down their arms, till they had their own terms, which the government would be constrained to give them in a short time.' But those measures were concerted long before this, — long- before either the Tea Act or the Stamp Act existed, only they were not digested into form. Forty years - ago, when my brother was in Boston, it was the general language there, 'We must shake off the yoke;> we never shall be a free people till we shake off the English yoke : ' and the late acts of parliament were - not the cause of what they have since done, but barely- the occasion they laid hold on." That the American revolution must in great part be traced to the puri- tanical origin of the New-England States, is indeed certain: but colonies are naturally republican; and when they are far distant, and upon a large scale, they tend necessarily, as well as naturally, to separation. Wesley's political conduct. 287 Colonies will be formed with a view to this, when colonial policy shall be better understood. It will be acknowledged, that when protection is no longer needed, dependence ceases to be desirable ; and that when a people can maintain and defend themselves, they are past their pupilage. This address excited no little indignation among some of the English partisans of the Americans ; and it produced a letter to Mr. Wesley from Mr. Caleb Evans, a Baptist minister at Bristol, of considerable reputation in his own community. Wesley, who had neither leisure nor inclination for controversy, left the field to Mr. Fletcher, who again, on this occasion, seconded his friend with great ability, as well as zeal. "My reverence for God's word," said this good man, — " my duty to the king, and regard for my friend, — my love to injured truth, and the consciousness of the sweet liberty which I enjoy under the government, call for this little tribute of my pen ; and I pay it so much the more cheerfully, as few men in the kingdom have had a better opportunity of trying which is most eligible, a republican government, or the mild tem- pered monarchy of England. I lived more than twenty years the subject of two of the mildest repub- lics of Europe : I have been for above that number of years the subject of your sovereign ; and, from sweet experience, I can set my seal to this clause of the king's speech, at the opening of this session of parlia- ment, ' To be a subject of Great Britain, with all its consequences, is to be the happiest subject of any civil government in the world.'" Mr. Fletcher was no common controversialist : earnest sincerity, and devout ardour, were not more conspicuous in his writings, than the benevolence which appeared when he argued with most force and warmth, and the pure candour and religious cliarity which even his theological opponents felt and ac- 288 weslf.y's political conduct. knowledged. He, as well as Mr. Wesley, saw distinctly ill what the principles of the American contest began, and in what they were likely to end. " If once legis- lation," he said, with Baxter, " (the chief act of government) be denied to be any part of government at all, and affirmed to belong to the people as such, who are no governors, all government will thereby be overthrown. Give me," he truly said, " Dr. Price's political principles, and I will move all kings out of their thrones, and all subjection out of the world." He rested the question upon religious grounds, and, on those grounds, argued against civil, as he had formerly done against ecclesiastical Antinomianism. The transition from one to the other, he said, was easy and obvious ; for as he that reverences the law of God will naturally reverence the just commands of the king, so he that thinks himself free from the law of the Lord will hardly think himself bound by the statutes of his sovereign. He traced the pestilent errors which were now again beginning to prevail, after having for more than a century been subdued, to those seeds which had sprung up with the Lollards, and brought forth their full harvest at Munster.* He prest upon his opponent, as a Chris- * "All our danger at present," says he, "is from King Mob; and (pursuing Mr. Wesley's view of the subject) this danger is so much the greater, as some dissenters among us, who were quiet in the late reign, and thought themselves happy under the protection of the Toleration Act, grow restless, begin openly to countenance their dissatisfied bre- thren in America, and make it a point of conscience to foment divi- sions in the kingdom. Whether they do it merely from a brotherly regard to the colonists, who chiefly worship God according to the dis- senting plan, or whether they hope that a revolution on the Continent would be naturally productive of a revolution in England ; that a re- volution in the State, here, would draw after it a revolution in the Church ; and that if the Church of England were once shaken, the dis- senting churches among us might raise themselves upon her ruins ; — whether, I say, there is something of this under the cry of slavery and robbery, which you set up, is a question (addressing himself to Mr. Caleb Evans) which I said, in the preceding editions, you could deter- Wesley's political conduct. 289 tian, those texts of Scripture which enjoin the duty of submission to established authorities ; and, as a Calvinist, the articles of Calvin's confession of faith, wherein that duty is expressly recognised. " We believe that God will have the world to be governed by laws and civil powers, that the lawless inclinations of men may be curbed ; and therefore he has esta- blished kingdoms and republics, and other sorts of governments, (some hereditary, and some otherwise,) together with whatsoever belongs to judicature ; and He will be acknowledged the author of government. We ought, then, not only to bear, for his sake, that rulers should have dominion over us ; but it is also our bounden duty to honour them, and to esteem them worthy of all reverence, considering them as God's lieutenants and otRcers, which He has com- missioned to execute a lawful and holy commission. We maintain, therefore, that we are bound to obey their laws and statutes, to pay tribute, taxes, and other duties, and to bear the yoke of subjection freely and with good will ; and therefore we detest the men who reject superiorities, introduce community and confusion of property, and overthrow the order of justice. Sir," he continued, applying the argu- mentum ad hominem to his opponent, " you are a Calvinist; you follow the French reformer, when he teaches the absolute reprobation, and unavoidable damnation, of myriads of poor creatures yet unborn. Oh, forsake him not, when he follows Christ, and teaches that God (not the people) is to be acknow- ledged the author of power and government, and that we are bound to bear cheerfully, for his sake, the yoke of scriptural subjection to our governors ! Be en- treated. Sir, to rectify your false notions of liberty. mine far better than I : but now I recall it ; because, though I may con- sider that part of the controversy in that unfavourable light as a politi- cian, yet, as a Christian, I ought to think and hope the best." VOL. II. U 290 Wesley's tolitical conduct. The liberty of Christians and Britons does not consist in bearing no yoke, but in bearing a yoke made easy by a gracious Saviour and a gracious sovereign. A John of Leydcn may promise to make us first law- less, then legislators and kings ; and, by his delusive promises, he may raise us to — a fool's paradise, if >^ not to — the gallows. But a true deliverer, and a ^l good governor, says to our restless Antinomian i '^ spirits. Come unto me, and I ivill give you rest ! For ^ my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. We can have i ' no rest in the Church, but under Christ's easy yoke ; ,^ no rest in the state, but under the easy yoke of our ;? rightful sovereign." ^ The political part which Wesley took at this time >4 made him as many enemies as his decided opposition to Calvinism had done : and even some of his ad-^ herents and admirers, who in all other things have justified him through thick and thin, have censured him, as if he had gone out of the line of his duty, acted unwisely in meddling with political disputes,- and taken the wrong side. To the question, why he had written upon such subjects, he made answer, " Not to get money : not to get preferment for myself or my brother's children : 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 dinners ; and they who hate you, hate you worse than the Devil." It was from the clear and ' strong sense of duty that he acted ; and it is not ^ the least of his merits, that he was one of the first 1 persons to expose the fallacy, and foresee the conse- ' J quences, of those political principles which were then ^ beginning to convulse the world. Their natural , tendency, he said, was to unhinge all government,y^ ^ and to plunge every nation into total anarchy. In Wesley's political conduct. 291 share of mischief m its day, he contradicted, upon his own sure observation, the Doctor's absurd assertion, that the population of the country had greatly de- creased*: he commented upon the encouragement which was held out to the Americans in that pam- phlet, and upon the accusations which were there ad- vanced, that the British government had secured to cthe Canadians the enjoyment of their own laws, and their own religion, for the purpose of bringing up from thence an army of French Papists, — for Dr. Price had not been ashamed to bring this charge against his country ! In opposition to the Doctor's position, that liberty is more or less complete, ac- cording as the peojDle have more or less share in the government, he contended, and appealed to history for the fact, that the greater share the people have in the government, the less libert}^, either civil or- religious, does the nation in general enjoy. " Ac- cordingly," said he, " there is most liberty of all, civil * " I knew the contrary," said Wesley, " having an op])ortunity of seeing ten times more of England every year than most men in the nation. All our manufacturing towns, as Birmingham, Sheffield, Man- chester, Liverpool, increase daily. So do very many villages all over the kingdom, even in the mountains of Derbyshire ; and, in the mean time, exceeding few, either towns or villages, decrease." " Dr. Price," says Mr. Coleridge, in his Friend, " almost succeeded in persuading the English nation — (for it is a curious fact, that the -fancy of our calamitous situation is a sort of necessary sauce, without-. ■which our real prosperity would become insipid tj us) — Dr. Price, I say, alarmed the country with pretended proofs that the island was in a rapid state of depopulation ; that England at the Revolution had been Heaven knows how much more populous ; and that, in Queen Elizabeth's time, or about the Reformation (!!!), the number of inhabitants in England might have been greater than even at the Revolution. My old mathematical master, a man of an uncommonly clear head, answered this blundering book of the worthy Doctor's, and left not a stone un- turned of the pompous cenotaph, in which the effigy of the still living and bustling English prosperity lay interred. And yet so much more suitable was the Doctor's book to the purposes of faction, and to the November mood of (what is called) the Public, that Mr. "Wales's pamphlet, though a masterpiece of perspicacity, as well as perspicuity, was scarcely heard of." — Vol, ii. p. 72. u 2 292 Wesley's tolitical conduct. and religious, under a limited monarchy; there is usually less under an aristocracy; and least of all- under a democracy. The plain melancholy truth," said he, " is this ; there is a general infatuation, which spreads, like an overflowing stream, from one end of the land to the other. The people of England have, for some years past, been continually fed with poison : dose after dose has been administered to them — for fear the first, or second, or tenth should not suffice — of a poison, whose natural effect is to drive men out of their senses. Is the Centaur not fabulous ? Neither is Circe's cup. Papers and pamphlets, repre- senting one of the best of princes as if he had been one of the worst, — and all aiming at the same point, to make the king appear odious, as well as contempti- ble, in the eyes of his subjects, — are conveyed, week after week, through all London, and all the nation. Can any man wonder at the effect ? What can be ex- pected, but that they who drink in these papers and letters with all greediness, will be thoroughly embittered and inflamed thereby; will first despise, and then abhor the king ? What can be expected, but that, by the repeated doses of this poison, they will be perfectly intoxicated, and only wait for a convenient season to tear in pieces the royal monster, as they think him, and all his adherents ! Can any > thing be done to open the eyes, to restore the senses, of an infatuated nation? Not unless the still re- newed, still operating cause of that infatuation can be removed. But how is it possible to be removed, unless by restraining the licentiousness of the press?" " I am in great earnest," he says, in another place : " so I have need to be ; for I am pleading the cause of my king and country ; yea, of every country under heaven, where there is any regular government. I am pleading against those principles that naturally tend to anarchy and confusion, that directly tend to Wesley's political conduct. 298 unhinge all government, and overturn it from the foundation." Forty thousand copies of the Calm Address were printed in three weeks : it was written before the war ^ r^ had actually begun ; and excited so much anger among ^ ; - ^ the English friends of the American cause, that, as ^ " ^' he said, they would willingly have burnt him and it - ^^V^^'' together. But though Wesley maintained that, when >^ the principles of order and legitimate government ^ i Si were seditiously attacked, it was the duty of every -v^ N. Christian minister to exert himself in opposing the i ^ evil spirit of the times, he saw how imprudent it would be for his preachers in America to engage in political matters. "It is your part," said he, "to be peacemakers ; to be loving and tender to all, but to addict yourselves to no party. In spite of all solicita- tions, 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.'" In the same spirit Charles Wesley wrote to them, saying, " As to the public >:^ 5 affairs, I wish you to be like-minded with me. I am ^ of neither side, and yet of both : on the one side of I ( > New England, and of Old. Private Christians arc^ ^^ ^ excused, exempted, privileged to take no part in civil t^ ^ troubles. We love all, and pray for all, with a sincere ^ ^ and impartial love. Faults there may be on both sides, i -s< ^ ^but such as neither you nor I can remedy: therefore ^ ' t ^ let us, and all our children, give ourselves unto prayer, . "^i '^^ ■ and so stand still and see the salvation of God." It^ ^ ■ was scarcely possible for the preachers to follow this advice ; it was scarcely possible that they could refrain from expressing their opinions upon the one subject ^ by which all minds were possessed and inflamed, ex- -< ^: ■o v% cited, as they constantly were, by sympathy or provo- ^ Cj - cation. Such, indeed, was the temper of the Americans, _j-<^ ^ that a friend to the Methodists got possession of all >- "^ '"" 29-1: Wesley's i'Olitical conduct. the copies of the Cabn Address which were sent to New York, and destroyed them, foreseeing the im- minent danger to which the preachers would be ex- posed, if a pamphlet so unpopular in its doctrines should get abroad. But the part whicli AVesley had taken could not be kept secret : the Methodists, in con- sequence, became objects of suspicion, and the personal safety of the preachers was oftentimes endangered. Tarring and feathering was not the only cruelty to which they were exposed in those days of brutal violence. The English missionaries were at length glad to escape as they could : Asbury alone remained : he was less obnoxious than his colleagues, because, having chosen the less frequented parts of the country- for the scene of his exertions, he had been less con- spicuous, and less exposed to provocation and to danger. Yet even he found it necessary to withdraAV from public view, and conceal himself in the house of > a friend, till, after two years of this confinement, he obtained credentials from the governor of Pennsyl- vania, which enabled him to appear abroad again with safety. Methodism, meantime, had been kept alive by a few native preachers, of whom Freeborn Garretson, and Benjamin Abbot, a strange half-madman, were two of the most remarkable. It even increased, not- withstanding all difficulties, and something much more like persecution than it had ever undergone in England. In tlie year 1777, there were forty preachers, and about 7000 members, exclusive of negroes. The Society, however, as the war continued, was in danger of being broken up, by a curious species of intolerance, which could not have been foreseen. The prevailing religion in the Southern States had been that of the Church of England ; but the clergy were driven away during the troubles ; the whole of the Church property was confiscated; and, when affairs were settled, none of - .V. V ^. <-€ />C0v e(, £ free." Having, therefore, determined how to act, he communicated his determination to Dr. Coke, and proposed, in his character of presbyter, which, he said, was the same as bishop, to invest him with the same 298 METHODISM IN AMEPJCA. prcsLytcro-cpiscopal powers, that, in that cliaractcr, lie might proceed to America, and superintend the societies in the United States. The doubts which Dr. Coke entertained as to tlie validity of Mr. AYesley's authority, were removed by the same treatise which y, had convinced Mr. Wesley ; and it seems not to have occurred to either the one or the other, that, if pres-^ byter and bishop were the same order, the proposed r consecration was useless ; for Dr. Coke, having been regularly ordained, was as good a bishop as Mr. Wesley himself Having, however, taken his part, he stated the reasons upon which he had acted, with his wonted perspicuity. " By a very uncommon train of provi- dences," he said, " many of the provinces of North America are totally disjoined from the mother coun- try, and erected into independent States. The English government has no authority over them, either civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over the States of Holland. A civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the congress, partly by the provincial as- semblies ; but no one either exercises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this peculiar situa- tion, some thousands of the inhabitants of these States desire my advice." Then asserting his opinion, that bishops and presbyters were the same order, and con- sequently had the same right to ordain, he said that for many years he had been importuned from time to time to exercise this right, by ordaining part of the travelling preachers, and that he had still re- fused, for peace sake, and because he was determined as little as possible to violate tlie established order of the National Church, to which he belonged. " But the case," he pursued, " is widely different between England and North America. Here tliere arc bishojDS, who have a legal jurisdiction. In America there arc none, neither any parish ministers ; so that, for some METHODISM IN AMERICA. 299 -f hundreds of miles together, there is none either to baptize, or to administer the Lord's Supper. Here, therefore, my scruples are at an end : and I conceive myself at full liberty, as 1 violate no order, and invade no man's right, by appointing and sending labourers into the harvest." Accordingly, he summoned Dr. Coke to Bristol, and Mr. Creighton with him, a clergyman who had become a regular member of the Methodist Connec- tion. With their assistance he ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey presbyters for America ; and afterwards he ordained Dr. Coke superintendent. Some reason might have been expected why he thought this second ordination necessary, superintendent being y but another word for bishop ; and why he thus prac- tically contradicted the very principle upon which he -professed to act. Not stopping to discuss such nice- ties, he gave the Doctor letters of ordination, under his hand and seal, in these words : " To all to whom these presents shall come, John Wesley, late Fellow of Lincoln College in Oxford, Presbyter of the Church of England, sendeth greeting : Whereas many of the people in the southern provinces of North America, who desire to continue under my care, and still adhere to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, are greatly distressed for want of ministers to admi- nister the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Sup- per, according to the usage of the same Church ; and whereas there does not appear to be any other way of supplying them with ministers, — Know all men, that I, John Wesley, think myself to be providentially called, at this time, to set apart some persons for the work of the ministry in America. And therefore, under the protection of Almighty God, and with a '«• single eye to his glory, I have this day set apart, as a Superintendent, by the imposition of my hands and prayer, (being assisted by other ordained ministers,) 300 METHODISM IN AMERICA. Tlioinus Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, u Presbyter of the Church of England, and a man whom I judge to be well qualified for that great work : and I do hereby recommend him, to all whom it may concern, as a fit person to preside over the flock of Christ. — In testi- mony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this second day of September, in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-four. John Wesley." Wesley had long deceived himself respecting the part which he was acting toward the Church of Enoiand. At the outset of his career he had no in- tention of setting himself up in opposition to it ; and when, in his progress towards schism, he disregarded its forms, and set its discipline at nought, he still re- peatedly disclaimed all views of separation. Nor did he ever avow the wish, or refer to it as a likely event, with complacency, even when he must have perceived that the course of his conduct, and the temper of his followers, rendered it inevitable. On this occasion his actions spoke for him : by arrogating the epis- copal authority, he took the only step which was Avanting to form the Methodists into a distinct body of separatists from the Church. Nevertheless, this was not done without reluctance, arising from old and rooted feelings ; nor without some degree of shame, perhaps, for the inconsistencies in which he had involved himself. From the part which he now took, and the manner in which he attempted to justify it, it may be presumed that the story of his applying to the Greek bishop for consecration is well founded, notwithstanding the falsehoods which his enemies had added to the simple fact. Mr. Wesley's declared opinion respecting the identity of the episcopal and priestly orders, was contradicted by his own conduct ; - and it may be suspected that his opinion ui)on the apostolical succession rested on no better ground than METHODISM IN AMERICA. 301 its convenience to his immediate purpose. Undoubt- J) edly, as he says, it is not possible to prove the apos- J tolical succession ; but, short of that absolute proof, ; whicli, in this case, cannot be obtained, and therefore | ^ ought not to be demanded, there is every reason for ^ ' vi ^ believing it. No person who fairly considers the d N question can doubt this, whatever value he may at- ^ ^ tach to it. But Wesley knew its value. He was <• i >^ neither so deficient in feeling, or in sagacity, as not "v -^ to know that the sentiment which connects us with '^^ other ages, and by which we are carried back, is \ ^^ scarcely less useful in its influences than the hopes ^ -^ by which we are carried forward. He would rather '*' J S' have been a link of the golden chain, than the ring ^^^ ^ from whence a new one of inferior metal was to \^ ^ proceed. ^ < Charles Wesley disapproved his brother's conduct I ^^ on this occasion, as an unwarrantable assumption of *^ '^ authority, and as inconsistent with his professed ad- 4^"^ herence to the Church of England. His approbation i j could never be indifferent to John, whose fortunes he ■">. ^ had during so many years faithfully shared, for -''^ ■~K honour and for dishonour, for better, for worse. But « i' Dr. Coke had now succeeded to the place in Me- -C 2 thodism from which Charles had retired; and in him 5 ... . \> Mr. Wesley found that willing and implicit obedience which is the first qualification that the founders of a ['. sect, an order, or a religion, require from their imnie- : "^^ diate disciples. The new superintendent, with his "^ ^ companions, sailed from Bristol for New York. , "i Among the books which he read on the voyage, was "^^v^l the Life of St. Francis Xavier. Through all the ex- 4 -^ ^ aggerations and fables with which that life is larded, ^^ ^ Coke perceived the spirit of the man, and exclaimed ^ cS with kindred feeling, " Oh for a soul like his ! But, . ^ ^, glory be to God, there is nothing impossible with 4 ^ Him. I seem to want the wings of an eagle, and the ?^"^ 302 METIIODISIM IN AMERICA. voice of a truini)ct, that I may proclaim the Gospel through the east and the west, and the north and the south." Asbur}^ Avas not at New York when they arrived. Dr. Coke explained the plan which had been arranged in England, to the travelling preachers Avho were stationed in that city, and had the satisfaction of hearing, not only that such a plan would be highly approved by all the preachers, but of being desired to make it public at once ; " because Mr. Wesley had de-^ termined the point ; and therefore it was not to be^ investigated, but complied with." This, however, was not done, because it would have been disrespectful to Mr. Asbury, with whom he was instructed to consult, and act in concert. On his way southward, to meet him. Dr. Coke found that Methodism was in good odour in America. He was introduced to the governor of Pennsylvania ; and, at an inn in the State of Dela- ware, the landlady, though not a Methodist herself, entertained him and his companion sumptuously, and would not receive their money ; esteeming it an honour to have harboured such guests. When he had finished preaching one day, at a chapel in the State, in the midst of the woods, to a large congregation, a plain robust man came up to him in the pulpit, and kissed him, pronouncing, at the same time, a primitive salu- tation. This person, as he readily supposed, proved to be his colleague. Dr. Coke was prepared to esteem him, and a personal acquaintance confirmed this opinion. " I exceedingly reverence Mr. Asbury," he says, " he has so much wisdom and consideration, so much meekness and love, and, under all this, though hardly to be perceived, so much command and au- thority. Asbury, expecting to meet Dr. Coke in this part of the country, had collected as many preachers as he could, to hold a council. They agreed to convoke a Con- METHODISM IN AMERICA. oiJO ference of all the preachers at Balthnore, on Christmas eve, and Freeborn Garretson was sent off on this errand, "like an arrow, from north to south," with directions to send messengers to the right and left. This was in the middle of November ; and, that Coke might not be idle in the mean time, Asbury drew up for him a route of about a thousand miles, borrowed a good horse, and gave him, for a guide and assistant, " Ins black, Harry, of whom the Doctor says, " I really believe he is one of the best preachers in the world, there is such an amazing power attends his preaching, -^though he cannot read; and he is one of the hum- blest creatures I ever saw." Of eighty-one American preachers, sixty assembled at the Conference ; and, at their meeting, the form of church government, and the manner of worship for the Methodists in America, which Mr. Wesley had arranged, was accepted and established. The name of Superintendent, and the notion that bishops and presbyters were the same order, were now laid aside ; they were mere pretexts,- and had served the purpose for which they were in- tended. Methodism was constituted in America as an ■'^Episcopal Church. The clergy were to consist of three orders, — bishops, elders, and deacons. The dea- cons were to be ordained by a bishop, after a proba- tion similar to that of the travelling preachers in England. The elders were of two orders: the pre- siding elders were to be unanimously elected by the General Conference : they Avere to be assistants to the bishops, to represent them in their absence, and to act under their direction. The travelling elders were to administer the ordinances, and to perform the office of marrying : they were to be elected by a majority of the Annual Conference, and ordained by a bishop and the elders present, by imposition of hands. A deacon might not be chosen elder, till he had officiated two years in his inferior degree. A bishop was to be 304 METHODISM IN AMERICA. elected by the Geiienil Conference, and consecrated by two or three bishops : but in case the whole order should be extmct, the ceremony might then be per- formed by three elders. The business of the bishop was, to preside in the Conferences, station the preachers, admit or suspend them during the interval of the Conferences, travel through the Connection at large, and inspect the concerns, temporal and spiritual, of the societies. Besides the General Conference, in which the supreme authority was lodged, and which had power of suspending, judging, and expelling the bishops, as well as electing them, there were to be six yearly Conferences, — the extent of the country ren- dered this necessary. The circuits, during the time of the Conference, were to be supplied by local preachers, engaged for the purpose, and paid in the same proportion and manner as the travelling preachers for whom they acted. A local preacher was not eligil)le to the office of deacon till after four years' probation ; nor might he preach till he had ob- tained a certificate of approbation from his quarterly meeting. The discipline differed little from that of the English Methodists ; the ritual more. In con- descension to the puritanic notions which might be expected among the old Americans, the sacrament might be administered to communicants sittino- or standing, if they objected to kneel ; and baptism might be performed either by sprinkling, affusion, or immer- sion, at the option of the parents, or, in adult cases, of the person. At this Conference, in pursuance of Mr. Wesley's instructions, and by virtue of the authority derived from him, Dr. Coke consecrated Mr. Asbury bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. In the name of that Church, an address to General Washing- ton was drawn up, congratulating him on his appoint- ment to the office of president, and professing the METHODISM IN AMERICA. 305 loyalty of the members, and their readiness, on all lawful occasions, to support the government then esta- blished. This was signed by Coke and Asbury, as heads of the Connection ; the former, upon this occasion, in his capacity of American bishop, performing an act inconsistent with his allegiance as a British subject.- He, who was always more ready to act than to think, did not, perhaps, at the time, perceive the dilemma in which he was placed ; nor, if he had, would he have acted otherwise ; for whenever a national and a secta- rian duty come in competition with each other, the -^ national one is that which goes to the wall. It exposed him to some severe animadversion in England, and to a semblance of displeasure from Mr. Wesley, which >: was merely intended to save appearances. General Washington returned a written reply, addressed to the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. — " It should be his endeavour," he said, " to manifest the purity of his inclinations for promoting the happiness of mankind, as well as the sincerity of his desires to contribute whatever might be in his power towards the civil and religious liberties of the American people. It always afforded him satis- faction, when he found a concurrence and practice between all conscientious men, in acknowledgments of homage to the Great Governor of the Universe, and in professions of support to a just civil government. He would always strive to prove a faithful and impar- tial patron of genuine vital religion ; and he assured them in particular, that he took in the kindest part their promise of presenting their prayers for him at the throne of heaven ; and that he likewise implored the Divine benediction on them, and their religious community." At their first interview, the two bishops agreed to use their joint endeavours for establishing a school, or college, on the plan of Kingswood ; and, before they VOL. II. X 306 METHODISM IN AMERICA. met at the Conference, they had got above a thousand pounds subscribed for it. Relying, therefore, upon that bank of faith, which, when religious interests, real or imaginary, are concerned, may safely be drawn upon to a surprising amount. Dr. Coke gave orders to begin the work. Four acres of ground were pur- chased, at the price of sixty pounds sterling, eight- and-twenty miles from Baltimore: the spot commanded a view of the Chesapeak and of the Susquehanna flowing towards it, through a great extent of country, the sight extending from twenty to fifty miles in different parts of the splendid panorama. The stu- dents were to rise at five, summer and mnter : upon this rule the masters were to insist inflexibly, the founders being convinced, they said, by coiistant observation and experience, that it was of vast im- portance, both to body and mind ; for it was of admir- able use in preserving a good, or improving a bad constitution ; and by thus strengthening the various organs of the l^ody, it enabled the mind to put forth its utmost energies. At six they were to assemble to prayer, and the interval, till seven, was allowed for recreation ; the recreations being gardening, walking, riding, and bathing ; and, within doors, the carpen- ter's, joiner's, cabinet-maker's, and turner's business. Nothing which the world calls play was to be per- mitted. Dr. Coke had brought with him Wesley's sour precept, that those who play when they are young, will play when they are old ; and he supported it by the authority of Locke and Rousseau, saying, " that though the latter was essentially mistaken in his religious system, yet his wisdom in other respects was indisputably acknowledged ! " He judged well, however, in recommending agriculture and archi- tecture as studies especially useful in a new country, and therefore to be preferred for the recreation of the students. The permission of bathing was restricted RIETHODISM IN AMERICA. 307 to a plunge into a cold bath : bathing in the river was forbidden ; a prohibition apparently so absurd, that some valid local reason for it must be presumed. The hours of study were from eight till twelve, and from three till six; breakfast at eight, dinner at one, supper at six, prayers at seven, and bed at nine. The punishments Avere, private reproof for a first offence, public reproof for a second, and, for the third, confine- ment in a room set apart for the purpose. The establishment was named Cokesbury College*, after its two founders. An able president was found, a good master, and, in the course of a few years, the institution acquired so much repute, that young men from the Southern States came there to finish their education ; and the founders were apprised that the legislature was willing to grant them an act of incor- poration, and enable them to confer degrees. The reputation of this college gratified the American Methodists, and disposed them to found others. The people in Kentucky requested to have one in their * In the year 1792 the college was set on fire, and burnt to the ground, the whole of its apparatus and library being destroyed. The State offered a reward of one thousand dollars for the discovery of the incendiary, but without effect. Dr. Coke was not deterred from a se- cond attempt; and seventeen of his friends, in the Baltimore Society, immediately subscribed among themselves more than one thousand pounds towards the establishment of another college. A large building, in the city of Baltimore, which had been intended for balls and assem- blies, was purcbased, with all the premises belonging to it, for five thousand three hundred pounds. The Society subscribed seven hundred of this, and collected six hundred inore from house to house : the seventeen original subscribers made themselves responsible for the rest. There was room for a church upon the ground, and a church accordingly was built. This college was even more successful than Cokesbury, while it lasted; but it came to the same fate, in 1797. Some boys made a bonfire in an adjoining house; and conege,church, and several dwellings and warehouses were consumed. By the two fires the Methodists sustained a loss of ten thousand pounds. Dr. Coke then agreed with Asbury, who, after the first catastrophe, was convinced "that it was not the will of God for them to undertake such expensive buildings, nor to attempt such popular establishments." As these events did not occur till after the death of Mr. Wesley, they are noticed here, rather than in the text. 308 METHODISM IN AMKRICA. country, and oft'ered to give three or four thousand acres of good kind for its support. The reply to this application was, that Conference would undertake ifi complete one within ten years, if the people would provide five thousand acres of fertile ground, and settle it on trustees under its direction. In Georgia, a few leading persons engaged to give two thousand acres; and one congregation subscribed twelve thou- sand five hundred pounds Aveight of tobacco towards the building. Institutions of this kind are endowed at so small a cost in new countries, that, with a little foresight on the part of government, provision might easily be made for the wants, and palliatives prepared for the evils, of advanced society. Had the institution in Georgia been effected, it w^as to have been called Wesley College, in reference to Mr. Wesley's early labours in that country. At this time he was so popular in America, that some hun- dreds of children were baptized by his name. This was in great measure owing to the choice which he had made of Dr. Coke, Avhose liberal manners, and rank of life, obtained him access among the higher classes upon equal terms, and flattered those in a lower station with whom he made himself familiar. The good opinion, however, which his representative had obtained among all ranks was lessened, and for a time well nigh destroyed, by the indiscretion with which he exerted himself in behalf of a good cause. Wesley had borne an early testimony against the system of negro slavery : on this point his conduct is Y. curiously contrasted with Whitefield's, who exerted^ himself in obtaining a repeal of that part of the charter granted to the colony in Georgia whereby slavery was prohibited.* Dr. Coke, feeling like Mr. * " As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves," he says, " I have no doubt, since I hear of some that were bought with Abraham's money, and some that were born in his house. And I cannot help thinking METHODISM IN AMERICA. 309 Wesley, took up the subject with his usual ardour, preached upon it with great vehemence, and prepared a petition to Congress for the emancipation of the negroes. With this petition he and Asbury went to General Washington at Mount Vernon, and solicited him to sign it. Washington received them courteously and hospitably : he declined signing the petition, that--^ being inconsistent, with the rank which he held ; but V-he assured them that he agreed with them, and that, if the Assembly should take their petition into consi- deration, he would signify his sentiments by a letter.^ They proceeded so far themselves, that they required/, the members of the Society to set their slaves free ; "^ -< and several persons were found who made this sacri- fice, from a sense of duty. One planter in Virginia emancipated twenty-two, who were at that time worth from thirty to forty pounds each. His name was Kennon, and it deserves to be honourably recorded. But such instances were rare ; and Dr. Coke, who had much of the national ardour in his character, pro- ceeded in such an intolerant spirit of philanthropy*, - that some of those servants mentioned by the Apostles, in their epistles, were or had been slaves. It is plain that the Gibeonites were doomed to perpetual slavery ; and, though liberty is a sweet thing to such as are ^ born free, yet, to those who never knew the sweets of it, slavery per- " haps may not be so irksome. However this be, it is plain to a demon-^ stration, that hot countries cannot be cultivated without negroes." So '^ miserably could Whitefield reason ! He flattered, however, his better feelings, by supposing that the slaves who should be brought into ~ Georgia would be placed in the way of conversion. * These extracts from his journal will exemplify that spirit ; " At night I lodged at the house of Captain Dillard, a most hospitable man, Ok and as kind to his negroes as if they were white servants. It was quite pleasing to see them so decently and comfortably clothed. And yet I could not beat into the head of that poor man the evil of keeping them in slavery, although he had read Mr. Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery (I think he said) three times over. But his good wife is strongly on our side." — " I preached the late Colonel Bedford's funeral sermon. '~- But I said nothing good of him, for he was a violent friend of slavery ; ( and his interest being great among the Methodists in these parts, he > would have been a dreadful thorn in our sides, if the Lord had not in ^ mercy taken him away." !! •^^ C . cutc^ cltt^X. . , ,,^ -^ . . , , ^ ^ , ^^C<.-cC^ ^ tlCA/\ ' ^^^'^ 310 METHODISM IN AMERICA. that lie soon provoked a violent opposition, and in- curred no small degree of personal danger. One of his sermons upon this topic incensed some of his hearers so much, that they withdre^v for the purpose of way- laying him ; and a lady negro-owner promised them fifty pounds, if they would give "that little Doctor" an hundred lashes. But the better part of his con- gregation protected him, and that same sermon produced the emancipation of twenty-four slaves. In one county the slave-owners presented a bill against him, Avhicli was found by the grand jury, and no less than ninety persons set out in pursuit of him ; but he was got beyond their reach. A more ferocious enemy followed him, with an intention of shooting him : this the man himself confessed, wiien, some time after- wards, he became a member of the Methodist Society. On his second visit to America, Coke was convinced s that he had acted indiscreetly, and he consented to let the question of emancipation rest, ratlier than stir up an opposition which so greatly impeded the progress - of Methodism. If a course of itinerancy in England led the errant preacher into picturesque scenes and wild situations, much more might this be expected in America. Coke ^ was delighted with the romantic way of life in which he found himself engaged ; — preaching in the midst ■ of ancient forests, " with scores, and sometimes hun- dreds, of horses tied to the trees." — " Sometimes," he says, " a most noble vista, of half a mile or a mile in length, would open between the lofty pines ; sometimes v the tender fawns and hinds would suddenly appear, ^ and, on seeing or hearing us, Avould glance through^ the woods, or vanish away." The spring scenery ^ of these woods filled him with delight. " The oaks," says he, " have spread out their leaves, and the dog- Avood, whose bark is medicinal, and whose innumer- able white flowers form one of the finest ornaments METHODISM IN AMERICA. 311 of the forests, is in full blossom. The deep green of the pines, the bright transparent green of the oaks, and the fine white of the dogwood flowers, with other trees and shrubs, form such a complication of beauties as is indescribable to those who have only lived in countries that are almost entirely cultivated." — " It is one of my most delicate entertahiments to embrace every opportunity of engulfing myself (if I may so express it) in the woods : I seem then to be detached- from every thing but the quiet vegetable creation and my God." A person always went before him to make his publications; by which strange phrase is implied a notice to all the country round, in what place, and at what times, the itinerant was to be expected. Their mark for finding the way in these wide wildernesses was the split bush. When a new circuit in the woods was formed, at every turning of the road or path, the preacher split two or three - bushes beside the right way, as a direction for those who came after him.* They had no cause to repent of their labour in travelling ; for numerous hearers were collected, insomuch that Dr. Coke was astonished at the pains which the people took to hear the Gospel. Idleness and curiosity brought many, and many came ^ for the pleasure of being in a crowd ; but numbers were undoubtedly drawn together by that desire of -religious instruction Avhich is the noblest character- istic of man, and for which, by the greatest of all political errors, the American government has ne-ii - gleet ed to provide. "I am daily filled with surprise," he says, " in meeting with such large congregations as I am favoured with, in the midst of vast wilder- nesses, and wonder from whence they come ! " It - appears that the spirit of riotous devotion, which afterwards produced the fanatical extravagances of * " In one of the circuits the wicked discovered the secret, and split bushes in wrong places, on purpose to deceive the preachers." 312 METHODISM IN AMERICA. the camp-meetings, began to manifest itself in the early days of American Methodism, and that it was encouraged by the superiors, when it might have been repressed. " At Annapolis," says Dr. Coke, " after my last prayer, the congregation began to pray and praise aloud in a most astonishing manner. At first I found some reluctance to enter into the business ; but soon the tears began to flow, and I think I have seldom found a more comforting or strengthening time. This praying and praising aloud is a common thing throughout Virginia and Maryland. What shall we say ? Souls are awakened and converted by multitudes; and the work is surely a genuine work, if there be a genuine work of God upon earth. Whether there be wildfire in it, or not, I do most ardently wish that there was such a work at this present time in England." At Baltimore, after the evening service was concluded, " the congregation began to pray and praise aloud, and continued so to do, till two o'clock in the morning. Out of a con- gregation of two thousand people, two or three hundred were engaged at the same time in praising God, praying for the conviction and conversion of sinners, or exhorting those around them with the ut- most vehemence ; and hundreds more were engaged in wrestling prayer, either for their own conversion, or sanctification. The first noise of the people soon ^ brought a multitude to see what was going on. One of our elders was the means that night of the con- ^ version of seven poor penitents within his little circle in less than fifteen minutes. Such was the zeal of many, that a tolerable company attended the preach- ing at five the next morning, notwithstanding the late hour at which they parted." The next evening the same uproar was renewed, and the maddeiied con--t- gregation continued in their excesses as long and as loud as before. The practice became common in -y^^ ,.. AC .. ■ J- /; METHODISM IN AMERICA. 31^ Baltimore, though that city had been one of the N, "calmest and most critical" upon the continent. — " Many of our elders," says Coke, " who were the softest, most connected, and most sedate of our preachers, have entered with all their hearts into this work. And gracious and wonderful has been the change, our greatest enemies themselves being the judges, that has been wrought on multitudes, on whom the work began at those wonderful seasons." Plainly as it had been shown among the Methodists themselves, that emotions of this kind Avere like a fire ^ of straw, soon kindled and soon spent, the disposition, whenever it manifested itself, was encojiraged rather than checked ; so strong is the tendency towards en- thusiasm. But if Dr. Coke, with the advantages of education, rank in life, and of the lessons which he derived from Mr. Wesley, when age and long ex- ., perience had cooled him, could be so led away by sympathy as to give his sanction to these proceedings, it might be expected that preachers who had grown up in a state of semi-civilisation, and were in the first ' eifervescence of their devotional feelings, would go beyond all bounds in their zeal. They used their utmost endeavours, (as had been advised in the third Conference) " to throw men into convictions, into strong sorrow, and fear, — to make them inconsolable, refusing to be comforted ; " believing that the stronger was the conviction, the speedier was the deliverance. " The darkest time in the night," said one, " is just before the dawning of the day : so it is with a soul groaning for redemption." They used, therefore, to address the unawakened in the most alarming strain, teaching them that " God out of Christ is a consuming fire ! "* and to address the most enthusiastic Ian mi age * In what sense the Methodist divines employed or applied these words, I know not : but that the words express a most aweful truth. 314 METHODISM IN AMERICA. to those who were in what they called a seeking state, in order to keep them " on the full stretch for sanctifi- cation." Benjamin Abbott not only threw his hearers into fits, but often fainted himself through the ve- hemence of his own prayers and preachments. He relates such exploits with great satisfaction, — how one person could neither eat nor drink for three days after one of his drastic sermons ; and how another was, for the same length of time, totally deprived of the use of her limbs. A youth who was standing on the hearth beside a blazing lire, in the room where Abbott was holding forth, overcome by the contagious emotion which was excited, tottered and fell into the flames. He Avas instantly rescued, "providentially," says the preacher, " or he would have been beyond the reach of mercy : his body would have been burned to death, and what would have become of his soul ! " When they preached within the house, and with closed doors, the contaminated air may have contributed to these deleterious effects ; for he himself notices one instance, where, from the exceeding closeness of the room, and the number of persons crowded together there, the candles gradually went out. But the mad- dening spirit of the man excited his hearers almost to frenzy. One day this itinerant Avent to a funeral, where many hundreds were collected. '' The minister," he says, " being of the Church form, went through the ceremonies, and then preached a short, easy, smooth, soft sermon, which amounted to almost nothing. By this time a gust was rising, and the firmament was covered with blackness. Two clouds appeared to come from different quarters, and to meet over the house, and are capable of a most terrific application, I am deeply assured. — S. T. C. What mean the royal Psalmist's words, " If I descend into hell, thou art there also?' — S. T. C METHODISM IN AMERICA. 315 which caused the people to crowd into the house, up stairs and down, to screen themselves from the storm. When the minister had done, he asked me if I would say something to the people. I arose, and with some difficulty got on one of the benches, the house was so greatly crowded ; and almost as soon as I began, the Lord out of heaven began also. The tremendous Niclaps of thunder exceeded any thing I ever had heard, and the streams of lightning flashed through the house in a most aweful manner. It shook the very foundation of the house : the windows shook with the violence thereof. I lost no time, but set before them the aweful coming of Christ in all his splendour, with all the armies of heaven, to judge the world, and to take vengeance on the ungodly. It may be, cried I, that ■^ he will descend in the next clap of thunder ! The people screamed, screeched, and fell, all through the house. The lightning, thunder, and rain, continued for about the space of one hour, in the most aweful manner ever known in that country ; during which time I continued to set before them the coming of Christ to judge the world, warning and inviting sinners to flee to Christ." He declares that, fourteen years afterwards, when he rode that circuit, he con- versed with twelve living Avitnesses who told him they were all converted at that sermon. One day, when Abbott was exhorting a class to sanctification, and a young Quakeress was " screaming and screeching, and crying for purity of heart," her father, hearing her outcries, came into the room, and with a mild reproof to this director of consciences, reminded him that the Lord is not in the earthquake, nor in the whirlwind, but in the still small voice. The passionate enthusiast readily replied *, " Do you * And pertinently : though it would perhaps have been a reply bet- ter suited to the reprover, had Abbott said, " True, Friend ! but yet it ^o \. 316 METHODISM IN AMERICA. know what tlie earthquake means ? It is the mighty thunder of God's voice from Mount Sinai ; it is the Divine law to drive us to Christ. And the whirlwind is the power of conviction, like the rushing of a mighty wind, tearing away every false hope, and _ ''^ stripping us of every plea, but — Give me Christ, or < else I die ! " On another occasion, when a young Quakeress was present at a meeting, and retained a proper command of herself while others were fainting and falling round about her, Abbott regarding this as a proof of insensibility to the state of her own soul, looked her full in the face, and began to pray for her as an infidel, and called upon all his hearers to do the same. The young woman was abashed, and retired ; but as she made her way slowly through the crowded room, " I cried to God," says the fiery fanatic,* " to pursue her by the energy of his Spirit through the streets ; to pursue her in the parlour, in the kitchen, and in the garden ; to pursue her in the silent watches of the night, and to show her the state of the damned in hell ; to give her no rest day nor night, until she found rest in the wounds of a blessed Redeemer." He relates this himself, and adds, that in consequence of this appeal she soon afterwards joined the Methodists, in opposition to the will of her parents. " Oh," said AYesley, in one of his sermons, " the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! causing a total disregard of all religion to pave the way for the revival of the only religion which was worthy of God ! The total indifference of the govern- ment in North America, whether there be any religion was by God's ordinance that the earthquake and the whirlwind shoukl go before the still small voice !" — S. T. C. * His journal is among the books "sold at the Primitive Methodist Book-room, and by the Preachers;" and in the list of those books he is designated as the " Great American Preacher and Revivalist." T^ W cc6^>- t,f< or none, leaves room for the propagation of true scrip- tural religion, without the least let or hindrance." He overlooked another consequence, which the ex- travagance of his own preachers might have taught him. Wherever the prime duty of providing religious instruction for the people is neglected, the greater part become altogether careless of their eternal interests, and the rest are ready to imbibe the rankest fanaticism, s-or embrace any superstition that may be promulgated among them. A field is open for impostors as well as ( fanatics ; some are duped and plundered, and others are driven mad. Benjamin Abbott seems to have been a sincere and well-meaning enthusiast, upon the -J* very verge of madness himself. From the preaching of such men an increase of insanity might well bex expected; and accordingly it is asserted, that a fourths part of the cases of this malady in Philadelphia arise >- from enthusiastic devotion, and that this and the \ abuse of ardent spirits are principal causes of the same ^^ disease in Virginia. But the ferm.entation of Method- ism will cease in America, as it has ceased in England ; and even during its effervescence, the good which it produces is greater than the evil. For though there must be many such fierce fanatics as Abbott, there will be others of a gentler nature : as the general state of the country may improve, the preachers will partake of the improvement ; and, meantime, they con- tribute to that improvement in no slight degree, by correcting the brutal vices, and keeping up a sense of relio'ion in reo;ions where it mio;ht otherwise be ex- ^ tinct. At their first general Conference, the American ^ preachers made a rule respecting spirituous liquors, the common use of which has greatly tended to M brutalise the people in that country. They decreed, that if any thing disorderly happened under the roof of a member, who either sold ardent spirits or gave them to his guests, " the preacher who had the over- 318 METHODISM IN AMERICA. sight of the circuit shoukl proceed against hiin, as in the case of other immoraUties," and he should be cen- sured, suspended, or excluded, according to the cir- cumstances. The zeal with which they made war against the pomps and vanities of society was less usefully directed. " Such days and nights as those were ! " sa3's one of the early preachers. " The fine, the gay, threw off their rufiles, their rings, their ear- rings, their powder, their feathers. Opposition, indeed, there Avas ; for the Devil Avould not be still. My life was threatened ; but my friends were abundantly-^ more in number than my enemies." In attacking these things, the preacher acted in entire conformity with the spirit of Wesley's institutions : but in America, Wesley would perhaps have modified the rigour of his own rules ; for even Franklin, who long maintained opinions as rigorous upon this point as Wesley himself, at length discovered that vanities like these have their use, in giving a spur to industry, and accelerating the progress of civilisation. There wore parts of the country where the people must have remained altogether without the ordinances of relijrion, had it not been for the Methodists. Dr. Coke observes that in his first tour in America, he baptized more children and adults than he should have done in his whole life if stationed in an English parish. The people of Delaware had scarcely ever heard preaching of any kind, when Freeborn Garret- son entered that country in one of his circuits. Meet- ing a man there one day, he asked him in a metho- distical manner, if he knew Jesus Christ ; and the man answered, that he did not know where he lived. Garretson repeated the question, supposing that it had not been distinctly heard ; and the reply then was, that he knew no such person. Before the Methodists had built chapels for themselves, they ofiiciated sometimes in curious situations, either be- METHODISM IN AMERICA. 319 cause there was no place of worship, or none to which they had access. The church-doors at Cambridge, in Maryland, were locked upon Dr. Coke, though there had been no service there for some years, and though it had often been left open for dogs, and pigs, and cattle. At another place, the church was in so filthy a condition, that, at the people's desire, he held forth in the court-house instead. At Raleigh, the seat of government for North Carolina, he obtained the use of the House of Commons : the members of both houses attended, and the speaker's seat served for a pulpit. At Annapolis, they lent him the theatre. " Pit, boxes, and gallery," says he, " were filled with people, according to their ranks in life ; and I stood upon the stage, and preached to them, though at first, I con- fess, I felt it a little awkward." Itinerants in America were liable to discomforts and dangers which are unknown in England. There were perilous swamps to cross ; rivers to ford ; the risk of going astray in the wilderness * ; and the plague of ticks in the forests, which are so great a torment, that Dr. Coke was almost laid up by their bites. To these difficulties, and to the inconveniences of sometimes sleeping on the floor, sometimes three in a bed, and sometimes bivouacking in the Avoods, the native preachers were less sensible than those who came from Europe ; but a great proportion of the itinerants settled when they became fathers of families. "It is most lamentable," says Coke, " to * Brother Ignatius Pigman was lost for sixteen days in the woods on the way to Kentucky. This inhuman name reminds me of a contro- versialist, who advanced the notion of the prc-existence of the human soul of Christ, and fiercely supported his notion, which he called Pre- existarianism, in the last series of the Gospel Magazine. His name being Newcomb, he signed himself Peigneneuvi-, to show his knowledge of the French tongue ; and one of his adversaries^ who, if peradven- ture less accomplished in languages, was not less witty than himself, " wickedly distorted " this word, and called him Mr. Pig-enough. . 320 METHODISM IN AMERICA. see so many of our able married preachers (or rather, I might say, ahnost all of them,) become located merely for want of support for their families. I am conscious it is not the fault of the people : it is the fault of the preachers, who, through a false and most unfortunate delicacy, have not pressed the important subject as they ought upon the consciences of the people. I am truly astonished that the work has risen to its present height on this continent, when so much of the spirit of prophecy, of the gifts of preaching, }^ea, of the most precious gifts which God bestows on mor- tals, should thus miserably be thrown away. I could, methinks, enter into my closet, and weep tears of blood upon the occasion." At another time he says, " The location of so many scores of our most able and experienced preachers tears my very heart in pieces. Methinks, almost the whole continent would have fallen before the power of God, had it not been for this enormous evil." Dr. Coke himself had the true spirit of an errant preacher, and tlierefore did not consider how natural it is that men should desire to settle quietly in domestic life, and how just and reasonable it is that they should be enabled and en- couraged to do so after a certain length of service. Mr. Wesley's original intention was, that the Method- ist preachers should be auxiliaries to the Church of - England, as the friars and the Jesuits are to the Church of Rome. In America, where there is no church, it would be consistent with this intention, that the Methodists should have an order of settled pastors in place of the clergy. But though the American itinerants withdrew from their labours earlier than their brethren in the mother country, new adventurers were continually offering- themselves to supply their place, and the increase of Methodism was far more rapid than in England. In the year 1786, two-and- twenty chapels were built in METHODISM IN AJMEKICA. 321 a single circuit within the State of South Carolina, and the Society in that same year had added to its numbers in the United States more than 6600 mem- bers. In 1789, when the census of the Methodists in Great Britain amouftted to 70,305, that in America was 43,265. In less than twenty years afterwards they doubled their numbers at home ; but the Ameri- cans had then become the more numerous body, and their comparative increase was much greater than this statement would imply, because it was made upon a much smaller population. VOL. n. 322 CHAPTER XXVIII. METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. In the year 1758, AVesley baptized some negroes at Wandsworth, who were in the service of Nathaniel Gilbert, Speaker of the House of Assembly in Antigua. Mr. Gilbert was a man of ardent piety, and being desirous of promoting religion in a part of the world where slavery had produced the greatest possible deo'radation of the moral feelins^, he invited Mr. Fletcher to return with him. ]\Ir. Fletcher hesitated, and consulted Charles Wesley : " I have weighed the matter," said he ; " but, on one hand, I feel that I have neither sufficient zeal, nor grace, nor talents, to expose myself to the temptations and labours of a mission to the West Indies ; and, on the other, I be- lieve that if God call me thither, the time is not yet come. I wish to be certain that I am converted my- self, befove I leave my converted brethren, to convert heathens. Pray let me know what you think of this business. If you condemn me to put the sea between us, the command would be a hard one ; but I might possibly prevail on myself to give you that proof of the deference I pay to your judicious advice." That proof was not exacted. Fletcher remained in Eng- land, where he rendered more essential service to Methodism, by his Avritings, than he could have done as a missionary ; and Mr. Gilbert returned to Antigua without any minister or preacher in his company. Being, however, enthusiastic by constitution, as well as devout by principle, he prayed and preached in his own house to such persons as would assemble to hear METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 323 him on Sundays ; and, encouraged by the facility of which he found himself possessed, and the success with which these beginnings were attended, he went forth and preached to the negroes. This conduct drew upon him contempt, or compassion, according as it was imputed to folly or to insanity. * But he had his reward : the poor negroes listened willingly to the consolations of Christianity, and he lived to form some tAvo hundred persons into a Methodist Society, according to Mr. Wesley's rules. After Mr. Gilbert's death the black people were kept together by two negresses, who jjrayed to them when they assembled, and preserved among them the forms of the Society as far as they could, and the spirit of devotion. In the year 1778, a shipwright, by name John Baxter, who was in the king's service, removed from the royal docks at Chatham to English Harbour in Antigua, and, happily for himself and the poor negroes, he survived his removal to one of the most fatal places in all those islands. He had been for some years a leader among the Methodists, and upon his arrival, he took upon himself immediately, as far as his occupation would allow, the management of the Society. His Sundays he devoted entirely to them ; and on the other days of the week, after his day's work was done, he rode about to the differ- ent plantations, to instruct and exhort the slaves. * A son of Mr, Gilbert published, in the year 1796j "The Hurri- cane, a Theosophical and Western Eclogue," and shortly afterwards placarded the walls in London with the largest bills that had at that time been seen, announcing the " The Law of Fire." I knew him well, and look back with a melancholy pleasure to the hours which I have past in his society, when his mind was in ruins. His madness was of the most incomprehensible kind, as may be seen in the notes to the Hurricane ; but the poem contains passages of exquisite beauty. I have among my papers some curious memorials of this interesting man. They who remember him (as some of my readers will) will not be dis- pleased at seeing him thus mentioned with the respect and regret which are due to the wreck of a noble mind. 324 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. when tlicy also were at rest from tlieir labour. Some of them would come three or four miles to hear him. He found it hard to flesh and blood, he said, to work all day, and tlien ride ten miles at night to preach ; but the motive supported him, and he Avas probably th(^ liappiest man upon the island. He married, and thereby established himself there. The contributions of his hearers, though he was the only white man in the Society, enabled him to build a chapel. He wrote to ]\Ir. Wesley from time to time, requested his di- rections, and expressed a hope that some one would come to his assistance. " The old standers," said he, " desire me to inform you that you have many children in Antigua, whom you never saw." Baxter was, after a while, assisted by an English woman, who having an annuity charged upon an estate in the island, had found it necessary to reside there. She opened her house for prayers every day, and set apart one evening every week for reading the Scriptures, to all who would hear. These meetings were much frequented ; " for the English," says this lady, " can scarcely conceive the hunger and thirst expressed by a poor negro, when he has learned that the soul is immortal, and is under the operation of awakenino- influences." Further assistance arrived in a manner remarkable enough to deserve relation. An old man and his wife at Waterford, being past their labour, were supported by two of their sons. They were Methodists: the children had been religiously brought up, and in their old age the parents found the benefit of having trained them in the way they should go. At the close of the American war, America was represented to the two sons as a land flowing with milk and honey, and they were advised to emigrate. Go they would not, without the consent of their parents ; and the old people entreated them to Avait a little, till they sliould be in the grave: the METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 325 youths, however, unwilling to wait, and incapable of forsaking their parents, proposed that they should go together, and succeeded in persuading them. Having no means of paying for their passage, the poor lads indented themselves to the captain of a ship, who was collectino; white slaves for the Virsfinia market ; and as the old people could be of no use as bond-servants, the boys were bound for a double term on their ac- count. How the parents, incapable as they were of supporting themselves, were to be supported in a strange land, when their children were in bondage, was a question which never occurred to any one of the family. A married son and his wife came on board to take leave, and they were persuaded by their relations and by the crimping skipper to join the party upon the same terms. No sooner had they sailed than they were made to feel the bitterness of their condition : slaves they had made themselves, and like slaves they were treated by the white slave- monger who had entrapped them. Happily for them, after a miserable voyage, the ship was driven to the West Indies, and put into Antigua like a floating wreck, almost by miracle. The old Irishman, hear- ing that there were Methodists on the island, inquired for the preaching-house, and Methodism proved more advantageous to him than free-masonry would have done. It procured him real and active friends, who ransomed the whole family. Good situations were procured for the three sons : the old man acted under Baxter ; being well acquainted with the routine of the society, he was of great use ; and by the year 1786 the persons under their spiritul care amounted to nearly two thousand, chiefly negroes. In that year Dr. Coke embarked upon his second voyage to America. The season was stormy, and the captain being one of those persons who have a great deal of superstition Avithout the slightest piety, con- Y 3 326 IMETllODLSiM IN THE WEST INDIES. ceived that the continuance of bad weather was brought on by the praying and preaching of the Doctor and his companions. One day, therefore, in the force of the tempest, while these passengers were fervently praying for the preservation of the ship and of the lives of all on board, the skipper paraded the deck in great agitation, muttering to himself, but so as to be distinctly heard, " We have a Jonah on board! We have a Jonah on board!" — till, having worked himself almost into a state of madness, he burst into Coke's cabin, seized his books and writings, and tossed them into the sea ; and, griping the Doctor himself, who was a man of diminutive stature, swore that if ever he made another prayer on board that ship he would throw him overboard, after his papers. At length the vessel, after imminent danger, succeeded in reaching Antigua. It was on Christmas-day. Dr. Coke went in search of Mr. Baxter, and met him on the way to officiate at the chapel. To the latter this event was as joyful as it was unexpected : the former performed the service for him, and administered the sacrament. He was delighted with the appearance of the congregation, one of the cleanest, he said, that he had ever seen. The negresses were dressed in white linen gowns, petticoats, handkerchiefs, and caps ; and their whole dress, which "was beautifully clean, appeared the whiter from the contrast of their skins. Dr. Coke's arrival occasioned a consideral)le stir in the capital of this little island. He preached tAvice a-day, and curiosity brought such numbers to hear him, that in the evenings the poor negroes, who by their savings had built the chapel, could find no room in it. The good effect of Methodism u[)on the slaves hnd been so apparent, that it was no longer necessary, as it formerly had been, to enforce military law during the holidays which were allowed them at Christmas. METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 327 They were made better servants, as they were in- structed in their moral and religious duties. Me- thodism, therefore, was in high favour there ; and Dr. Coke Avas informed, that if five hundred a-year would detain him in Antigua, it should be forthcoming. " God be praised," he says, " five hundred thousand a-year would be to me a feather, when opposed to mv usefulness in the Church of Christ." He and his com- panions were hospitably entertained and treated, he says, rather like princes than subjects ; and the com- pany of merchants invited them to a dinner which was given to Prince William Henry. Here Dr. Coke held what he calls an Infant Confer- ence. Invitations for the preachers came from St. Vincent's ; and recommendatory letters were given them to the islands of St. Eustatius and St. Kitt's. " All is of God," said Coke ; "I have no doubt but it would be an open resistance to the clear providences of the Almighty to remove any one of the missionaries at present from this country." Of the three who had embarked with him from England for America, it was determined that one should remain in Antigua ; and Baxter gave up the place which he held under govern- ment, and which was worth 400/. a-year currency, that he might devote his whole strength and time to the spiritual service of his feUow^- creatures. His wife, though a Creole, well born, and delicately brought up, readily consented to this sacrifice, and cheerfully sub- mitted to her part of the discomforts and privations inseparable from an itinerant life ; for even among the islands itinerancy was considered as an essential part of the Methodist economy. Leaving, therefore, Mr. Warrenner in Antigua, Coke departed, wdtli Baxter and the other two brothers, to reconnoitre the neigh- bouring islands. They were hospitably entertained at Dominica, at St. Vincent's, Nevis, and St. Kitt's; and though the commanding officer would not give per- y 4 328 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. mission for preaching in the barracks at St. Vincent's, where some religious soldiers would soon have formed a society, Dr. Coke thought the general prospect so encouraging that he said the will of God, in respect to the appointment of a Missionary there, was as clear as if it had been written with a sunbeam. Mr. Clarke accordingly was stationed there, and Mr. Hammet at St. Kitt's. When they arrived at St. Eustatius, they found that a slave, by name Harry, who had been a member of the Methodist Society in America, had taken to ex- horting in that island, and had been silenced by the governor, because the slaves were so affected at hearing- him, that " many fell down as if they were dead, and some remained in a state of stupor during several hours." Sixteen persons had been thrown into these fits in one night. This was a case in which the gover- nor's interference was perfectly justifiable and right.* The day after this event. Coke and his companions landed, and waited upon the persons in authority. They soon found that the degree of freedom which is every where enjoyed under the British government, is not to be found in the dominions of any other Eu- ropean power. They were ordered to prepare their con- fession of faith and credentials, and to present them to the court, and to be private in their devotions, till the court had considered whether their religion should be tolerated or not. Tlie council were satisfied with the confession, and Dr. Coke was desired to preach before them. But it was evident that the government would not permit the establishment of an English mission upon that island, though the inhabitants were * I should not have dared assert this so positively. I rather think it might have been wiser in the governor to have waited for the result at the end of a week. Sliould the poor negroes have become quiet, industrious servants, the fits would have been a chea]> purchase, — S. T. C. METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 329 exceedingly desirous of it. Dr. Coke, during a fort- night's stay, did what he could towards forming such as were willing into classes, and instructing them in the forms of Methodism, and was laden with presents of sea-stores and other refreshments, when he em- barked from thence to pursue his voyage to America* So fair a beginning was thus made, that from that time it became as regular a part of business for the Conference to provide for the West Indies, as for any part of Great Britain in which societies had been raised. In the autumn of 1788, the indefatigable Coke (who may properly be called the Xavier of Methodism) sailed a third time for the Western World, taking with him three missionaries intended for the Columbian Islands. They were embarked in that unfortiniate ship the Hankey, which has been accused of importing, in a subsequent voyage, the yellow fever from Bulama to the West Indies, as if that pestilence were not the growth of those countries. Every thing was favour- able now, and the missionaries succeeded so well in conciliating the good will of the crew, that when they took leave of them at Barbadoes, many of the men were in tears, and the sailors bade them farewell with three hearty cheers as the boat dropped astern. Coke with his companions landed at Bridgetown, as adven- turously as ever knight-errant set foot upon an island Avith his squire and his dwarf. None of the party supposed that they had a single acquaintance in Bar- badoes. There were, however, some soldiers there, who had been quartered at Kinsale in Ireland, where Mr. Fearce, one of the missionaries, had preached : he was presently recognised by a Serjeant, who embraced him without ceremony ; and it appeared that this Serjeant and some of his comrades had kept up the forms of Methodism, and were in the habit of exhorting the people in a warehouse which a friendly merchant had lent them for that purpose. Before Dr. Coke 330 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. could AViiit upon tliis merchant, he received an invita- tion to breakfast with him : he proved to have been one of his hearers in America, where four of his negroes had been baptized by the Doctor. The missionaries were immediately received into his house : tliey were encourag-cd by the governor, and by the merchants and planters to whom they were introduced. Pearce was left upon the island ; and Coke, having placed every thing in as favourable a train as could be wished, proceeded to St. Vincent's, whither the other two mis- sionaries had preceded him, and where he was joined by Baxter. One of the party was stationed there, to assist the former preacher ; and Baxter and his wife willingly consented to take up their abode among the Caribs, and endeavour at the same time to civilise and to convert them. Continuing his circuit. Dr. Coke formed a society at Dominica, and finding all prosperous at Antigua and St. Kitt's, visited St. Eustatius. Here he found that the aspects Avere different. The black Harry, after the Doctor's departure from his former visit, in- terpreting the governor's prohibition according to the letter rather than the spirit, abstained indeed from preaching to his fellow-slaves, but ventured to pray with them. For this offence he was publicly whipped and imprisoned, and then banished from the island. And an edict was issued, declaring, that if any white person should be found praying with others who were not of his family, he should be fined fifty pieces of eight for the first offence, a hundred for the second, and for the third offence he should be whipped, his sfoods confiscated, • and himself banished the island. A free man of colour was to receive thirty-nine stripes for the first offence, and for the second to be flogged and banished ; and a slave Avas to be flogged every time he was found offending. " This, I think," says Dr. Coke, " is the first instance, known among man- METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 331 kiricl, of a persecution openly avowed against religion itself. The persecutions among the heathens were supported under the pretence* that the Christians lirought in strange gods ; those among the Roman Catholics were under the pretext of the Protestants introducing heresies into the Church ; but this is openly and avowedly against prayer^ the great key to every blessing." Notwithstanding this edict, and the rigour with which this edict was enforced, so strong was the desire of the poor people on this island for religious instruction and religious sympathy, that Dr. Coke found- above two hundred and fifty persons there classed as Methodists, and baptized a hundred and forty of them. He remained there only one night ; but the sloop which he had hired to carry him and Ins companions to St. Kitt's, having received much da- mage by striking against a ship, they were obliged to return ; and Coke, who interpreted this accident as a plain declaration of Providence, whereby he was called on to bear a public testimony for Christ, immediately hired a large room for a month. Whatever danger might be incurred would fall upon himself, he thought, by this proceeding ; whereas his friends would have been amenable to the laws if he had preached in their houses. The next day, therefore, he boldly performed service, and gave notice that he intended to officiate again on the morrow. But Dutch governors are not persons who will suffer their authority to be set at nought with impunity ; and on the ensuing morning the Doctor received a message from the governor, re- quiring him, and two of his companions, who Avere specified by name, to engage that they would not, publicly or privately, by day or by night, preach either to whites or blacks, during their stay in that island, on pain of prosecution, arbitrary punishment, and banishment. " We withdrew to consult," says he ; " and after considering that we were favoured bv 332 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. Providence with an open door in other islands for as many missionaries as we could spare ; and that God was carrying on his ^blessed work even in this island by means of secret class-meetings ; and that Divine Providence may in future redress these grievances by a change of the governor, or by the interference of the superior powers in Holland in some other way, we gave for answer, that we would obey the government ; and, having nothing more at present to do in that place of tyranny, oppression, and wrong, we returned to St. Kitt's, blessing God for a British constitution and a British government." There was in Dr. Coke's company a third missionary, by name Brazier, whom the governor had not heard of, and who therefore was not included in the mandate. He thought himself perfectly justified in leaving this missionary upon the island. There were times in which such an experiment might have cost the con- traband preacher his life ; and if the governor had been as eager to persecute as Coke supposed him to be. Brazier would certainly not have got off with a whole skin. The truth seems to be, that the governor's interference had in the first instance been necessary. Harry's preaching was of that kind which ought not to be tolerated, because it threw his hearers into fits. If Dr. Coke, on his first landing, had distinctly ex- pressed his disapprobation of such excesses, things might possibly have taken a different turn. But he had learned to regard them as the outward signs and manifestations of inward grace ; and the governor, seeing that the black preaclier was acknowledged by him as a fellow-labourer, regarded him and his com- panions as troublesome fanatics, and treated them ac- cordingly. And when he discovered that Brazier had been clandestinely left behind, lie behaved with more temper than might have been expected, in merely or- dering him to leave the island. A man in power, who METHODISM 'in THE WEST INDIES. 383 retained something of the religious part of the old- Dutch character, removed the banished missionary to the little island of Saba, a dependency upon St. Eus- tatius, containing about three thousand inhabitants, of whom one third were whites. There was a respect- able church there ; but the people had been seventeen years without a minister. They received Brazier with the greatest joy ; and governor, council, and people entreated him to take up his abode among them, offer- ing him the church, the parsonage, and a sufficient maintenance. Coke went there, and was deliofhted with the kindness and simplicity of the people. He informed them what the economy of the Methodists was, and particularly explained to them what he called the " grand and indispensable custom of changing their ministers." They were willing to comply with every thing ; and though Brazier had been ordered by the Conference to Jamaica, Dr. Coke consented to leave him at Saba. But when the governor of St. Eustatius knew Avhere he was, he compelled the government to dismiss him, though with sorrow and reluctance on their part. Two missionaries had been appointed to Jamaica ; but Coke having thus disposed of the one, left the other to divide his labours between Tortola and Santa Cruz (on which little island the Danish governor promised him all the encouragement in his power), and proceeded to Jamaica alone, merely to prepare the way. Some of the higher orders, being drunk at the time, insulted him while he was preaching at Kingston, and would have offered some personal in- dignities to him, if they had not been controlled by the great majority of the congregation : but on the whole he was so well received and hospitably enter- tained, that he says, in honour of the ishmd, he never visited any place, either in Europe or America, where ]\Iethodism had not taken root, in which he received 3o4 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. SO many civilities as in Jamaica. He went therefrom to America, and from thence returned to England, in full persuasion that the prospects of the Society, both in Jamaica and the Leeward Islands, were as favour- able as could be desired. The cost of this spiritual colonisation now became serious ; for the resources of the Connection did not keep pace with its progress and its necessarily in- creased expenditure. The missions could not be supported unless separate funds were raised for the purpose ; and those funds could only be drawn from voluntary contributions. By the request of the Con- ference, Dr. Coke (never so happy as when he was most actively employed in such service) made a tour of sixteen months in the United Kingdom, preaching in behalf of the negroes, for whom these missions were especially designed ; and collecting money by these means, and by personal application to such as were likely to contribute ; going himself from door to door.* The rebuifs which he frequently met with, did not deter him from the work which he had undertaken ; and he obtained enough to discharge the whole debt which had been contracted on this account, and to proceed with the missions upon an extended scale. In the autumn of 1790, he made a third voyage to the Columbian Islands. A chapel had been built at Barbadoes, during his absence, capable of holding some seven hundred persons ; but the hopes of those by whom this building had been directed, had been greater than their foresight. * A captain in the navy, from whom he obtained a subscription, calling upon an acquaintance of Coke's the same morning, said : " Do you know any thing of a little fellow who calls himself Dr. Coke, and who is going about begging money for missionaries to be sent among the slaves ? " " I know him well," was the reply. " He seems," re- joined the captain, " to be a heavenly-minded little devil. He coaxed me out of two guineas this morning." — Drew's Life of Dr. Coke, p. 388. METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 335 Tliough the curate at Bridgetown, Mr. Dent, was the only clergyman in all the islands who countenanced the Methodists, and was heartily glad at receiving from them the assistance which he wanted ; though the governor was not unfavourable to them, and they had begun under such favourable appearances, the preacher had become obnoxious ; the nickname of Hallelujahs had been fixed upon his followers, and they had undergone that sort of opposition which they dignify by the name of persecution. Persecu- tion, in the true sense of the word, they have since that time suffered in some of the islands ; but in these instances the missionary seems to have been protected by the magistrates when he appealed for redress. At St. Vincent's, the attempt to civilise the Caribs had altogether failed. This was owing to the French priests at Martinico. The French missionaries have rendered themselves liable to the heavy accusation of sacrificing the interests of Christianity to the political views of their country. Of this their conduct in Canada affords scandalous proofs ; and on the present occasion they acted in the same manner. They per- suaded the Caribs, who went to Martinico on one of their trading visits, that the Methodists were spies, whom the king of England had sent to explore their land ; and as soon as they had finished their errand, they would retire, and an army would be sent to con- quer the country. The Caribs had regarded Baxter as their father, till they were deceived by this vil- lainous artifice. They then behaved so sullenly to- wards him, that he thought it advisable to hasten with his wife out of their power. When Mrs. Baxter took leave of these poor savages, to whose instruction she had vainly devoted herself, she wept bitterly, and prayed that they might have another call, and might not reject it as they had done this. But among the other casts upon the island the preachers were well 33G METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. received. The negroes, who in Barbadoes were remarkably indifferent to religious instruction, here were exceedingly desirous of it ; and even the Catholic families showed favour to the missionaries, and sent for Baxter to baptize their children. The prospect was still more favourable at Grenada. Mr. Dent had recently been presented to the living of St. George's in that island : and the governor, General Matthews, requested Dr. Coke to send missionaries there, saying it was his ^vish that the negroes should be fully in- structed, and there would be work enough for their preachers and for the clergy of the island too. The Methodists, were increasing in Antigua : but here a symptom appeared of that enthusiasm of which it is so difficult for Methodism to clear itself, sanc- tioned as it has been by Wesley. At the baptism of some adults, one of them was so overcome by her feelings that she fell into a swoon ; and Dr. Coke, instead of regarding this as a disorder, and impressing upon his disciples the duty of controlling their emo- tions, spoke of it as a memorable thing, and with evident satisfaction related that, as she lay entranced with an enraptured countenance, all she said for some time was. Heaven ! Heaven ! Come ! Come ! It re- quires more charity and more discrimination than the majority of men possess, not to suspect either the sincerity or the sanity of persons who aim at pro- ducing effects like this by their ministry, or exult in them when they are produced. Not deterred by his former ill success at St. Eustatius, Coke, with the perseverance that characterised him in all his under- takings, made a third visit there, and waited upon the new governor, who had recently arrived from Holland. The Dutchman, he says, received him with very great rudeness indeed ; but he ought to have considered it as an act of courtesy that he was not immediately sent off the island. The Methodists METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 337 there were in the habit of regularly holding their class-meetings ; and notwithstanding the edict, there were no fewer than eight exhoi'ters among them. One of these persons called upon the Doctor, requested him to correspond with them, and promised, in the name of his fellows, punctually to obey all the direc- tions which should be given them concerning the management of the Society. He told him also that many of the free blacks of both sexes intended going to St. Kitt's to receive the sacrament, at Christmas, from one of the missionaries. Here Dr. Coke met with another instance, which, if he had been capable of learning that lesson, might have taught him how dangerous it is to excite an enthusiastic spirit of religion. The person who, on his former visits, had entertained him with true hospitality, was in the very depth of despair. " The only reason he gave for his deplorable situation was, that the Lord had very powerfully called him, time after time, to preach, and he had as often resisted the call, till at last he entirely lost a sense of the favour of God. He seemed to have no hope left. We endeavoured," the Doctor adds, " to raise his drooping head, but all in vain." If this case were known to the persons in office, as in all likelihood it must have been, it would satisfy them that they had done wisely in proscribing a system which produced effects like this. The person in question conceived himself to be in a state of repro- bation, because he had not broken the laws of the place wherein he lived. By this time the alloy of Methodism had shown itself in the islands. Dr. Coke commanded respect there by his manners, his education, and his station in life. The missionaries who followed him had none of these advantages : their poverty and their pecu- liarities provoked contempt in those who had no respect for their zeal, and who perceived all that was VOL. II. z 338 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. ofFensive in their conduct, and all that was indiscreet, but were insensible of the good which these instru- ments were producing. Indispensable as religion is to the well-being of every society, its saluta,ry influ- ences are more especially required in countries where the system of slavery is established. If the planters understood their own interest, they would see that the missionaries might be made their best friends; that by their means the evils of slavery might be mitigated ; and that, in proportion as the slave was made a religious being, he became resigned to his lot and contented. But one sure effect of that abominable system is, that it demoralises the masters as much as it brutalises the slaves. Men whose lives arc evil willingly disbelieve the Gospel if they can ; and, with the greater part of mankind, belief and disbelief depend upon volition far more than is generally understood. But if they cannot succeed in this, they naturally hate those who preach zealously against their habitual vices. Among the causes, therefore, which soon made the Methodists unpopular in all or most of the Columbian islands, the first place must be assigned to that hateful licentiousness which pre- vails wherever slavery exists : something is to be allowed to a contempt for the preachers ; something to the objectionable practices of Methodism, and to a just dislike of what was ofFensive in its language; and perhaps not a little to the meritorious zeal which the Society had shown in England in favour of the abolition of the slave trade, when that great question was first agitated with such ardent benevolence on one side, and such fierce repugnance on the other. While Dr. Coke was in Antigua, Baxter was as- saulted at the door of his chapel by some drunken persons of the higher order, who threatened to murder him. His wife and the negroes believed them to be in earnest : the cry which they raised was mistaken METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 339 for a cry of fire, and the whole town was presently in an uproar. Baxter was informed by the magistrates that the offenders should be punished as they deserved, if he would lodo;e an information ao;ainst them. But it was thought best to acknowledge a grateful sense of their protection, and to decline the prosecution. Shortly afterwards, the chapel at St. Vincent's was broken open by night, not by robbers, but by mis- chievous and probably drunken persons, who did what mischief they could, and, carrying away the Bible, suspended it from the gallows ; a flagitious act, which caused the magistrates to offer a large reward for discovering the perpetrators. This growing ill-will was more openly displayed at Jamaica, where a mis- sionary had been appointed, and a chapel erected in Kingston. The preacher's life had been frequently endangered here by an outrageous rabble ; and a person who was considered to be the chief of the Methodists narrowly escaped being stoned to death, and was once obliged to disguise himself in regimentals. Attempts were made to pull down the chapel ; and when some of the rioters were prosecuted, the);^ Avere acquitted, Coke says, against the clearest evidence. The most abominable reports were raised against Hammet, the preacher ; and as for Dr. Coke, he, they said, had been tried in England for horse-stealing, and had fled the country in order to escape from justice. Such was the temper of the Jamaica people, when the Doctor, with another missionary in his company, landed at Montego Bay, in the beginning of 1791. A recommendatory letter to a gentleman in the neigh- bourhood procured them an excellent dinner, but no help in their main design ; and they walked the streets, " peeping and inquiring for a place wherein to preach, in vain." To preach out of doors in that climate, while the sun is up, is almost impracticable ; z 2 340 METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. and at evening, the only time when the slaves can attend, the heavy dews render it imprudent and dangerous. Dining, however, at an ordinary the next day, and stating his sorrow that he Avas pre- vented from preaching for want of a place, one of the company advised him to apply for a large room, which had originally been the church, served now for assera-^ blies, and was frequently used as a theatre. Plere he preached every evening during a short stay; and though a few bucks clapped and encored him, he was on the whole well satisfied with the attention of the congregation *, and the respect with which he was treated. But at Spanish Town and at Kingston he was grossly insulted by a set of profligate young men: their conduct roused in him an emotion which he had never felt in the same degree before, and which, he says, he believed was a spark of the proper spirit of martyrdom ; and, addressing himself to these rioters in terms of just reproof, he told them that he was willing — yea, desirous to suffer martyrdom, if the kingdom of Christ might be promoted thereby. The effect which he says that this produced, Avas un- doubtedly assisted by his station in life, which enabled him to appear upon equal terms with the proudest of his assailants. On another occasion, when he had ended his sermon, he told these persons that he and his brethren were determined to proceed, and to apply to the legal authorities for justice, if such insults and outrages were continued ; and if justice were not to * "On the Sunday morning," says Dr. Coke (Journal, page 130.), " we went to church ; but a little rain falling, the congregation consisted only of half a dozen, or thereabouts, at the exact time of beginning, on which the minister walked out. If he had condescended to have waited ten minutes longer, we should have been, I believe, about twenty. The Sunday before, also, there had been no service. In some of the parishes of this island there is no church, nor any divine service performed, except the burial of the dead, and christenings and weddings, in private houses, though the livings are very lucrative. But I will write no more on this subject, lest I should grow indignant." METHODISM IN THE WEST INDIES. 341 be found in Jamaica, they were sure, he said, of obtaining it at home. The affairs of Methodism in the West Indies were in this state at the time of Mr. A¥esley's death. Four- teen preachers were stationed there, of whom two came from the American branch. The number of persons enrolled in the Connection then amounted to about six thousand, of whom two thirds were negroes, and the number of white persons did not exceed two hundred. A more determined spirit of opposition was arising than they had ever experienced in Europe ; but they were sure of protection from the home government, and knew that by perseverance they should make their cause good. z .1 342 CHAPTER XXIX. SETTLEMENT OF THE CONFERENCE. MANNERS AND EFFECTS OF METHODISM. The year 1784 has been called the grand climacterical year of Methodism, because Wesley then first ar- rogated to himself an episcopal power ; and because in that year the legal settlement of the Conference Avas effected, whereby provision was made for the government of the Society after his death, as long as it should continue. The Methodist chapels, with the preachers' houses annexed to them, had all been conveyed to trustees for the use of such persons as should be appointed from time to time by John or Charles Wesley, during their lives; by the survivor, and after the death of both, by the yearly Conference of tlie people called Methodists, in London, Bristol, or Leeds. A legal opinion was taken, whether the law would recognise the Conference, unless the precise meaning of the word were defined : the lawyers were of opinion that it would not; and therefore, at the next meeting of that body, Mr. AVesley was unanimously desired to draw up a deed which should give a legal specification of the term; the mode of doing it being left entirely to his discretion. The necessity for this was obvious. " Without some authentic deed fixing the meaning of the term, the moment I died, says he, the Conference had been nothing : therefore any of the proprietors of land on which our preaching-houses had been built might have seized them for their own use, and there would have been none to hinder them ; for the Con- SETTLEMENT OF THE CONFERENCE. 343 ference Avould have been nobody — a mere empty name." His first thought was to name some ten or twelve- persons. On further consideration,, he appointed one hundred, believing, he says, "there would be more safety in a greater number of counsellors ;" and judg- ing these were as many as could meet without too great an exj^ense, and without leaving any circuit deprived of preachers while the Conference was, assembled. The hundred persons thus nominated,, " being preachers and expounders of God's holy Word, under the care of, and in connection with, the said John AYesley," were declared to constitute the Conference, according to tlie true intent and meaning of the various deeds in which that term was used ; and provision was now made for continuing the suc- cession and identity of this body,, wherein the admi-. nistration of the Methodist Connection was to be vested after the founder's death. They were ta assemble yearly at London, Bristol,, or Leeds, or any other place which they might think proper to appoint ; and their first act was to be to fill up all vacancies occasioned by death or other circumstances. No act was to be valid unless forty members were present, provided the whole body had not been reduced below that number by death or other causes. The duration of the assembly should not be less than five days, nor more than three weeks, but any time between those limits at their discretion. They were to elect a pre- sident and secretary from their own number, and the president should have a double vote. Any member absenting himself without leave from two successive conferences, and not appearing on the first day of the third, forfeited his seat by that absence. They had power to admit preachers and expounders upon trial, to receive them into full connection, and to expel any person for sufficient cause ; but no person might be z 4 344 SETTLEMENT OF THE CONFERENCE. elected a member of their body till he had been twelve months in full connection as a preacher. They might not appoint any one to preach in any of their chapels who was not a member of the Connection, nor might they appoint any preacher for more than three years to one place, except ordained ministers of the Church of England. They might delegate any mem- ber or members of their own body to act with full power in Ireland, or any other parts out of the king- dom of Great Britain. Whenever the Conference should be reduced below the number of forty mem- bers, and continue so reduced for three years, or whenever it should neglect to meet for three successive years, in either of such cases the Conference should be extinguished ; and the chapels and other premises should vest in the trustees for the time being, in trust that they should appoint persons to preach therein. The deed concluded with a provision that nothing which it contained should be construed so as to ex- tinguish, lessen, or abridge tlie life estate of John and Charles Wesley in any of the chapels and premises. At the time when this settlement was made, there were one hundred and ninety-one preachers in full connection ; they who were omitted in the list of the hundred Avere offended as well as disappointed -, and they imputed their exclusion to Dr. Coke, whom many of them regarded with jealousy, because of the place which he deservedly held in Mr, AYesley's opinion, and the conspicuous rank which he filled in the Society. He was grievously wronged by this suspi- cion ; for he has declared, and there can be no pos- sible grounds for doubting his veracity, that his opinion at the time was, that every preacher in full connection should be a member of the Conference. Wesley acted upon liis own judgement ; and the rea- sons which he assigned for determining the number were satisfactory. Five of the excluded preachers, SETTLEMENT OF THE CONFERENCE. 345 who thought themselves most aggrieved, sent circu- hir letters to those who were in the same case with themselves, inviting them to canvass the business in the ensuing Conference, and, in fact, to form a regu- lar opposition to Mr. Wesley. They had reason to expect that they should be powerfully supported ; but when the assembly met, AVesley explained his motives in a manner that carried conviction with it, reproved the persons who had issued the circular letters with great severity, and called upon all those who agreed with him in opinion to stand up ; upon which the whole Conference rose, with the exception of the five malcontents. Mr. Fletcher interfered in their behalf, and by his means they were induced to acknowledge that they had sinned ; and a verbal promise, according to their own account, was given them, that Mr. Wes- ley would take measures for putting them on a foot- ing with the rest. He could only mean that they would be appointed members of the Conference as vacancies occurred ; and it appears by their own statement also, that they had not patience to wait for this, but, in the course of the year, withdrew from the Connection, complaining of their wrongs, talking of their indisputable rights, and appealing to an original compact which had no existence. On the contrary, Wesley had always taken especial care to assert, as well as to exercise, his authority over the Society which he had raised, and the preachers, whom he received as his assistants, not his equals ; still less as persons who might oppose and control him. Wesley prided himself upon the economy of his Society, and upon his management of it. It was the peculiar talent, he said, which God had given him. He possessed that talent, beyond all doubt, in a re- markable degree. The constitution of Methodism, like most forms of government, had arisen out of accidents and circumstances : but Wesley had availed 346 MANNERS AND EFFECTS himself of these with great skill, and made them sub- servient to his views and purposes as they arose : whatever power of mind was displayed in the forma- tion of Methodism was his own. In this respect he differs from those monastic patriarchs with whom he may most obviously be compared. St. Benedict com- piled his rule from elder statutes, modifying them, and adapting them to his own time and country. St. Francis seems to have become the tool of his artful and ambitious disciples ; and Loyola was not the architect of the admirable structure which he founded. But the system of Methodism Avas Wesley's OAvn work. The task of directing it was not so difficult as might at first appear. His rank, his attainments, his abili- ties, and his reputation, secured for him so decided a superiority, that no person in his own community could, with the slightest prospect of success, dispute it ; and in the latter years of his life, that superiority was still farther increased by his venerable age, and the respect which he had then obtained even among strangers. Those who were weary of acting under his direction as preachers, or of observing his rules as members, either withdrew, or were easily dismissed. This is the great advantage which all sects enjoy. They get rid of troublesome spirits and bad subjects ; and general society is ready to receive the outcasts. The quarterly renewal of the band and class tickets afforded a ready means of ejecting unworthy and dis- obedient members. The terms of admission, there- fore, might well be made comprehensive ; while these means of cutting short all discordance were in the preacher's hands. Upon this facility of admission Wesley prided himself. " One circumstance," says he, " is quite peculiar to the Methodists : the terms upon which any person may be admitted into their society. They do not impose, in order to their ad- mission, any opinions whatever. Let them hold par- OF METHODISM. 347 ticular or general redemption, absolute or conditional decrees ; let them be Churchmen or Dissenters, Pres- byterians or Independents, it is no obstacle. Let them choose one mode of worship or another, it is no bar to their admission. The Presbyterian may be a Presbyterian still ; the Independent or Anabaptist use his own mode of worship ; so may the Quaker, and none will contend with him about it. They think, and let think. One condition, and one only, is re- quired,— a real desire to save their souls. Where this is, it is enough ; they desire no more. They lay stress upon nothing else. They ask only. Is thy heart herein as my heart ? If it be, give me thy hand. Is there any other society in Great Britain or Ireland that is so remote from bigotry ? — that is so truly of a Catholic spirit ? — so ready to admit all serious per- sons without distinction ? Where, then, is there such another society ? In Europe ? in the habitable world ? I know none. Let any man show it me that can. Till then, let no one talk of the bigotry of the Me- thodists." The propriety of thus admitting persons of opposite persuasions, and of bearing with the oppo- sition which they miglit raise, was once debated in Conference. Mr. Wesley listened patiently to the dis- cussion, and concluded it by saying, " I have no more right to object to a man for holding a different opin- ion from me, than I have to differ with a man because he wears a wig, and I wear my own hair ; but if he stakes his Avig off, and begins to shake the powder about my eyes, I shall consider it my duty to get quit of him as soon as possible." Wesley, indeed, well understood the importance of unanimity in his Connection ; and even before he had taken those decided steps which prepared the way for a separation from the Church, aimed, in many of his regulations, at making the Methodists a peculiar people. For this reason, he required them, like the 348 MANNERS AND EFFECTS Quakers, to intermarry among themselves. This point Avas determined in the first Conference, the want of such a regulation having been experienced. " Many of our members," it was said, " liave lately married with unbelievers, even with such as were wholly unawakened ; and this has been attended with fatal consequences. Few of these have gained the unbelieving wife or husband. Generally, they have themselves either had a heavy cross for life, or entirely fallen back into the world." In order to prevent such marriages, it was decreed that every preacher should enforce the apostolic caution, " Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers ; " that Avlioever acted contrary to it should be expelled the Society ; and that all persons should be exhorted " to take no step in so weighty a matter Avithout consulting the most serious of their brethren." The rule was well designed for the preservation and increase of Method- ism ; but the language savours strongly of that spiritual pride which sectarism of every kind tends to excite and foster. This was not the only point in which Wesley imitated the Quakers. lie has himself said, that, having remarked among them several parts of Christian practice, he had willingly adopted, with some restric- tions, plainness of speech and plainness of dress. In their barbarisms of language, and their superstitious rejection of common forms of speech, he was too well educated and too sensil)le to follow them ; neither did he recommend his followers to imitate them in those little particularities of dress which could answer no end but that of distinguishing them from other people. " To be singular," he said, '* merely for singularity's sake, is not the part of a Christian. I do not, there- fore, advise you to wear a hat of such dimensions, or a coat of a particular form. Rather, in things that are absolutely indifferent, humilit}^ and courtesy OF METHODISM. 349 require you to conform to the customs of your country ; but I advise you to imitate them in the neatness and in the plainness of their apparel. In this are implied two things : that your apparel be cheap, far cheaper than others in your circumstances wear, or than you would wear if you knew not God ; that it be grave, not gay, airy, or showy — not in the point of the fashion." — " Shall I be more particular ?" he pursues. " Then I exhort all those ivho desire me to watch over their souls, wear no gold, no pearls or;< precious stones ; use no curling of hair or costly apparel, how grave soever. / advise those idIlo are able to receive this saying, buy no velvet, no silks, no fine linen, no superfluities, no mere ornaments, though>. ever so much in fashion. Wear nothing, though you have it already, which is of a glaring colour, or which J.\EK« A>J1J EFFECTS it is mere mercy, free iiiicleserved mercy, that ine are not now in unquenchable fire." — " The natural man," said he, "lies in the valley of the shadow of death. Having no inlets for the knowledge of spiritual things, all the avenues of his soul being shut up, he is in gross stupid ignorance of whatever he is most concerned to know. Pie sees not that he stands on the edge of the pit ; therefore he fears it not : he has not understand- ing enough to fear. He satisfies himself by saying, God is merciful ; confounding and swallowing up at once, in that unwieldy idea of mercy, all his holiness and essential hatred of sin — all his justice, wisdom, and truth. God touches him, and now first he dis- covers his real state. Horrid light breaks in upon his soul — such light as may be conceived to gleam from the bottomless pit, from the lowest deep, from a lake of fire burning with brimstone." The eftect of such sulphurous language may be easily conceived, espe- cially when it was enforced by his manner of address- ing himself personally to every individual who chose to apply it to himself: " Art thou thoroughly con- me more than a worldling would believe, if I expressed the degree, that the incaution in not distinguishing, in the quotations from Wesley, the precise points which Southey meant to condemn, and thus separating the error, in kind or degree, from what Southey would himself admit as im- portant truths, prevents me from urging the perusal and purchase of these volumes as universally and promiscuously as I would fain do. Where it is a mfe. work, I have no hesitation in pronouncing it among the most instructive and interesting ones in our language. I am well — alas! for my own peace of mind, only too well — acquainted with the difficulties that weigh on the nrgativr of salvation — on the lot of those who are not Christians in the New Testament determination of a Chris- tian. But yet I must ask Southey, wliether the Scriptures Avould lead him to suppose, that the state of the many who have just steered clear of the law of the land, and maintained a decent charactei-, is the state to which eternal life and an ascent into glory are promised ? I could not in my own person utter the passage in pp. 'MVo, ^iG-l. ; but neither dare I ujihold tlie contrary declarations of Drs. Mant and D'Oyley. N.H. I speak exclusively of pp. oiVA, 'Mii. ; what follows in p. '}()4'. I give up to Southey's just reprehension, as so nnich presumptuous logic, avtv \6yov, — S. T. C. OF JMETHODISM. 363 viiiced that thou deservest everlasting damiiation ? Would God do thee any wrong if he commanded the earth to open and swallow thee up ? — if thou wert now to go down into the pit — into the iire that ne- ver shall be quenched ?" The manner in which he insisted upon the necessity of the new birth, was especially dangerous : without this lie affirmed that there could be no salvation. "To say that ye cannot be born again," said he, "that there is no new birth but in baptism, is to seal you all under damnation — to consign you to hell, without help, without hope. Thousands do really believe that they have found a broad way ivMch leadeth not to destructiofi. 'What danger (say they) can a woman be in, that is so harmless and so virtuous ? What fear is there that so honest a man, one of so strict morality^ should miss of heaven ? Especially if, over and above all this, they constantly attend on the Church and sacrament.' One of these will ask with all assurance, 'What! shall I not do as well as my neighbours?' Yes ; as well as your unholy neighbours ; as well as your neighbours that die in their sins ; for you will all drop into the pit together, into the nethermost hell. You will all lie together in the lake of fire, ' the lake of fire burning with brimstone.' Then at length you will see (but God grant you may see it before!) the necessity of holiness in order to glory, and, consequently, of the new birth ; since none can be holy, except he be born again." And he inveighed bitterly against all who preached any doctrine short of this. "Where lies the uncharitableness," he asked; " on my side, or on yours ? I say he may be born again, and so become an heir of salvation : you say he cannot be born again ; and, if so, he must inevitably perish : so you utterly block up his way to salvation, and send him to hell, out of mere charity." — " They who do not teach men to walk in the narrow way, — who encourage the easy, careless, harmless, useless creature, the man who suffers no reproach for right- eousness' sake, to imagine he is in the way to heaven ; these are false prophets in the highest sense of the word ; these are traitors both to God and man ; these are no other than the first-born of Satan, and the eld- est sons of Apollyon the destroyer. These are above the rank of ordinary cut-throats, for they murder the souls of men. They are continually peopling the realms of night ; and, whenever they follow the poor souls whom they have destroyed, hell shall be mo\'ed from beneath, to meet them at their coming." The effect of these violent discourses was aided by the injudicious language concerning good works, into which Wesley was sometimes hurried, in opposition even to his own calmer judgement upon that contested point. " If you had done no harm to any man," said he, " if you had abstained from all wilful sin, if you had done all the good you possibly could to all men, and constantly attended all the ordinances of God, all this will not keep you from hell, except you be born again." And he attempted to prove, by a syllogism, that no works done before justification are good, be- cause they are not done as God hath willed and com- manded them to be done. " Wherewithal," said he, "shall a sinful man atone for any the least of his sins? AVith his own works ? Were they ever so many or holy, they are not his own, but God's. But indeed they are all unholy and sinful themselves ; so that every one of them needs a fresh atonement." — " If thou couldst do all things well ; if from this very hour till death thou couldst perform perfect uninterrupted obedience, even this would not atone for what is past. Yea, the present and the future obedience of all the men upon earth, and all the angels in heaven, would never make satisfaction to the justice of God for one single sin." Wesley has censured the error of re- OF METHODISxM. 365 posing in what he calls the unwieldy idea of God's mercy. Is such an idea of his justice more tenable ? If such notions were well founded, wherein would the value of a good conscience consist ? — or why should we have been taught and commanded, when we pray, to say, — " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." These were not Wesley's deliberate opinions. He held a saner doctrine*, and the avowal of that doc- trine was what drew upon him such loads of slander- ous abuse from the Ultra-Calvinists. Yet he was led to these inconsistencies by the course of his preaching, and the desire of emptying men of their righteousness, as he called it. And if he were thus indiscreet, what was to be expected from his lay preachers, especially from those who were at the same time in the heat of their enthusiasm, and the plenitude of their igno- rance ? The overstrained feelino-s which were thus excited, and the rigid doctrine which was preached, tended to produce two opposite extremes of evil. Many would become what, in puritanical language, is * It was asked in the second Conference — Q. Q. " How can we main- tain, that all works done before we have a sense of the pardoning love of God, are sin ; and as such, an abomination to him ? A. The works of him who has heard the Gospel, and does not believe, are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done. And yet we know not how to say, that they are an abomination to the Lord, in him who feareth God, and from that principle does the best he can. — Q. 10. Seeing there is so much difficulty in this subject, can we deal too ten- derly with them that oppose us ? A. We cannot." Dr. Hales, rector of Killasandra, in Ireland, happened to tell Mr. Wesley, that when Bishop Chevenix (of ^Vaterford), in his old age, was congratulated on recovering from a fever, the Bishop replied, " I believe I am not long for tliis world. I have lost all relish for what formerly gave me pleasure ; even my books no longer entertain me. There is nothing sticks by me but the recollection of what little good I may have done." One of Mr. Wesley's preachers, who was presents- exclaimed at this, "Oh the vain man, boasting of his good works!" Dr. Hales vindicated the good old bishop, and Mr. ^Vesley si'enced the preacher by saying, " Yes, Dr. Hales is right : there is indeed great> comfort in the calm remembrance of a life well spent." o66 MANNKHS AND KFFECTS called backsliders, and still more would settle into all the hypocritical formalities of puritanism. " Despise not a profession of holiness," says Osborn, "because it may be true ; but have a care how you trust it, for fear it should be false!" The tendency to produce mock humility and spiritual pride, is one of the evil effects of Methodism. It is chargeable also with leading to bigotry, illiberal manners, confined knowledge, and uncharitable super- stition. In its insolent language, all unawakened persons, that is to say, all except themselves, or such graduated professors in other evangelical sects as they are pleased to admit ad eundem, are con- temptuously styled unbelievers. Wesley could not communicate to his followers his own catholic charity; indeed, the doctrine which he held forth was not always consistent with his own better feelings. Still less was he able to impart that winning deportment, which arose, in him, from the benignity of his dis- position, and which no Jesuit ever possessed in so consummate a degree by art, as he by natnre. The circle to which he would have confined their reading Avas narrow enough: his own works, and his own series of abridgements, would liave constituted the main part of a Methodist's library. But in this respect the zeal of the pupils exceeded that of the master; and Wesley actually gave offence by printing Prior's Henry and Emma, in his Magazine. So many remonstrances were made to him upon this occasion, that he found it necessary, in a subsequent number, to vindicate himself, by urging that there was nothing in the poem contrary to religion, nothing which could offend the chastest ear ; that many truly religious men and women had read it, and profited thereby ; that it was one of the finest poems in the language, both for expression and sentiment ; and that whoever could read it without tears must have a stupid un- OF METHODISM. 367 feeling heart. HoAvever, he concluded, "I do not know that any thmg of the same kind will appear in any of the followino* Mai^azines." In proportion as Methodism obtained ground among the educated classes, its direct effects were evil. It narrowed their views and feelings ; burdened them with forms ; restricted them from recreations which keep the mind in health ; discouraged, if it did not absolutely prohibit, accomplishments that give a grace to life ; separated them from general society ; substituted a sectarian in the place of a catholic spirit; and, by alienating them from the national Cliurch, weakened the strongest cement of social order, and loosened the ties whereby men are bound to their native land. It carried disunion and discord into private life, breaking up families and friendships. The soonei' you weaned your aifections from those who, not being awakened, were of course in the way to perdition — the sooner the sheep withdrew from the goats, the better. Upon this head the monks have not been more remorseless than the Methodists.* Wesley has said, in one of his sermons, that, how fre- quently parents should converse with their children when they are grown up, is to be determined by Christian prudence. " This also," says he, " will de- termine how long it is expedient for children, if it be at their own choice, to remain with their parents. In general, if they do not fear God, you should leave them as soon as is convenient. But, wherever you are, take care (if it be in your power) that they do not * What an old writer says of the Independents in the time of the Commonwealth, is perfectly applicable to this worst part of Methodism. " They take all other Christians to be heathens. These are those great pretenders to the Spirit, into whose party does the vilest person living no sooner adscribe himself but he is ipso facto dubbed a saint, hallowed and dear to God. These are the confidents who can design the minute, the place, and the means of their conversion : — a schism full of spiritual disdain, incharity, and high imposture, if any such there be on earth." — A Character of England. Scott's Somers's Tracts, vol. vii. p. 180. oGS MANNERS AND EFFECTS want the necessaries or conveniences of life. As for all other relations, even brothers or sisters, if they are of the world, you are under no obligation to be in- timate with them : you may be civil and friendly at a distance." What infinite domestic unhappiness must this abominable spirit have occasioned ! Mr. Wesley's notions concerning education must also have done great evil. Xo man was ever more thoroughly ignorant of the nature of children. " Break their wills betimes," he says : " begin this work before they can run alone, before they can speak plain, perhaps before they can speak at all. Whatever pains it costs, break the will, if you would not damn the child. Let a child from a year old be taught to fear the rod and to cry softly ; from that age make him do as he is bid, if you whip him ten times running to effect it. If you spare the rod, you spoil the child : if you do not conquer, you ruin him. Break his will now, and his soul shall live, and he will probably bless you to all eternity." He exhorts parents never to commend their children for any thing; and says, " that in particular they should labour to convince tliem of atheism, and show them that they do not know God, love him, delight in him, or enjoy him, any more than do the beasts that perish ! " If Wesley had been a father himself, he would have known that children are more easily governed by love than by fear. There is no subject, that of government ex- cepted, upon which so many impracticable or injurious systems have been sent into the Avorld, as that of education ; and, among bad systems, that of Wesley is one of the very worst. The rigid doctrine which he preached concerning riches, being only one degree more reasonable than that of St. Francis, prevented Methodism from ex- tending itself as it otherwise might have done, among those classes where these notions would have been OF METHODLSM. 369 acted upon by zealous mothers. When Wesley con- sidered the prodigious increase of his Society, "" from two or three poor people, to hundreds, to thousands, to myriads," he affirmed that such an ev^ent, considered in all its circumstances, had not been seen upon earth since the time that St. John went to Abraham's bosom. But he perceived where the principle of decay was to be found. " Methodism," says he, " is only plain scriptural religion guarded by a few pru- dential reo;ulations. The essence of it is holiness of heart and life : the circumstantials all point to this ; and, as long as they are joined together in the people called Methodists, no weapon formed against them shall prosper. But if ever the circumstantial parts are despised, the essential will soon be lost ; and if ever the essential parts should evaporate, what remains will be dung and dross. I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches in- crease, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches. How then is it possible that Methodism, that is, a religion of the heart, though it flourishes now as a green bay-tree, should continue in this state ? For the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal ; consequently they increase in goods. Hence they proportionably increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away. Is there no Avay to prevent this — this con- tinual decay of pure religion ? We ought not to pre- vent people from being diligent and frugal ; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save VOL. II. B B 370 MANNERS AND EFFECTS all they can ; that is, in eftect, to grow rich. AMiat Avay, then, can we take, that our money may not sink us to the nethermost hell? There is one way, and there is no other under heaven. If those who gain all they can, and save all they can, will likewise give all they can, then the more they gain the more they will grow in grace, and the more treasure they will lay up in heaven." Upon this subject Wesley's opinions were incon- sistent with the existing order of society. " Every man," he said, " ought to provide the plain necessaries of life for his wife and children, and to put them into a capacity of providing these for themselves when he is gone : I say, these — the p/cz/n necessaries of life, not delicacies, not superfluities ; for it is no man's duty to furnish them with the means either of luxury or idleness. The designedly procuring more of this world's goods than will answer the foregoing pur- poses ; the labouring after a larger measure of worldly substance ; a larger increase of gold and silver ; the laying up any more than these ends require, is ex- pressly and absolutely forbidden." And he main- tained, that whoever did this practically denied the faith, was worse than an African infidel, became an abomination in the sight of God, and purchased for himself hell-fire. How injurious, if such opinions were reduced to practice, they would prove to general in- dustry, and how incompatible they were with the general welfare of the world, Wesley seems not to have regarded. Not less enthusiastic in this respect than Francis or Loyola, and not less sincere also, he ex- claimed : "I call God to record upon my soul, that I advise no more than I practise. I do, blessed be God, gain, and save, and give all I can ; and, I trust in God, I shall do, while the breath of life is in my nostrils." This was strictly true : Wesley had at lieart the OF METHODISM. 371 advice which he gave.* He dwelt upon it with great earnestness in one of his last sermons, a few months only before his death. "After you have gained all you can," said he, " and saved all you can, wanting for no- thing, spend not one pound, one shilling, or one penny, to gratify either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, or the pride of life, or for any other end than" to please and glorify God. Having avoided this rock on the right hand, beware of that on the left. Hoard nothing. Lay up no treasure on earth, but give all you can^ that is, all you have. I defy all the men upon earth, yea, all the angels in heaven, to find any other way of extracting the poison from riches. After having served you between sixty and seventy years, with dim eyes, shaking hands, and tottering feet, I give you this advice, before I sink into the dust. I am pained for you that you are rich in this world. You who receive five hundred pounds a year, and spend only two hundred, do you give three hundred back to God ? If not, you certainly rob God of that three hundred. You who receive two hundred, and spend but one, do you give God the other hundred ? If not, you rob him of just so much. ' Nay, may I not do what I will Avith my own?' Here lies the ground of your mistake. It is not your oivn. It * Upon this principle he began in his youth, and acted upon it throughout his long life. " This," said he, in a sermon, '' was the practice of all the young men at Oxford who were called Methodists. For example : one of them had thirty pounds a year ; he lived upon twenty-eight, and gave away forty shillings. The next year, receiving sixty pounds, he still lived on twenty-eight, and gave away two-and- thirty. The third year he received ninety pounds, and gave away sixty- two. The fourth year he received an hundred and twenty pounds ; still he lived as before on twenty -eight, and gave to the poor ninety- two." It was of himself he spoke. It is affirmed that, in the course of his life, he gave away not less than thirty thousand pounds ; and the assertion is probably well founded. " All the profit of his literary labours, all that he received or could collect (and it amounted, says Mr. Nichols, to an immense sum, for he was his own printer and bookseller), was devoted to charitable purposes." 372 MANNERS AND EFFECTS cannot be, unless you are lord of heaven and eartli. ' However, I must provide for my children.' Certainly : but how ? By making them rich ? Then you will probably make them heathens, as some of you have done already. Secure them enough to live on ; not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry. And if you have not children, upon what scriptural or rational principle can you leave a groat behind you more than will bury you ? Oh ! leave nothing behind you ! Send all you have before you into a better world ! Lend it, lend it all unto the Lord, and it shall be paid you again. Haste, haste, my brethren, haste, lest you be called away before you have settled what you have on this security. When this is done, you may boldly say, ' Now I have nothing to do but to die ! Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit ! Come, Lord Jesus ! come quickly ! ' " There were times when Wesley perceived and acknowledged how little real reformation had been effected in the great body of his followers : " Might I not have expected," said he, " a general increase of faith and love, of righteousness and true holiness ; yea, and of the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, longsuffering, meekness, gentleness, fidelity, goodness, temperance ? Truly, when I saw what God had done among his people bet^v^een forty and fifty years ago, when I saw them warm in their first love, magnifying the Lord, and rejoicing in God their Saviour, I could expect nothing less than that all these would have lived like angels here below ; that they would have walked as continually seeing Him that is invisible, having constant communion with the Father and the Son, living in eternit}', and walking in eternity. I looked to see ' a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people ; ' in the whole tenor of their conversation ' showing forth His praise who had called them into his marvellous light.'" But, OF METHODISM. 373 instead of this, it brought forth error in ten thousand shapes. It brought forth enthusiasm, imaginary in- spiration, ascribing to the all-wise God all the wild, ab- surd, self-inconsistent dreams of a heated imagination. It brought forth pride. It brought forth prejudice, evil-surmising, ceusoriousness, judging and condemn- ing one another ; all totally subversive of that brotherly love which is the very badge of the Christian profes- sion, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before God. It brought forth anger, hatred, malice, revenge, and every evil word and work ; all direful fruits, not of the Holy Spirit, but of the bottomless pit. It brought forth such base grovelling aiFections, such deep earthly tmindedness as that of the poor hea- thens, which occasioned the lamentation of their own poet over them : 0 curvoe in terras animce et coelestium. inanes ! "0 souls bowed down to earth, and void of God ! " And he repeated, from the pulpit, a remark which had been made upon the Methodists by one whom he calls a holy man, that " never was there be- fore a people in the Christian Church who had so much of the power of God among them, with so little self-denial. Mr. Fletcher also confirms this unfavourable repre- sentation, and indicates one of its causes. There wei'e members of the Society, he said, who spoke in the most glorious manner of Christ, and of their interest in his complete salvation, and yet were indulging the most unchristian tempers, and living in the greatest immoralities: "For some years," said he, "I have suspected there is more imaginary than unfeigned faith in most of those who pass for believers. With a mixture of indignation and grief have I seen them carelessly follow the stream of corrupt nature, against which they should have maiifully wrestled ; and when they should have exclaimed against their antino- mianism, I have heard them cry out against the r. B 3 374 MANNERS AND EFFECTS lcp;ality of their wicked hearts, which, tliey said, still suggested they A\'ere to do something in order to sal- vation." Antinomianism, he said, was, in general, " a motto better adapted to the state of professing congregations, societies, families, and individuals, than holiness unto the Lord, the inscription that should be even upon our horses' bells." He saw what evil had been done by " making much ado about finished salvation.^' " The smoothness of our doctrine," said he, " will atone for our most glaring inconsistencies. We have so whetted the antinomian appetite of our hearers, that they swallow do"\vn almost any thing." Against this error, to which the professors of sanc- tity so easily incline, Wesley earnestly endeavoured to guard his followers. But if on this point he was, during the latter, and indeed the greater part of his life, blameless, it cannot be denied that his system tended to produce more of the appearance than of the reality of religion. It dealt too much in sensations, and in outward manifestations of theopathy ; it made religion too much a thing of display, an affair of sympathy and confederation ; it led persons too much from their homes and their closets ; it imposed too many forms ; it required too many professions ; it exacted too many exposures. And the necessary consequence was, that many, when their enthusiasm abated, became mere formalists, and kept up a Phari- saical appearance of holiness, when the whole feeling had evaporated. It was among those classes of society whose moral and religious education had been blindly and culpably neglected, that Methodism produced an immediate beneficial effect ; and, in cases of brutal depravity and habitual vice, it often produced a thorough re- formation, which could not have been brought about by any less powerful agency than that of religious zeal. " Sinners of every other sort," said a good old OF METHODISM. 375 clergyman, " have I frequently known converted to God : but an habitual drunkard I have never known ■■■ converted." " But I," said Wesley, " have known five hundred, perhaps live thousand."* To these moral miracles he appealed in triumph, as undeniable proofs that Methodism was an extraordinary work of God. " I appeal," said he, " to every candid unprejudiced person, whether we may not at this day discern all those signs (understanding the words in a spiritual sense) to which our Lord referred John's disciples : ' The blind receive their sight.' Those who were blind from their birth, unable to see their own deplor- able state, and much more to see God, and the remedy he has prepared for them, in the Son of his love, now see themselves, yea, and ' the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.' The eyes of their understanding being now opened, they see all things clearly. ' The deaf hear.' Those that were before utterly deaf to all the outward and inward calls of God, now hear not only his providential calls, but also the whispers of his grace. ' The lame walk.' Those who never before arose from the earth, or moved one step toward heaven, are now walking in all the ways of God ; yea, running the race that is set before them. ' The lepers are cleansed.' The deadly leprosy of sin, which they brought with them * I am afraid that Wesley did not refer to the same calamitous vice as the good old clergyman meant. Wesley may have known 500 or 5000 work-people who got drunk whenever they had money to procure liquor: this might occur twice a week, so as to fasten on the man the 7ia7)ie of habitual drunkard, when, in fact, a frequent drunkard was the truer description. But the old clergyman probably meant a daily, periodical sot, in whom the obscure will, which is the radical of his plastic life, is infected. And here a true reformation would be a true miracle, equiva- -lent to re-creation. To such a fact, if I could ascertain it, I should appeal with more confidence than to the sudden removal of disease from a whole ward of an hospital. To God all things are possible ; and Christian faith is the strongest means by which he manifests his power : I dare not, therefore, believe it impossible. — S. T. C. B B 4 o76 MAN]*JEKS AND KFFKCTS into the world, and which no art of man could ever cure, is now clean departed from them. And surely, never, in any age or nation since the Apostles, have those words been so eminently fulfilled — 'the poor have the Gospel preached unto them' — as tliey are at this day. At this day, the Gospel leaven, faith work- ing by love, inward and outward holiness, or (to use the terms of St. Paul) righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, hath so spread in various parts of Europe, particularly in England, Scotland, Ireland, in the Islands, in the north and south from Georgia to New England and Newfoundland, that sinners have been truly converted to God, thoroughly changed both in heart and in life, not by tens, or by hundreds only, but by thousands, yea, by myriads. The fact cannot be denied : we can point out the persons, with their names and places of abode : and yet the wise men of the world, the men of eminence, the men of learning and renown, cannot imagine what we mean by talking of any extraordinary work of God." Forcible examples are to be found of this true con- version, this real regeneration ; as well as many affect- ing instances of the support Avhich religion, through the means of Methodism, has given in the severest afflictions*, and of the peace and contentment f which * In Dr. Coke's History of the West Indies there is one remarkable instance, but it is too painful to be repeated. t Of this there is a beautiful example in a letter written to Mr. "W^esley by one of his female disciples, who was employed in the Orphan House at Newcastle. " I know not," she says, " how to agree to the not workhuj. I am still unwilling to take any thing from any body. I work out of choice, having never yet learned how a woman can be idle and innocent. I have had as blessed times in my soul sitting at work as ever I had in my life; especially in the night-time, when I see nothing but the light of a candle and a white cloth, hear nothing but the sound of my own breath, with God in my sight and heaven in my soul, I think myself one of the happiest creatures below the skies. I do not conij)lain that God has not made me some fine thing, to be set up to be gazed at ; but 1 can heartily bless him that he has made nic just what I am, a creature capable of the enjoyment of him- OF METHODISM. 377 it lias afforded to those who without it would have been forlorn and hopeless. Many, perhaps most of these conversions, were produced by field-preaching ; and it is probable, therefore, that Methodism did more good in its earlier than in its latter days, when preach- ing in the open air was gradually disused, as chapels were multiplied. The two brothers, and the more zealous of their followers, used at first also to fre- quent Bedlam and the prisons, for the purpose of administering consolation to those who stood most in need of it. When Methodism was most unpopular, admission at these places was refused them, which occasioned Wesle}^ to exclaim, "So we are forbid to go to Newgate for fear of making them wicked, and to Bedlam for fear of driving them mad!" In both places, and in hospitals also, great good might be effected by that zeal which the Methodists possess, were it tempered with discretion. If they had insti- tuted societies to discharge such painful offices of humanity as are performed by the Soeurs de la Charite in France, and by the Beguines of Bra- bant and Flanders, the good which they might have affected would have been duly appreciated and re- warded by public opinion. It is remarkable, that none of their abundant enthusiasm should have taken this direction, and that so little use should have been made of the opportunity when the prisons were again self. If I go to the window and look out, I see the moon and stars : I meditate a while on the silence of the night, consider this world as a beautiful structure, and the work of an almighty hand; then I sit down to work again, and think myself one of the happiest of beings in it." Both the feeling and the expression in this letter are so sweet, that the reader will probably be as sorry as I was to discover that this happy state of mind was not permanent. In a letter of Wesley's, written three years afterwards, he says, " I know not what to do more for poor Jenny Keith (that was her name). Alas ! from what a height is she fallen ! What a burning and shining light was she six or seven years ago ! But thus it ever was. Many of the first shall be last, and many of the last first." 378 MANNERS AND EFFECTS opened to them. The Wesleys appear not to have repeated their visits after the exclusion. One of their followers, by name Silas Told, a weak, credulous, and, notwithstanding his honest zeal, not always a credible man, attended at Newgate for more than twenty years : his charity was bestowed almost exclusively upon condemned criminals. After his death he had no successor in this dismal vocation ; and the honour of having shown in what manner a prison may be made a school of reformation, was reserved for Mrs. Fry and the Quakers. In estimating the effects of Methodism, the good which it has done indirectly must not be overlooked. As the Reformation produced a visible reform in those parts of Christendom where the Romish Church main- tained its supremacy, so, though in a less degree, the progress of Wesley's disciples has been beneficial to our Establishment, exciting in many of the parochial clergy the zeal which was wanting. Where the clergy exert themselves, the growth of Methodism is checked ; and perhaps it may be said to be most useful where it is least successful. To the impulse, also, which was given by Methodism, that missionary spirit may be ascribed, which is now carrying the light of the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. In no way can religious zeal be so beneficially directed as in this. Some evil also, as well as some good, the Methodists have indirectly caused. Though they became careful in admitting lay preachers themselves, the bad example of suffering any ignorant enthusiast to proclaim him- self a minister of the Gospel, found numerous imitators. The number of roving adventurers*, in all the inter- * One magistrate in the county of ^Middlesex licensed fourteen hun- dred preachers in the course of five years. Of six-and-thirty persons •who obtained hcences at one sessions, six spelled " ministers of the Gospel " in six different ways, and seven signed their mark ! One fellow, who applied for a licence, being asked if he could read, replied, " Mother reads, and 1 's])ounds and 'sjilains," OF METHODISM. 379 mediate grades between knavery and madness, who took to preaching as a thriving trade, brought an op- probrium upon religion itself; and when an attempt was made at last to put an end to this scandal, a most outrageous and unreasonable cry was raised, as if the rights of conscience were invaded.* Perhaps the manner in which Methodism has familiarised the lower classes to the work of combining in associations, making rules for their own governance, raising funds, and communicating from one part of the kingdom to another, may be reckoned among the incidental evils which have resulted from it ; but in this respect it has only facilitated a process to which other causes had given birth. The principles of Methodism are strictly loyal ; and the language which has been held by the Conference in all times of political disturbance, has been highly honourable to the Society, and in- strict conformity to the intentions of the founder; On the other hand, the good which it has done, by ren- dering men good civil subjects, is counteracted by separating them from the Church. This tendency Wesley did not foresee ; and when he perceived it, he could not prevent it. But his conduct upon this point was neither consistent nor ingenuous. Soon after he had taken the memorable step of consecrating * A writer in the Gospel Magazine says^ concerning Lord Sidmouth's well-meant bill, " By the grace of God I can speak for one. If in any place I am called to preach, and cannot obtain a licence^ I sliall feel myself called upon to break through all restrictions, even if death be the consequence ; for I know that God will avenge his own elect against their persecutors, let them be who they may. The men that are sent of God must deliver their message, whether men will hear^ or whether they will forbear; whether they can obtain a licence or not. If God opens their mouths, none can shut them." Every man his own pope^ and his own lawgiver ! These are days in which authority may safely be defied in such cases : but there is no reason to doubt that the man who speaks thus plainly would not have been so ready to break the laws as to defy them. Had he been born in the right place and time, he would have enjoyed a glorification in the Grass-market. 38U MANNERS AND EFFECTS Dr. Coke as an American bishop, he arrogated to himself the same authority for Scotland as for America; and this, he maintained, Avas not a sepa- ration from the Church; "not from the Church of Scotland," said he, " for wc were never connected therewith ; not from the Church of England, for this is not concerned in the steps which are taken in Scotland. Whatever, then, is done, either in America or Scotland, is no separation from the Church of England. I have no thought of this : I have many objections against it." He had been led toward a se- paration imperceptibly, step by step ; but it is not to his honour that he affected to deprecate it to the last, while he was evidently bringing it about by the measures which he pursued. In the latter end of his life, the tendency to separation was increased by the vexatious manner in which some Lincolnshire magistrates enforced the let- ter of the Toleration Act. They insisted, that as the Methodists professed themselves members of the Church, they were not within the intention of the Act: they refused to license their chapels therefore, unless they declared themselves dissenters : and when some of the trustees were ready to do this, they were told that this Avas not sufficient by itself; they must de- clare also, that they scrupled to attend the service and sacrament of the Church, the Act in question having been made for those only who entertained such scru- ples. This system of injurious severity did not stop here. Understanding in what manner these magis- trates interpreted the law, some informers took advantage of the opportunity', and enforced the Con- venticle Act against those who had preaching or prayer-meetings in their houses : tlie persons thus aggrieved were mostly in humble circumstances, so that they were distressed to pay the fine; and when they appealed to the quarter sessions, it was in vain ; OF METHODISM. 381 the magistrates had no power to relieve them. Mr. Wesley was irritated at this, and wrote to the Bishop of the diocese in a tone which he had never before assumed. " My Lord," said he, in his letter, " I am a dying man, having already one foot in the grave. Humanly speaking, I cannot long creep upon the earth, being now nearer ninety than eighty years of age. But I cannot die in peace before I have dis- charged this office of Christian love to your Lordship. I write without ceremony, as neither hoping nor fearing any thing from your Lordship, or from any man living. And I ask, in the name and in the presence of Him, to whom both you and I are shortly to give an account, why do you trouble those that are quiet in the land, — those that fear God and work righteousness ? Does your Lordship know what the Methodists are ? — that many thousands of them are zealous members of the Church of England, and strongly attached, not only to His Majesty, but to his present ministry? Why should your Lordship, setting religion out of the question, throw away such a body of respectable friends ? Is it for their religious sentiments ? Alas ! my Lord, is this a time to persecute any man for conscience sake ? I beseech you, my Lord, do as you would be done to. You are a man of sense ; you are a man of learning ; nay, I verily believe (what is of infinitely more value) you are a man of piety. Then think, and let think. I pray God to bless you with the choicest of his blessings." * These circumstances occurred a few months only before his death. His friends advised that an applica- * In the life of "NVesley by Dr. Coke and Mr. Moore, there is a letter upon this occasion in a more angry strain. Probably Mr. Wesley upon reflection saw that he had written in an unbecoming manner, and substituted in its place that which I have copied from the life by Dr. Whitehead. The official biographers indeed had in their hands such private documents only as had not been entrusted to the Doctor. 382 lAIANNERS AND EFFECTS OF METHODISM. tion should be made to Parliament for the repeal of the Conventicle Act. In some shape, it cannot be doubted but that relief would have been afforded, and several members of the House of Commons, who re- spected Mr. Wesley, would have stirred in his behalf. l>ut his growing infirmities prevented him from exerting himself upon this business as he would otherwise have done. 383 CHAPTER XXX. WESLEY IN OLD AGE. " Leisure and I," said Wesley, " have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me." This reso- lution was made in the prime of life, and never was resolution more punctually observed. " Lord, let me not live to be useless ! " was the prayer which he ut- tered after seeing one, whom he had long known as an active and useful magistrate, reduced by age to be " a picture of human nature in disgrace, feeble in body and mind, slow of speech and understanding." He was favoured with a constitution vigorous beyond that of ordinary men, and with an activity of spirit which is even rarer than his singular felicity of health and strength. Ten thousand cares of various kinds, he said, were no more weight or burden to his mind than ten thousand hairs were to his head. But, in truth, his only cares were those of superintending the work of his ambition, which continually prospered under his hands. Real cares he had none : no anxieties, no sorrows, no griefs which touched him to the quick. His manner of life was the most favourable that could have been devised for longevity. He rose early, and lay down at night with nothing to keep him waking, or trouble him in sleep. His mind was always in a pleasurable and wholesome state of activity ; he was temperate in his diet, and lived in perpetual locomotion : and frequent change of air is perhaps of all things that which most conduces to joyous health and long life. The time which Mr. Wesley spent in travelling was 384 WESLEY IN OLD AGE. not lost. " History, poetry, and philosophy," said he, " I commonly read on horseback, having other em- ployment at other times." He used to throw the reins on his horse's neck ; and in this way he rode, in the course of his life, above a hundred thousand miles, without any accident of sufficient magnitude to make him sensible of the danger which he incurred. His friends, however, saw the danger ; and in the sixty- ninth year of his age, they prevailed upon him to travel in a carriage, in consequence of a hurt which had produced a hydrocele. The ablest practitioners in Edinburgh were consulted upon his case, and as- sured him there was but one method of cure. " Per- haps but one natural one," says he, " but I think God has more than one method of healing either the soul or the body." He read, upon the subject, a treatise which recommends a seton or a caustic ; " but 1 am not inclined," said he, " to try either of them : I know a physician that has a shorter cure than either one or the other." After two years, however, he submitted to an operation, and obtained a cure.* A little before this, he notices in his Journal the iirst night that he had ever lain awake : "I believe," he adds, " few can say this ; in seventy years I never lost one night's sleep." He lived to preach at Kingswood under the shade of trees which he had planted ; and he outlived the lease of the Foundry f, the place which had been the * " Mr. Watlien 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." — Journal xvii. p. 8. "Wliat an extraordinary relic would this pearl have been, had it been extracted from a Romish saint ! I know not whether there be any other case recorded of physical oi/.sfracisni. t Silas Told describes this^ in the year 1740, as "a ruinous place, with an old pantile covering, a few rough deal boards put together to constitute a temporary pulpit, and several other decayed timbers, which WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 385 cradle of Methodism. In 1778, the head-quarters of the Society were removed to the City-road, where a new chapel was built upon ground leased by the City. Great multitudes assembled to see the ceremony of laying the foundation, so that Wesley could not, with- out much difficulty, get through the press to lay the first stone, in which his name and the date were in- serted upon a plate of brass : " This A\^as laid by John Wesley, on April 1. 1777." "Probably," says he, " this will be seen no more by any human eye, but will remain there till the earth and the works thereof are burnt up." Charles, having long ceased to itine- rate, used to ofiiciate here ; and the lay preachers, who were always jealous of him, were greatly offended, because he excluded them from the pulpit by serving the chapel twice on Sundays, when John was not in town. They complained of this, as invidious and derogatory to themselves ; and Wesley so far yielded to their impor- tunities as to promise that one of their body should preach when Charles could not, an arrangement which preferred them to the clergymen in the Connection. Charles was hurt at this concession of his brother's, and with good reason. He represented that many persons, who had subscribed towards the building of the chapel, and were friends to Methodism, were yet not members of the Society, but true Churchmen ; and that, from regard to them and to the Church, not out of ill will to the preachers, he wished the Church service to be continued there ; for this also was made a matter of complaint against him. Next to his brother, he affirmed, he had the best right to preach there ; and he used it because he had so short a time to preach composed the whole structure." No doubt it was improved afterwards. Mr. Wesley's preaching hours, when he began there, were five in the morning and seven in the evening, for the convenience of the labouring part of the congregation. The men and women sate apart, and there were no pews, or difference of benches, or appointed place for any person. VOL. II. C C 386 AVESLEY IX OLD AGE. any where. " I am sorry," said he, " you yielded to the lay preachers : I think them in the greatest dan- ger throng] I pride. They aifect to believe that I act as a clergyman in opposition to them. If there was no man above them, what would become of them! — how would they tear one another in pieces! Con- vince them, if you can, that they want a clergyman over them to keep them and the flock together. l>ut rather persuade them, if you can, to be the least, not the greatest, and then all will be right again. You have no alternative but to conquer that spirit, or be conquered by it. The preachers do not love tlie>^ Church of England. What must be the consequence when we are gone ? A separation is inevitable. Do you not wish to keep as many good people in the Church as you can ? Something might be done to save the remainder, if you had resolution, and would stand by me as firmly as I will by you." This ill-temper in the preachers produced a schism in the Connection. An Irish clergyman, being at Bath on account of his wife's health, was desired by Mr. Wesley to preach every Sunday evening in the Methodist Chapel, as long as he remained there. As soon as Wesley had left that city, a lay preacher, by name M'Nab, raised a sort of rebellion upon this ground, saying it was the common cause of all the lay preachers, for they were appointed by the Con- ference, not by Mr. Wesley, and they would not suffer the clergy to ride over their heads. This touched Mr. Wesley where he was most sensitive. He set out for Bath, summoned the Society, and read to them a paper which he had drawn up many years before, upon a somewhat similar occasion, and which had been read to the Conference of 1766.* He observed that tlie rules of the preachers were fixed by him * The substance of this paper has been previously given, Vol. II. pp. 98— 101. WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 387 before any Conference existed, and that the twelfth rule stated, " above all, you are to preach ivhen and~ where I appoint." This fundamental rule M'Nab had- opposed, and therefore he expelled him. But the mutinous preacher had " thrown wildfire among the people; and occasioned anger, jealousies, judging each other, backbiting, and tale-bearing without end : " strange weeds to spring up in the garden of Christian perfection ! On this occasion, as on all others, when his autho- rity was invaded, Wesley acted with promptitude and decision. He had great talents for government ; and even when it was necessary to conform to circum- stances which he could not control, he understood how important it was that he should never appear to-- yield. But though, by his presence of mind, and skill in directing the minds of men, he contrived in difficult circumstances to save himself from any sacri- fice of pride, he was not always so successful on the score of principle ; for his attachment to the Church was sacrificed to the desire of extending and pre- serving his power. Contented if he could stave ofli* the separation as long as he lived, he took measures which prepared for it, just as he provided a system by which the constitution of his Society should be- come republican after his death, satisfied with main- taining his authority over it as a monarch during his life. The remarkable talents with which the Wesley family were endowed, manifested themselves in the third generation as strikingly as in the second. The two sons of Charles were among the most distin- guished musicians of their age. Their father, per- ceiving the decided bent of their genius, very properly permitted them to follow it, and make the science of music their profession. In a letter to his brother, he said, " I am clear, witliout doubt, that my sons' con- c c 2 388 WEbLEY IN OED AGE. cert is after the will and order of Providence." When John printed this letter, after his brother's death, he added, in a note, " I am dear of another mind." Dr. Coke also looked upon the concerts which were per- formed in Charles Wesley's own house as being highly dishonourable to God, and considered him as criminal, " by reason of his situation in the Church of Christ." But upon mature consideration the Doctor saw reason to alter this severe opinion. " It has established them," said Charles, " as musicians, in a safe and honourable way. We do not repent that we did not make a show or advantage of our swans. They may still make their fortunes, if I will venture them into the world ; but I never wish them rich : you also agree -with me in this. Our good old father neglected every opportunity of selling our souls to the Devil." One of these brothers became a papist, to the sore grief of his parents. Upon this occasion John ad- dressed a letter to them, saying, he doubted not that they were in great trouble, because their son had " changed his religion ; " and, deducing a topic of consolation from the inaccuracy of that expression, " Nay," said he, " he has changed his opinions and mode of ioo7'sMp^ but that is not religion; it is quite another thing. Has he then, you may ask, sustained no loss by the change ? Yes, unspeakable loss ; be- cause his new opinions and mode of worship are so imfavourable to religion, that they make it, if not impossible to one that knew better, yet extremely difficult. What, then, is religion ? It is happiness in God, or in the knowledj^e and love of God. It is ' faith working by love : ' producing ' righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' In other words, it is a heart and life devoted to God ; or com- munion with God tlie Father and the Son ; or the mind which was in Christ Jesus, enabling us to walk as he walked. Now, either he has this religion, or WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 389 he has not : if he has, he will not finally perish, not- Avithstancling the absurd unscriptural opinions he has embraced, and the superstitious and idolatrous modes of worship. But these are so many shackles which will greatly retard him in running the race that is set before him. If he has not this religion — if he has not given God his heart, the case is unspeakably worse : I doubt if he ever will ; for his new friends will continually endeavour to hinder him, by putting something else in its place, by encouraging him to rest in the form, notions, or externals, without being born again ; without having Christ in him, the hope of glory ; without being renew^ed in the image of Him that created him. This is the deadly evil. I have often lamented that he had not this holiness, without which no man can see the Lord. But though he had it not, yet, in his hours of cool reflection, he did not hope to go to heaven Avithout it ; but now he is or will be taught, that, let him only have a right faith (that is, such and such notions), and add there- unto such and such externals^ and he is quite safe. He may indeed roll a few years in purging fire, but he will surel}^ go to heaven at last." The father felt this evil so deeply, that, it is as- serted, one of the last things he said upon his death- bed was to declare his forgiveness of the person by Avhose means his son had been perverted. To Mr. Wesley it was a mortification as well as a grief; for he had exposed the errors of the Romanists in some controversial writings, perspicuously and forcibly. One of those writings gave the Catholics an advan- tage, because it defended the Protestant Association of 1780; and the events which speedily followed,-"^ were turned against him. But, upon the great points in dispute, he was clear and cogent ; and the temper of this, as of his other controversial tracts, was such, that, some years afterwards, v/hen a common friend c c 3 .S9() AVKtJLKY IN OLD AG?:. invited him to meet his antagonist, Father O'Leary, it Avas gratifying to both parties to meet upon terms of courtesy and mutual good will. Before Mr. AVesley submitted to the operation, he considered himself as almost a disabled soldier ; so little could he reconcile himself to the restriction from horse-exercise. So perfectly, however, was he re-established in health, that, a few months after- wards, upon entering his seventy-second year, he asked, " 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 Avere 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 doth whatsoever pleaseth him. The chief means are, my constantly rising at four for about fifty years ; my generally preaching at five in the morning — one of the most healthy exercises in the world ; my never travelling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles in a year." Repeating the same question after another year had elapsed, he added to this list of natural means, " the ability, if ever I want, to sleep immediately ; the never losing a night's sleep in my life ; two violent fevers, and two deep consumptions ; these, it is true, were rough medi- cines ; but they were of admirable service, causing my flesh to come again as the flesh of a little child. May I add, lastly, evenness of temper : I feel and ffrieve ; but, by the grace of God, I fret at nothing, j^ut still, the help that is done upon earth, He doth it * Mr. Wesley believed that the use of tea made his hand shake so before he was twenty years old, that he conld hardly write. He pub- lished an essay against tea-drinking, and left it oft' during twelve years ; then, "at the close of a consumption," by Dr. Fothergill's directions, he used it again, and probably learnt how much he had been mistaken in attributing ill effects to so refreshing and innocent a beverage. WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 391 himself; and this he doth in answer to nian}^ prayers." He himself had prayed that he might not live to be useless ; and the extraordinary vigour which he preserved to extreme old age, might well make him beUeve, that, in this instance, his heart's desire had been granted. The seventy- eighth 3'ear of his age found him, he says, "by the blessing of God," just the same as when he entered the twenty-eighth * ; and, upon entering his eightieth, he blessed God that his time was not labour and sorrow, and that he found no more infirmities than when he was in the flower of manhood. But though this uncommon exemption from the burden of age was vouchsafed him, it was not in the nature of things tliat he should be spared from its feelings and regrets. The days of his child- hood returned upon him when he visited Epworth ; and, taking a solitary walk in the churchyard of that place, he says, " I felt the truth of ' one generation goeth, and anotJier cometh.^ See hoAV the earth drops its inhabitants, as the tree drops its leaves ! " Where- ever he went, his old disciples had past away, and other generations had succeeded in their stead ; and at the houses to which he looked on with pleasure in the course of his yearly rounds, he found more and more frequently, in every succeeding year, that death had been before him. Whole families dropt off, one by one, while he continued still in his green old age, full of life, and activity, and strength, and hope, and ardour. Sucli griefs were felt by him less keenly- than by other men ; because every day brought with it to him change of scene and of persons; and be- cause, busy as he was on earth, his desires were in heaven. " I had hopes," says he, in his Journal, " of * " In the year I769," he says, " I weighed a hundred and twenty- two pounds. In 1783, I weighed not a pound n ore or less." c c 4 392 WESLEY IN OLD AGE. seeing a friend at Lewisham in my way : and so I did ; but it was in her coffin. It is well, since she finished her course with joy. In due time I shall see her in glory." To one of his young female corre- spondents he says, with melancholy anticipation, " I sometimes fear lest you also, as those I tenderly love generally have been, should be snatched away. But let us live to-day ! " Many of his most ardent and most amiable disciples seem to have been cut off, in the flower of their youth, by consumption — a disease too frequently connected with what is beautiful in form, and intellect, and disposition. Mr. Fletcher, though a mucli younger man, was summoned to his reward before him. That excellent person left England, under all the symptoms of advanced consumption, to try the effect of his native air; and, in the expectation of death, addressed a pastoral letter at that time to his parishioners.* " I * In the year 1788, Mr. Wesley printed a letter written to him from France in I77O, by Mr. Fletcher, in which the following remarkable passage occurs : " A set of Free-thinkers (great admirers of ^'oltaire and Rousseau, Bayle, and Mirabeau,) seem bent upon destroying Chris- tianity and government. With one hand, says a lawyer, who has written against them, they shake the throne, and with the other they throw down the altar. If we believe them, the world is the dupe of kings and priests ; religion is fanaticism and superstition ; subordination is slavery and tyranny ; Christian morality is absurd, unnatural, and impractica- ble ; and Christianity is the most bloody religion that ever was. And here it is certain that, by the example of Christians, so called, and by our continual disputes, they have a great advantage. Popery will cer- tainly fall in France in this or the next century ; and God will use these vain men to bring about a reformation here, as he used Henry VIII. to do that groat work in England : so the madness of his enemies shall turn at last to his praise, and to the furtherance of his kingdom. If you ask what system these men adopt, I answer, that some build, upon Deism, a morality founded upon self-preservation, self-interest, and self-honour. Others laugh at all morality, except that which violently disturbs society ; and external order is the decent cover of fatalism ; while materialism is their system." He invites all Christians " to do what the herds do on the Swiss mountains, when the wolves make an attack upon them : instead of goring one another, they unite, form a close battalion, and face the enemy on all sides." MK. FLETCHEIi. 393 sometimes," said he, " feel a desire of being buried where you are buried, and having my bones lie in a common earthen bed with yours. But I soon resign that wish ; and, leaving that particular to Providence, exult in thinking, that neither life nor death shall ever be able (while we hang on the Crucified, as He hung on the cross,) to separate us from Christ our head, nor from the love of each other, his members." liis recovery, which appears almost miraculous, was ascribed by himself more to eating plentifully of cherries and grapes, than to any other remedies. His friends wished him to remain among them at Nyon : ''they urged my being born here," said he, "and I reply, that I was born again in England, and there- fore that is, of course, the country which to me is the dearer of the two." He returned to his parish, and married Miss Bosanquet ; a woman perfectly suited to him in age, temper, piety, and talents. " We are two poor invalids," said he, " who, between us, make half a labourer. She sweetly helps me to drink the dregs of life, and to carry with ease the daily cross." His account of himself, after this time, is so beautiful, that its insertion might be pardoned here, even if Mr, Fletcher were a less important personage in the his- tory of Methodism. " I keep in my sentry-box," says he, " till Providence remove me : my situation is quite suited to my little strength. I may do as much or as little as I please, according to my weakness ; and I have an advantage, Avhich I can have no where else in such a degree : my little field of action is just at my door, so that, if I happen to overdo myself, I have but a step from my pulpit to my bed, and from my bed to my grave. If I had a body full of vigour, and a purse full of money, I should like well enough to travel about as Mr. Wesley does ; but, as Provi- dence does not call me to it, I readily submit. The snail does best in its shell." 394 WESLHY IN OLD AGE. This good man died in 1785, and in the 56th year of liis ao;e. A^olumes have been filled, and are per- petually being filled, by sectarians of every description, ■with accounts of the behaviour and triumphant hopes of the dying, all resembling each other ; but the cir- cumstances of Mr. Fletcher's death were as peculiar as those of his life. He had taken cold, and a con- siderable degree of fever had been induced ; but no persuasion could prevail upon him to stay from church on the Sunday, nor even to permit that any part of the service should be performed for him. It was the will of the Lord, he said, that he should go ; and he assured his wife and his friends that God Avould strengthen him to go through the duties of the day. Before he had proceeded far in the service, he grew pale, and faltered in his speech, and could scarcely keep himself from fainting. The congre- gation were greatly afiected and alarmed ; and Mrs. Fletcher, pressing through the crowd, earnestly entreated him not to persevere in what was so evi- dently beyond his strength. He recovered, however, when the windows were opened, exerted himself against the mortal illness which he felt, went through the service, and preached with remarkable earnest- ness, and with not less effect, for his parishioners plainly saw that the hand of death was upon him. After the sermon, he walked to the communion-table, saying, " I am going to throw myself under the wings of the Cherubim, before the Mercy-seat!" "Here" (it is his widow who describes this last extraordinary efibrt of enthusiastic devotion) " the same distressing scene Avas renewed, with additional solemnity. The people were deeply afi*ected while they beheld him offering up the last languid remains of a life that had been lavishly spent in their service. Groans and tears were on every side. In going through this last part of liis duty, he was exhausted again and again ; DEATH OF Mil. FLETCHER 395 but his spiritual vigour triumphed over his bodily weakness. After several times sinking on the sacra- mental table, he still resumed his sacred work, and cheerfully distributed, with his dying hand, the love- memorials of his dying Lord. In the course of this concluding office, which he performed by means of the most astonishing exertions, he gave out several verses of hymns, and delivered many affectionate exhortations to his people, calling upon them, at intervals, to celebrate the mercy of God in short songs of adoration and praise. And now, having struggled through a service of near four hours' con- tinuance, he was supported, with blessings in his mouth, from the altar to his chamber, where he lay for some time in a swoon, and from whence he never walked into the world again." Mr. Fletcher's nearest and dearest friends sympathised entirely with him in his devotional feelings, and therefore they seem never to have entertained a thought that this tragedy may have exasperated his disease, and proved the direct occasion of his death. " I besought the Lord," says Mrs. Fletcher, "if it were his good pleasure, to spare him to me a little longer. But my prayer seemed to have no wings ; and I could not help mingling con- tinually therewith. Lord, give me perfect resignation ! " On the Sunday following he died; and that day also was distinguished by circumstances not less remarkable. A supplicatory hymn for his recovery was sung in the church ; and one who was present says, it is impossible to convey an idea of the burst of sorrow that accompanied it. " The whole village," says his friend Mr. Gilpin, " wore an air of conster- nation and sadness. Hasty messengers were passing to and fro, with anxious inquiries and confused reports ; and the members of every family sate to- gether in silence that day, awaiting with trembling expectation the issue of every hour." After the 396 WESLEY IN OLD AGL. cvt'iiiug service, several of the poor, wlio came from a distance, and who were usually entertained under his roof, lingered about the house, and expressed an earnest wish that they might see their expiring pastor. Their desire was granted. The door of his chamber was set open ; directly opposite to which, he was sitting upright in his bed, with the curtains undrawn, " unaltered in his usual venerable appearance;" and they passed along the gallery one by one, pausing as they passed by the door, to look upon him for the last time. A few hours after this extraordinary scene he breathed his last, without a struggle or a groan, in perfect peace, and in the fulness of faith and of hope. Such was the death of Jean Guillaume de la Flechere, or as he may more properly be desig- nated, in this his adopted country, Fletcher of Made- ley, a man of whom Methodism may well be proud, as the most able of its defenders ; and whom the Church of England may hold in honourable remem- brance, as one of the most pious and excellent of her sons. " I was intimately acquainted with him," says Mr. Wesley, " for above thirty years. I conversed with him morning, noon, and night, without the least reserve, during a jou.rney of many hundred miles ; and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. Many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years ; but one equal to him I have not known : one so inwardly and out- wardly devoted to God, so unblameable a character in every respect, I have not found, either in Europe or America. Nor do I expect to find another such on this side of eternity." Wesley thought, that if Mr. Fletcher's friends had not dissuaded him from continuing that course of itinerancy which he began in his companj^, it would have made him a strong man. And that, after his WESLEY IN OLD AGE. S97 health was restored by his native air, and confirmed by his wife's constant care, if " he had used this health in travelling all over the kingdom five, or six, or seven months every year, (for which never was man more eminently qualified, no, not Mr. Whitefield himself,) he would have done more good than any other man in England. I cannot doubt," he adds, "but this would have been the more excellent way." It had been Mr. Wesley's hope, at one time, that after his death, Mr. Fletcher would succeed to the supre- macy of the spiritual dominion which he had esta- blished. Mr. Fletcher was qualified for the succession by his thorough disregard of worldly advantages, his perfect piety, his devotedness to the people among whom he ministered, his affable manner, and his popular and persuasive oratory, — qualifications in which he was not inferior to Wesley himself. But he had neither the ambition nor the flexibility of Mr. Wesley ; he would not have known how to rule or how to yield as he did : holiness with him was all in all. Wesley had the temper and talents of a states- man : in the Romish Church he would have been the general, if not the founder, of an order ; or might have held a distinguished place in history, as a cardi- nal or a pope. Fletcher, in any connnunion, would have been a saint. Mr. Wesley still continued to be the same marvel- lous old man. No one who saw him, even casually, in his old age, can have forgotten his venerable ap- pearance. His face was remarkably fine ; his com- plexion fresh to the last week of his life ; his eye quick, and keen, and active. When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not - only by his band and cassock, and his long hair, white and bright as silver, but by his pace and man- ner, both indicating that all his minutes were num- bered, and that not one was to ])e lost. " Though I 398 WESLEY IN OLD AGK. am always in haste," he says of himself, " I am never in a hurry ; because I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit. It is true, I travel four or live thousand miles in a year ; but I generally travel alone in my carriage, and, consequently, am as retired ten hours a day as if I were in a wilderness. On other days, I never spend less than three hours (frequently ten or twelve) in the day alone. So there are few persons who spend so many hours secluded from all company." Thus it was that he found time to read much, and write voluminously. After his eightieth year, he went twice to Holland, a country in which jMethodism, as Quakerism had done before it, met with a certain degree of success. Upon completing his eighty- second year, he says, " Is anything too hard for God? It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. Many times I speak till my voice fails, and I can speak no longer. Frequently I walk till my strength fails, and I can walk no farther ; yet, even then, I feel no sensation of weariness, but am perfectly easy from head to foot. I dare not impute this to natural causes. It is the will of God." A year afterwards he says, " I am a wonder to myself ! I am never tired (such is the goodness of God), either with writing, preaching, or travelling. One natural cause, undoubtedly, is, my continual exercise, and change of air. How the latter contributes to health I know not ; but certainly it does." In his eighty- fourth year, he first began to feel decay ; and, upon commencing his eighty-fifth, he observes, " I am not so agile as I was in times past ; I do not run or walk so fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed. My left eye is grown dim, and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple (occasioned by a blow re- ceived some months since), and in my right slioulder WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 399 and arm, which I impute partly to a sprain, and partly to the rheumatism. I find, likewise, some de- cay in my memory with regard to names and things lately past ; but not at all with regard to what I have - read or heard twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. - Neither do I find any decay in my hearing, smell, taste, or appetite, (though I want but a third part of the food I did once,) nor do I feel any such thing as weariness, either in travelling or preaching. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons, which I do as readily, and, I believe, as correctly, as ever." He acknowledged, therefore, that he had cause to praise God for bodily as well as spiritual blessings ; and that he had suffered little, as yet, by " the rush of numerous years." Other persons perceived his growing weakness, be- fore he was thus aware of it himself: the most marked symptom was that of a frequent disposition to sleep during the day. He had always been able to lie down and sleep almost at will, like a mere animal, or a man in little better than an animal state, — a consequence, probably, of the incessant activity of his life : this he himself rightly accounted one of the causes of his ex- cellent health, and it was, doubtless, a consequence of it also. But the involuntary slumbers which came upon him in the latter years of his life, were indica- tions that the machine was wearing out, and would soon come to a stop. In 1788, he lost his brother Charles, who, during many years, had been his zealous coadjutor, and, through life, his faithful and affec- tionate friend. Latterly their opinions had differed. Charles saw the evil tendency of some part of the dis- cipline, and did not hesitate to say that he abomi- nated the band-meetings, which he had formerly approved ; and, adhering faithfully himself to the Church, he regretted the separation which he foresaw, and disapproved of John's conduct, in taking steps 400 DEATH OF CHARLES WESLEY. Avliich manifestly tended to faeilitate it. Indeed, Mr. Wesley laid aside, at last, all those pretensions by which he had formerly excused himself; and, in the year 1787, with the assistance of two of his clerical coadjutors, Mr. Creighton and Mr. Peard Dickinson, he ordained two of his preachers, and consecrated Mather a bishop or superintendent. r)ut this decided difference of opinion produced no diminution of love between the two brothers. They had agreed to dif- fer; and, to the last, John was not more jealous of his own authority, than Charles was solicitous that he should preserve it. " Keep it while you live," he said, " and after your death, detur digniori^ or rather, digniorihus. You cannot settle the succession : you cannot divine how God will settle it." Charles, though he attained to his eightieth year, was a vale- tudinarian through the greatest part of his life, in consequence, it is believed, of having injured his con- - stitution by close application and excessive abstinence- at Oxford. He had always dreaded the act of dying ; and his prayer was, that God would grant him pa- tience and an easy death. A calmer frame of mind, and an easier passage, could not have been granted him; the powers of life were fairly worn out, and, without any disease, he fell asleep. By his own de- sire he was buried, not in his brother's burying- ground, because it was not consecrated, but in the churchyard of Mary-le-bone, the parish in which he resided ; and his pall was supported by eight clergy- men of the Church of England. It was reported that Charles had said, his brother w^ould not outlive him more than a year. The pre- diction might have been hazarded mtli sufficient like- lihood of its fulfilment ; for John was then drawing near the grave. Upon his eighty-sixth birthday, he says, " I now find I grow old. My sight is decayed, so that I cannot read a small print, unless in a sfrong WESLEY IN OLD AGE. 401 light. My strength is decayed ; so that I walk much slower than I did some years since. My memory of names, whether of persons or places, is decayed, till I stop a little to recollect them. AYhat I should be afraid of is, if I took thought for the morrow, that my body should weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness, by the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness, by the increase of bodily infirmities. But thou shalt answer for me, 0 Lord, my God!" His strength now diminished so much, that he found it difficult to preach more than twice a day ; and for many weeks he abstained from his five o'clock morning sermons, because a slow and settled fever parched his mouth. Finding himself a little better, he resumed the practice, and hoped to hold on a little longer ; but, at the beginning of the year 1790, he writes, " I am now an old man, decayed from head to foot. My eyes are dim ; my right hand shakes much ; my mouth is hot and dry every morning ; I have a lingering fever almost every day ; my motion is weak and slow. How- ever, blessed be God ! I do not slack my labours : I can preach and write still." In the middle of the same year, he closed his cash account-book with the follow- ing words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible : " For upwards of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly : I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual convic- tion, that I save all I can, and give all I can ; that is, all I have." His strength was now quite gone, and no glasses would help his sight. " But I feel no pain," he says, " from head to foot ; only, it seems, nature is exhausted, and, humanly speaking, will sink more and more, till The weary springs of life stand still at last." On the 1st of February, 1791, he wrote his last letter to America.. It shows how anxious he was that VOL. II. D D 402 DEATH OF WESLEY. his followers should consider themselves as one united body. " See," said he, " that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Eu- rope. Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men, that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue." He expressed also a sense that his hour was almost come. " Those that desire to write," said he, " or say any thing to me, have no time to lose ; for time has shaken me by the hand, and death is not far behind:'^ — words Avhich his father had used in one of the last letters that he addressed to his sons at Oxford. On the 17th of that month, he took cold after preaching at Lambeth. For some days he struggled against an increasing fever, and continued to preach till the Wednesday following, when he delivered his last ser- mon. From that time he became daily weaker and more lethargic, and on the 2d of March he died in peace ; being in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry. During his illness he said, *' Let me be buried in nothing but what is woollen ; and let my corpse be carried in my coffin into the chapel." Some years before, he had prepared a vault for himself, and for those itinerant preachers who might die in London. In his will he directed, that six poor men should have twenty shillings each for carrying his body to the grave ; " for I particularly desire," said he, " that there may be no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp except the tears of them that loved me, and are fol- lowing me to Abraham's bosom. I solemnly adjure my executors, in the name of God, punctually to ob- serve this." At the desire of many of his friends, his body was carried into the chapel the day preceding tlie interment, and there lay in a kind of state becoming the person, dressed in his clerical habit, Avith gown,/ cassock, and band ; the old clerical cap on his head ; a Wesley's funeral. 403 Bible ill one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The face was placid, and the expression which death had fixed upon his venerable features, was that of a serene and heavenly smile. The crowds who flocked to see him were so great, that it was thought prudent, for fear of accidents, to accelerate the funeral, and perform it between five and six in the morning. The intelligence, however, could not be kept entirely secret, and several hundred persons attended at that unusual hour. Mr. Richardson, w^ho performed the service, had been one of his preachers almost thirty years. When he came to that part of the service, " Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto himself the soul of our dear hrother^^^ his voice changed, and he substituted the word father ; and the feeling with which he did this was such, that the con- gregation, wh-o were shedding silent tears, burst at once into loud weeping. Mr. Wesley left no other property behind him than the copyright and current editions of his works, and this he bequeathed to the use of the Connection after his debts should have been paid. There was a debt of one thoii^and six hundred pounds to the family of his brother Charles ; and he had drawn also for some years upon the fund for superannuated preachers, to support those wdio were in full employment. AVhen he was told that some persons murmured at this, he used to answer, " What can I do ? Must the work stand still ? The men and their families cannot starve. I have no money. Here it is : we must use it ; it is for the Lord's work." The money thus appropriated, and the interest due upon it, amounted to a con- siderable sum. In building chapels, also, the exj)enses of the Connection outran its means, so that its finances were left in an embarrassed state. The number of his preachers at the time of his death amounted in the British dominions to 313, in the «United States to 404 CONCLUSION. 198 ; the number of members ii> the British dominions was 76,968, in the United States 57,621. * * * * ' * * * Such was the life, and sLich the labours of John AVesley ; a man of great views, great energy, and great virtues. That he awakened a zealous spirit, not only in his own community, but in a Church which needed something to quicken it, is acknowledged by the members of that Church itself ; that he encouraged enthusiasm and extravagance, lent a ready ear to false and impossible relations, and spread superstition as well as piety, would hardly be denied by the candid and judicious among his own people. In its immediate effects, the powerful principle of religion which he and his preachers diffused, has reclaimed many from a course of sin, has supported many in poverty, sickness, and affliction, and has imparted to many a triumphant joy in death. What Wesley says of the miracles wrought at the tomb of the Abbe Pa.ris, may fitly be applied here : " In many of these instances, I see great superstition, as well as strong faith : but God, makes allowance for in^^ncible ignorance, and blessi© the faith, notwithstanding the superstition." Con- cerning the general and remoter consequences of Methodism, opinions will differ. They who consider the wide-spreading schism to which it has led, and who know that the welfare of the country is vitally connected with its Church Establishment, may think that the evil overbalances the good. But the good, may endure, and the evil be only for a time. In every other sect there is an inherent spirit of hostility to the Churcih of England, too often and too naturally connected with diseased political opinions. So it was in the beginning, and so it will continue to be, as long as those sects endure. But Methodism is free from this. The extravagances which accompanied its growth are no longer encouraged, and will altogether CONCLUSION. 405 be discountenanced, as their real nature is under- stood. This cannot be doubted. It is in the natural course of things that it should purify itself gradually from whatever is objectionable in its institutions. Nor is it beyond the bounds of reasonable hope, that, conformino: itself to the orio-inal intention of its founders, it may again draw towards the Establish- ment, from which it has seceded, and deserve to be recognised as an auxiliary institution, its ministers being analogous to the regulars, and its members to the tertiaries and various confraternities of the Romish Church. The obstacles to this are surely not in- superable, perhaps not so difficult as they may appear. And were this effected, John Wesley would then be ranked, not only among the most remarkable and influential men of his age, but among the great benefactors of his country and his kind. B £ 3 HEMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY, BY THE LATK ALEXANDER KNOX, ESU. D 1> 4 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER JOHN WESLEY. To Bellevue, Delganny, March 4.th, 1828. My dear Sir, At length I commit my papers for Mr. Southey into your hands. I regret that I do not send them in a fairer form ; but I have been delayed so long, that I prefer giving them as they are, to the procrastination which would be unavoidable, were I to have attempted a more sightly transcript. As to this matter, the fault I feel chiefly in them, is redimda7ice^ but I wished to submit to Mr. Southey all my thoughts on the subject, though at tlie expense of prolixity, and, possibly, unnecessary amplification. When you have read them, your opinion of them will be gratifying to me. You will perceive that in giving my view of John Wesley's religious principles, I have pretty largely developed my own. These will not be new to you, and I earnestly hope that Mr. Southey may not find any thing in them from which his good feelings will recoil, or of which his sound judgement will disapprove. I sincerely thank you for the kind interest you take in my health (of which I can neither boast nor 410 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND complain), and I beg that when you write to Mr. Southey, you will assure him, that among those who have not the happiness of personal acquaintance with him, he cannot have a more cordial friend than myself. Believe me, always. My dear Sir, Your most faithful and deeply obliged Friend, ALEXANDER KNOX. P. S. I too have my political feelings about the political state of things ; and though I am, and ever have been, a determined disapprover of the Corporation and Test Laws, yet there is something in the aspect of that debate, and the course in which it is proceeding, that makes me think with awe, and almost terror (were it not that unerring Wisdom rules), at the times on which Britain may be entering. To My DEAR Sir, It has not been from want of interest in your wish to have what information I could give respecting Mr. Wesley, that I have so long delayed to say something to you on the subject. I wished in the first place to consider what kind of matter I could furnish, which would not be unworthy of Mr. Southey's attention, and have some satisfactory bearing on the particular point about which he was anxious. Having thought on this subject, I would fain have proceeded to execute my purpose ; but I have happened to have so little command of time, during the last four or five months, that it was impossible for me to accomplish sooner what I can truly say was very near my heart. CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 411 I do not think that the letters of Mr. Wesley which I possess, have any thing in them that could strengthen the mass of similar evidence ah^eady before the public. I have between forty and fifty letters, the last written about nine months before his death. I myself account them invaluable ; as tliey still, in the most forcible and interesting way, bring the good old man before me; but they do not (and, indeed, I think, could not,) bear any fuller testimony to his character and feelinojs than is borne in the collection of letters published with Mr. Wesley's other works, in the year 1809. I Avould also say, that on the particular subject, which has been brought before Mr. Southey, while my letters would afford no specific evidence, much of a very powerful kind seems to me to be furnished by some of those which have been publi shed. Mr. Southey has doubtless observed that the greater part of them are addressed to female correspondents ; and I think he will agree with me, that the characteristic openness which marks all Mr. Wesley's letters, and makes them be felt as a disclosure of his very mind and heart, is never more conspicuous than Avhen he is writing to his friends of the female sex. It is certain that Mr. Wesley had a predilection for the female character; partly, because he had a mind ever alive to amiability, and partly, from his generally finding in females a quicker and fuller re- sponsiveness to his own ideas of interior piety and affectionate devotion. To his female correspondents, therefore, (as it strikes me,) he writes with peculiar effluence of thought and frankness of communication. He, in fact, unbosoms himself on every topic which occurs to him, as to kindred spirits, in whose sympathies he confided, and from whose re-communications he hoped for additional light on those internal concerns 412 REMAKKS ON THE LIFE AND which were ever uppermost in his mind, and nearest to his heart. Accordingly, in those prompt effusions, all Mr. Wesley's peculiarities are in fullest display : his con- fident conclusions, from scanty or fallacious premises ; his unwarrantable value for sudden revolutions of the mind ; his proneness to attribute to the Spirit of God what might more reasonably be resolved into natural emotions, or illusive impressions : these and such like evidences of his intellectual frailty, are poured forth without reserve ; in strange union, however, with ob- servations on persons and things, replete mth acuteness and sagacity. But amid this anomaly of mmd, there is no anomaly of heart. On the closest examination, no sentiment, no inclination, will be found to reflect the slightest shade on Mr. Wesley's moral principles or feelings. Whatever mixtures there may be of speculative error or injudicious guidance, the ultimate object is uni- formly pure and excellent ; be the prescribed means of advancement what they may, the point aimed at, is consummate virtue, in every temper, and in every action. I must add, that the character of these letters is uniform : they are in the strictest harmony with each other, and indeed with every thing else which proceeded from him. It is the same John Wesley, whether he addresses individuals or addresses thousands ; ex- pressing his quick conceptions with an unsuspecting frankness; as if there were not a thought in his mind which he wished to conceal ; and as if he had no wish whatever except for the spiritual good of those who sought his instruction. I would further remark, that to read John Wesley's letters, is to feel that he wrote as he spoke. Their unstudied simplicity must give this impression ; and I myself, who so often heard him speak, can attest its CHARACTER OY JOHN WESLEY. 413 justness. It will hence follow, that in these letters we have an authentic exemplification not only of Mr. Wesley's epistolary correspondence, but of his col- loquial intercourse with his female friends. He so literally talks upon paper, as to make it inconceivable that he should have conversed with them in any other stvle than that in which he wrote to them : and while he is unreservedly and ardently the friend of all to whom he writes, the flow of his affection is so pure, and so paternal, as to exclude the possibility of imagining that its simplicity could ever have been marred by the shadow of an opposite mixture. Such I think would be the impression on my mind, solely from the letters themselves : but when I read them with that decisive comment which my own recol- lections afford, I feel with a certainty, which mathematical demonstration could not exceed, that never, for one moment, was the evidence of those letters falsified, or their spirit departed from, in the actual intercourse of Mr. Wesley's life, in. whatever circumstances he might have been placed, or into whatever society he might have been thrown. The indirect testimony which Mr. Wesley's letters to his female correspondents afford, is also worthy of attention. While they manifest the inmost feelings of the writer, they little less clearly evince the esti- mation in which he was held by those to whom he writes. It continually appears, from Mr. Wesley's mode of writing, that his female disciples consulted him as one to whom they ascribed the spirit as well as the wisdom of an Apostle. The subjects treated of, establish this fact ; and present, as it were, the reflected image of as unqualified a confidence as could be placed in a human being. We have, then, virtually, in those letters, the great body of Mr. Wesley's female friends bearing to his character the most unimpeachable as well as the most concordant 414 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND witness. And let it be remembered, that this evidence is given on the fullest knowledge; as, from Mr. Wesley's constant itinerancy, his friends had ever-re- curring opportunities of observing him, in every point of view, and in all possible conjunctures. It is also obvious that Mr. Wesley's female correspondents Avere sincerely pious ; and that the species of piety which influenced them, however chargeable with weakness, is perfectly opposite to every kind of moral laxity. Their respect and veneration, therefore, for Mr. AVesley, is a conclusive evidence of his uniform rec- titude of conduct ; for had there been any variation in this respect, it must have been observed by some or other of those intimate female friends ; and had such a discovery at any time, or in any instance, been made, esteem and veneration would instantly have been changed into horror and detestation. I can, besides, say from my own knowledge, that some of Mr. Wesley's female friends possessed acute discernment and solid understanding. I have been acquainted with two gentlewomen, to whom several of the published letters were addressed ; and in wliom, in a peculiar degree, Mr. Wesley reposed confldence. In my judgment, those two persons were as little likely to be deceived as most women Avith Avhom I have conversed ; and I am assured it Avould scarcely have been more foreign from their minds to suspect St. Paul of latent vice, than to have harboured such a thought of John Wesley. On the Avhole, is it not obvious, that in the intimate intercourse which Mr. Wesley had for so many years Avith them, and countless other females, of similar character, continued, uniform imposition Avas impossible ; and that the argument hence arising in support of Mr. Wesley's perfect moral consistency is irrefragable. After all, Mr. Wesley's published letters arc but a specimen of the kind of communication in Avhich he CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 415 was engaged for more than half a century, with num- berless individuals, of all ages and sexes, in every part of the British Isles. All these persons had oppor- tunities of being accurately acquainted with his habits and course of life ; and they were interested by a common feehng in that perfect consistency of his character which was indispensable to sustain his system of discipline, and his lessons of devotion. Had, therefore, a shadow of ground for jealousy in this respect been at any time, or in any instance afforded, I can say with confidence, it neither could nor would have been concealed. Whatever may have been the defects or excesses of Wesleyan Methodism, it has certainly been the most moral of all similar as- sociations ; and t^e ruling claim which held so many thousands in adherence to a standard so much above their original frame of mind and habits of life, was the exemplary virtue of their leader. Any deviation, therefore, from that standard in Mr. Wesley, would have been as astounding, to his followers, as the fall from heaven of a star of the first magnitude. But I can assert, from my own knowledge, that the minds of Mr. Wesley's people never were disturbed by such a thought. For the last five-and-twenty years of his life, I was acquainted with every thing material which concerned him or them ; and nothing, which was or had been reported respecting him, could have escaj^ed my cognizance. Yet never, I can aver, was his fair fame sullied by the slightest breath of suspicion ; and no intimation ever reached my ears, which did not either give witness to, or accord with, his immaculate integrity. Mr. Southey is fully aware of the severe ordeal through which Mr. Wesley passed, on account of his supposed errors in doctrine. Never, perhaps, did the odium theologicum more amply vent itself than in the libels of Mr. Wesley's Calvinistic antagonists. Tlieir 416 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND efforts to distort or magnify tlie merest trifles into serious charges, show how eagerly they would have availed themselves of any dark whisper or ambiguous insinuation. Their great quarrel with Mr. AVesley was on account of the supposed self-righteous stress which he laid on moral qualifications. How decided would have been their victory, could they, on any producible ground, have made a charge of immorality against himself ! An unfortunate mistake, in a book of medical prescriptions, which he published, under the title of Primitive Physic^ was at one time brought against him, as involvino' virtual ouilt of homicide. When such crimination Avas resorted to, would any matter of substantial attack on his character have escaped the perspicacity of his vigilant and widely- spread assailants ? To these prominent evidences of JMr. Wesley's uni- form integrity, I must presume to add what has par- ticularly come within my own immediate observation, and state the impression made upon my mind by that long acquaintance with him, which I soberly regard as one of the chief pi'ovidential blessings of my life. During the period of my occasional intercourse with Mr. Wesley, I passed from childhood to youth, and from youth to manhood ; not without some ma- terial changes in my mind and habits. At an early age I was a member of ]\fr. Wesley's Society, but my connection with it was not of long duration. Having a growing disposition to think for myself, I could not adopt the opinions which were current among his fol- lowers ; and before I was twenty years of age my relish for their religious practices had abated. Still my veneration for Mr. Wesley himself suffered no diminution ; rather, as I became more capable of estimating him without prejudice, my conviction of his excellence, and my attachment to his goodness, gained fresh strength and deeper cordialit3^ CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 417 It will hardly be denied that, even in this frail and corrupted world, Ave sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a stamp and signature of virtue as to make our judgement of them a matter of intuition, ratlier than a result of continued examina- tion. I never met a human being who came more perfectly within this description than John Wesley. It was impossible to converse with him, I might say, to look at him, without being persuaded, not only that his heart and mind were animated with the purest and most exalted, goodness, but that the in- stinctive bent of his nature accorded so congenially with his Christian principles, as to give a pledge for his practical consistency in which it was impossible not to place confidence. It would be far too little to say, that it was impos- sible to suspect him of any moral taint ; for it Was obvious that every movement bespoke as perfect a contrariety to all that was earthly or animal as could be imagined in a mortal being. His countenance, as well as conversation, expressed an habitual gaiety of heart, which nothing but conscious virtue and innocence could have bestowed. He was, in truth, the most perfect specimen of moral happiness which I ever saw ; and my acquaintance with him has done more to teach me what a heaven upon earth is implied in the maturity of Christian piety, than all I have elsewhere seen, or heard, or read, except in the sacred volume. I thus express, not merely what I felt at the time, but what has been confirmed by deep reflection during thirty-six subsequent years. John Wesley was not a man to be forgotten ; and various events, which have occurred both among his professed followers and generally in what is called the religious world, have tended to prevent my recollection of him from losing any portion of its original interest. The puritanic VOL. II. E E 418 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND tlieolop:y Avhich was revived by his fellow-labourer "Whitelield, and which has latterly become prevalent even within the pale of the Established Church, makes the contrasted principles of John Wesley a more en- gaging subject of thought ; and the result, to my mind, lias been, not only an increased value for those principles, but a sincere admiration of the simplicity, purity, and moral height by which they are distin- guished from the dogmas of all other active religionists, contemporary or subsequent. I need scarcely observe, that although this praise could never be withheld from Mr. Wesley, it pecu- liarly belongs to the last twenty years of his life. The period, therefore, of my acquaintance with him was that also of his improved views. Of these, 1 consider his second set of published sermons to afford the best exemplification ; and one of their most re- markable features is the ingenuous frankness with which former excesses in opinion are acknowledged and rejected. Though little can be said for those discourses as compositions (except that they show what their author could have done, had composi- tion been his object), I can venture to assert that, as much as is possible, they bear the impress, and breathe the spirit, of John Wesley in the most mel- lowed season of his life. I do not mean to say that they evince any very solid increase of wisdom ; but they manifest an enlarged range of Christian philanthropy, unfettered by any harsh dogma, and unclouded by any gloomy feeling. They have, be- sides, every where, that transparency of character which makes us see, as it were, the very mind and heart of the writer, and leaves no possibility of ques- tioning his " simplicity and godly sincerity." In estimating John Wesley, I am not conscious of partiality. For his singidarities, as a public teacher, I had no predilection. I loved and revered him for CIIARACTEli OF JOHN WESLEY. 419 his cheerful piety, his resistless amiability, and his perfect superiority to every vulgar feeling and selfish motive. But I Avas not blind to his weaknesses, nor to the important defects and liabilities of his religious system. Still, the more deeply I have reflected, the more disposed have I been to regard him as an in- strument of Providence for most valuable purposes ; and, whatever may have been his misconceptions in intellect, or his errors in conduct, my conviction is that he never consciously swerved from what he con- sidered his " heavenly calling." In fact, Mr. Wesley's practical principles had ever been such as to ensure perfect moral consistency. From his first years of serious reflection, his standard of Christian virtue was pure and exalted. He formed his views in the school of the Greek fathers, and in that of their closest modern followers, the Platonic divines of the Church of England. These studies did not rest in speculation: it was impossible that such studies should be merely speculative. The ardour of Mr. Wesley's soul was fired by the spirit which he thus inhaled : and to realise in himself the perfect Christian of Cleme7is Alexcmdrinus was the object of his heart. The attachment which he then conceived to Taylor, Smith, Cudworth, Worthing- ton, and Lucas retained all its cordiality to the last hour of his life. The subsequent singularities of his course implied no kind of departure from those high aspirings. The former, on the contrary, were the result of the latter, in a mind peculiarly eager and impatient of delay. It Avas in the hope of raising himself to that coveted Y^itch of Christian rectitude, that he adopted the as- cetic rigidness of Mr. Law, and tliat he devoted him- self to General Oglethorpe's projected Indian mission. His ill success in self-discipline, during that season of trial, humbled him almost to despondency, and pre- 420 REMAKKS ON THE LIFE AND disposed hiin for listening to the new lessons of Peter Boeliler. Then, for the first time, the dogma, com- mon to Lutherans and Calvinists, respecting justifica- tion by faith, took hold of his mind. But it is to be remarked that he embraced this tenet in a way of his own. In the usual representations of modem theo-^ yf * /, logy, justification means a change in external relation ^t'^'^ to God, rather than in moral dispositions and feelings. < 1 1 It is stated to be acceptance with God, for the sake of his Son, independent of moral qualification in the subject. John A¥esley also maintained, that the bless- ing of justification was strictly gratuitous; and that /J it was conferred in answer to earnest and persevering prayer: but his notion of the thing conferred was modified by his own antecedent and still predominant ;^^ views. He regarded justification neither merely nor / /, ^ chiefly as a forensic acquittal in the court of heaven ; ficvi^^ but as implying also a conscious liberation from moral 1 ? /-■ K' thraldom. It will, in fact, be seen, in all Mr. Wesley's statements on the subject, that it was the morale . liberation on which he relied as the true criterion of the ^^i T ' justified state. " Herein," said he, as Mr. Southey has '^ r /^^^j^'quoted him, " I found the difference between this and ^/t^nx /-I > my former state chiefly consisted : I was striving, yea , fighting, Avith all my might under the law, as well u/, , as vmder grace; but then, I was sometimes, if not •/}ry. often, conquered ; 7iow, I was always conqueror." Thus in the very moment of his highest excitation, Mr. Wesley estimates evangelic blessings on moral ^ grounds, and tries himself exclusively by a moral ^ standard. I confidently add, that in all the pecu- liarities of his subsequent course, he never swerved from this principle ; but, on the contrary, became more and more jealous of every opinion wiiich could be thought to favour religious confidence, mthout- ' the constant testimony of a good conscience. The doctrinal theories whicli he liad embraced, and which CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 421 he, at length, began to suspect of an " antinomian leaning," were either renounced or corrected ; and 'purity of heart and life^ through the grace of Christ and the influence of the Holy Spirit, as it had been ever his ruling object, became at length the single matter to which he attached vital importance. But, as I said, at no period was there an abatement of Mr. AYesley's original moral intensity. In his Appeal we find him rejecting "the vulgar notion of salvation being barely deliverance from hell, or going to heaven;" and maintaining that it is "a present deliverance from sin ; a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity ; a recovery of the Divine nature ; the renewal of our souls after the image of God. This implies," he adds, " all holy and heavenly tempers ; and, by consequence, all holiness ^ of conversation." And, in one of his earlier sermons, he exhorts his disciples to " abhor sin far more than^ death or hell ;" to " abhor sin itself far more than the ^ punishment of it." The truth is, that John Wesley considered the ex- cellency of Christianity to consist in its delivering the^ human spirit from the dominion and the pollution of moral evil ; and thus qualifying and disposing it for the moral enjoyment of God. This central principle of Christian philosophy he embraced for himself, and urged upon others, as essentially and infinitely the one thing needful. His moral creed was comprehended in that weightiest and most profound oracle, " Blessed are the pure in heart ; for they shall see God." St. Augustine's pregnant aphorism, " Fecisti nos tibi ; et cor semper irrequietum, donee requiescat in te," was adopted by him in all its fulness ; nor do the winged words of St. Chrysostom express this supreme truth with deeper feeling, or more strongly attest the pious ardour of him who uttered them, than passages of frequent occurrence in Mr. Wesley's later sermons. K K 3 422 RKiMAliKS ON THE LIFE AND It is this moral radiance, that so often breaks forth in Mr. Wesley's writings, which could alone compen- sate an unprejudiced reader for the shallow reason- ings, and unsupported conclusions, into which his natural temperament, his favourite theories, and his peculiar circumstances, conspired to betray him. Still, in spite of these repulsive features, I must con- fess for myself tliat I feel inexpressible satisfaction in recurrino- to those warm and bright effusions of moral taste and spiritual affection. But I could not do so, if my recollections of John Wesley himself were not in complete accordance with the pure practice which he inculcates, and "the holy loftiness of heart" (to use an expression of Archbishop Leighton's) which he is ever solicitous to inspire. I am well aware that the history of what is called the religious Avorld leaves little room for concluding that eminently zealous men must therefore be imma- culate. Yet, even had I no personal knowledge of Mr. Wesley's character, the practical principles to - which I have been adverting would, to my mind, raise him far above the reach of any discreditable suspicion. It is in religionists of another cast that moral inconsistencies have shown themselves. A faith // which does not regard everlasting safety as vitally depending on present purity, though in general its practice may be much better than its theory, is little likely to lay the axe to the root of human corruption ; and may not always be sufficiently on the alert to repel and subdue the first motions of moral evil. But that one, whose entire principles indispensably bound him to pursue purity of heart and life, and made the substantive possession of that purity essen- tial to his daily and hourly comfort, — that such an one, I say, after years of dcvotedness, and in the midst of what might most truly be called a life of sacrifice, should, in one particular instance, depart wickedly ciiaracti<:r of joiin wesley. 423 from his course, and, on one single occasion, give the lie to all the other actions of his life, all the words of his mouth, and all the vivid issues of his ever-pro- fluent heart, would be against all example, and be- yond all credibility. I rest assured that any such moral anomaly would be sought for in vain in the annals of the Christian world. But something much stronger than any general argument settles my conviction of John Wesley's perfect integrity : I mean the tranquil and satisfied • mind with which I saw him resign himself to the rapid sinking of his frame, and the certain approach; of his dissolution. Mr. Southey has remarked, with his usual discernment and good feeling, on the evi- dences of this fact which have come before him. Had he personally witnessed what he so justly conceived, he would have needed no additional proof that Mr. Wesley enjoyed as cloudless a mental retrospect as! could consist with mortality. I had an opportunity of closely observing him for some days together, in the last year but one of his life. He was, just then, after a wonderful continu- ance of natural strength, beginning to " find that he grew old." His sight was much decayed, and he himself was conscious that his memory was Aveak- ened, though it did not yet appear in his conversation. Of his own actual feelings under these increasing infirmities, I have an interesting record, in a letter dated Dublin, Apiil 11th, 1789, written soon after his last arrival in Ireland, and notifying his intended visit to the place where I resided, and where he was to be my guest. " You see in the public papers," he says, " that I shall be with you, if God permit, on the 30th of next month. If I should be called to go a longer journey before that time, I hope you would be able to say, 'Good is the will of the Lord.' Every i time we meet, it is less and less probable that we E E 4 424 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND should meet again in this world ; but it is enough if we . are counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection of the dead." After receivino; such an intimation of conscious decline, I was delighted to find his cheerfulness in no respect abated. It was too obvious that his bodily frame Avas sinking ; but his spirit was as alert as ever;s- and he was little less the life of the company he hap- pened to be in, than he had been three-and- twenty years before, when I first knew him. I had some motive at that time for stating, in a newspaper pub- lication, the impression which his manner and con- versation then particularly made upon me. This sketch of Mr. Wesley, Mr. Henry Moore, his first biographer, inserted, with the alteration of one unim- portant word, in his volume ; and it was copied both by Mr. Hampson and Dr. Whitehead. Of what I then said, I do not, after the reflection of so many years, retract an iota. Now, as then, I feel it to be a case in which there was no room for delusion. - Such unclouded sunshine of the breast, in the deepest winter of age, and on the felt verge of eternity, be- spoke a mind whose recollections were as unsullied as its present sensations were serene. It seemed to verify to the letter those weighty words of the Psalmist, " Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace v^ at the last." With this latest image of John Wesley my mind could not but associate all that I had seen in him, or heard from him, on former occasions ; as well as those perpetual effusions of purest and simplest virtue in his writings, which, like streams from a fountain, prove the nature of their source. And in this united view, I seem to myself to possess as indisputable evi- dence of ^Ir. Wesley's undeviating moral consistency, CHARACTEE OF JOHN WESLEY. 425 as if my eye had followed him through every stage and every step of his earthly pilgrimage. And let it not be forgotten that he has himself enabled us virtually to exercise this very kind of inspection. His Journal affords such an entire and unreserved memorial, not only of his indefatigable labours, but of the disposition and temper with which he pursued them, as makes John Wesley one of the -best known individuals that ever acted on the stage of human life. While I, therefore, from my own per- sonal knowledge of him, feel the conviction I have expressed, I would send others to that animated but most artless registry, to try if they can find a point of time in which his Christian vigilance appears to relax, or his love of virtue to become less intense or less practical. I would ask, is there one darkened hour, which might be thought to indicate some secret self-reproach ; or an intimation, for the last fifty years, (to say nothing of his earlier strictness,) that he did not live in daily peace with himself, and with his God ? Is he not uniformly the same man, — de- ' voted to what he deemed his duty : alike regardless of privation or endurance, and yet beaming with happy cheerfulness, and glowing with unbounded philanthropy ? I would say, in a word, let a single > spot be shown in the singularly-recorded course of John Wesley's thoughts and feelings, as well as of his actions and habits, where suspicion could find footing, or calumny insert a sting. * * * * ^ I have thus obliged my conscience, and gratified my deepest feelings, in bearing my feeble testimony to my ever loved and venerated friend. I could will- ingly have gone farthei', and submitted some remarks to Mr. Southey, on particulars respecting which, I think, had he known Mr. Wesley as I knew him, he would have written somewhat differently from wliat 426 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND lie has done ; and have, by that means, more fully accomplished his own kind and liberal intentions. I cannot express the value which I attach to Mr. Southey's Life of John Wesley ; but, in certain in- stances, I could Avish him to have the means of can- did reconsideration. I refer merely to matters re- specting Mr. Wesley's jjei^sojud character, moral and religious. But I could not presume to state what has occurred to me, without Mr. Southey's permis- sion ; I would even say, Ms desire that I shoidd do so. I am, my dear Sir, most faithfully yours, ALEXANDER KNOX. Bellevue, Delganny, Oct. 8. 1825." As Mr. Southey has been so good as to express a wish that I should offer such remarks as have occurred to me, in reading his Life of John Wesley, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me, not only of bearing testimony to the virtues of my old excellent friend, but also of evincing my entire con- fidence in Mr. Southey's candour, and in his cordial value for worth of character, by whatever human infirmities it may be accompanied. I could not enumerate the instances in which I Avas gratified, and sometimes even delighted, at the justice done by Mr. Southey to the character of Mr. Wesley's mind, and to the motives of his singular course of life. But I have often felt the strongest persuasion that if Mr. Southey had known Mr. Wesley as I knew him, his estimate of the feelings which actuated and modified Mr. Wesley's extraordinary career, would have somewhat differed from that which Mr. Southey's CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 427 more remote view of his subject led him naturally, or rather necessarily, to form. Mr. Southey, not having had an opportunity of personally knowing and observing Mr. Wesley, could judge of him only by general rules, and according to the common movements of human nature: and I freely confess that, according to this standard, it was next to impossible that Mr. Wesley's peculiarities should be resolved into any other sources than those which the history of human nature shows to have so often produced results of an apparently similar kind. I accordingly do not wonder that Mr. Southey should have ascribed Mr. Wesley's conduct, in certain remarkable conjunctures of his life, to a restless spirit, " an ambitious temper, and a pride of heart, which could not have been contented with holding a second- ary place ; " nor, indeed, do I see how a distant observer could othermse account for Mr. Wesley's apparent choice of enterprise, his uncompromising- ^ "^resistance of his antagonists, and his unyielding re- ^ tention of the power Avhich he had acquired, until the last moment of his life. I may venture to say that neither these, nor any other particulars in Mr. Wesley's character and con- duct, on which Mr. Southey animadverts, escaped my attention ; and not even at the time, much less at this distant period, could 1 suspect myself of regard- ing them with undue partiality. Having no more sympathy with Mr. Wesley in his decided peculiarities than (I might almost say) Mr. Southey himself, I was not liable to be seduced into an over favourable judge- ment of the motives, for the sake of the consequences. Still, however, I must declare, that the slightest sus- picion of pride, ambition, selfishness, in any shape or form, or personal gratification of whatever kind, stimulating Mr. Wesley in any instance, or mixing . 428 REMARKS ON THE LIKE AND in any mccasurc with the movements of his life, never once entered into my mind. That such charges were made by his opponents, I could not be ignorant. But my deep impression was, and it certainly remains unimpaired, that since the days of the Apostles there has not been a human being more thoroughly exempt from all those frailties of human nature than John Wesley. In fact it has been my settled conviction that Mr. Wesley was intentmially solicitous for nothing but the Bonum and the Verum, in the highest sense of these terms ; and had his conceptions of the latter been as sober as his apprehensions of the former were sublime, he would have ranked with the first names in the modern history of the Church. But with a heart as upright as mere mortal could possess, he had an intellectual frame of singular construction. Hence, and not in any measure from his moral nature, pro- ceeded the fervour, the energy, the prompt decision, with which he resisted an adversary, surmounted an obstacle, or accomplished an object. And hence, too, arose several weaknesses which have thrown a shade over his better qualities. Thus his habits of reflection bore no proportion to his quickness of apprehension ; nor could he endure delay either in reasoning or in acting. From uncertain and scanty premises, he rapidly formed the most confident and comprehensive conclusions, mistaking logic for philosophy in matters of theory, and appearances for realities in matters of^ fact and experience. But, it may be asked, if such was the character of John Wesley's mind, how was he competent to form a religious polity so compact, effective, and perma- nent ? I can only express my firm conviction that he was totally incapable of preconceiving such a^^ scheme. This would have implied an exercise of forethought and politic contrivance, than which CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 429 nothing could be more opposite to his whole mental constitution. Besides, from the specimens which I myself have had of his proceedings, I can even stake my veracity, that the account which he gives, on different occasions, of his adopting measures simply as they were recj[uired by successive emergencies, is unqualified and unimpeachable truth. That he had uncommon acuteness in fitting ex- pedients to conjunctures, is most certain : this, in fact, was his great talent. But in exerting this faculty, he was unspeakably aided by the intentional rectitude of his leading purpose. To train as many persons as he could influence to habitual and elevated piety, by a settled plan of methodical, social, and anti-secular devotion, was his uniform and exclusive object. In this pursuit, none other than morally innocent means could be thought of; and while he chose them not only with that honesty which is the best policy, but with uncommon instinctive sagacity, his constitutional energy supported his religious zeal in carrying them into steady and systematical practice. Thus it is that my personal acquaintance with Mr. Wesley's mind and habits obliges me to account for the origin and growth of the religious society which bears his name : but it must be added, as Mr. Southey has not failed to remark, that Mr. Wesley was much aided by his previous acquaintance with the religious practices of the Unitas Fratrum : and also, that which appeared opportune accident, led sometimes to the adoption of his more successful measures. It is no less certain, that when Mr, Wes- ley's system had grown into form, his mind was as much fitted to sustain it, as it would have been in- capable of previously devising it. Steadiness to his purpose marked all his movements : nor could prac- tical eccentricity ever be imputed to him. That Mr. Wesley's natural feelings were gratified 430 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND by the pror^ress of his Society cannot be questioned ; nor that, with the partiality of a parent, he was liable to palliate its imperfections, and to over-estimate its good effects. I grant, too, that in governing the body which he had formed, he experienced much of that pleasure which every one feels in exercising those talents wherein he excels. But T am persuaded that these necessary and useful movements of our nature never existed in any mere human being with less alloy of selfishness than in John Wesley. It is true that he appeared un^villing, even to the last, to part with the power which had grown up in his hands, or to suffer others to share in it. But I affirm with confidence, that it was not love of power which made him thus tenacious of it. I am assured that, for his own sake, he no more valued it than the earth on which he trod. But he regarded it as a provi- dential deposit, which he had not a right to part with. He knew that none of those around him Avere fit to be his coadjutors, and that so long as he could hold his place, the welfare of his Society required that he should hold it alone. Could he have adhered to this principle as much in reality as in profession, it might have been happier for his people, as well as for him- self. But that he was not actuated by any vulgar ambition, is evinced by a fact which has not escaped Mr. Southey's observation ; namely, that when the state of Methodism was such as to have afforded most gratification to selfish feelings, then it was that its founder felt deepest dissatisfaction, and complained in the bitterness of his soul, that the results which he had fondly reckoned on, were lamentably unaccom- plished. I am sure I need not point out the passages in Mr. Wesley's latest sermons which contain those com- plaints, and which sometimes bespeak an anguish of heart too intense for utterance. I have always felt CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 431 their importance, as Mr. Wesley's own deliberate tes- timony to the imperfectness of his system ; but I can- not help also inferring from them the simplicity of his oAvn heart, and the unmixt integrity of all his purposes. His success in forming a religious body, taken in all its circumstances, had scarcely a parallel in the Chris- tian world ; yet he grieves inexpressibly on this single account, that when he expected the " vineyard to bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes." He well knew also, that, in uttering and recording these feelings, he was putting the candour of his peo- ple to the severest test, and, of course, hazarding his influence oA^er them; yet no such apprehension is allowed even to soften his deep-toned expostulations. I ask, would this have been the case if the pleasure of dominion, or if selfish gratification in any shape or form had mingled, however partially, with his motives, or possessed any place whatever in his heart ? I may farther remark, that the prevalent tempers and habits of Mr. Wesley's mind appear to have been perfectly inconsistent with ambitious feelings. It is inconceivable that a man who aimed at self-ao^orran- disement should not be sometimes chagrined ; that he should not be disturbed by opposition, annoved by disappointments, or occasionally feel anxiety for the success of measures. But, probably, there never was a human being less accessible to care, of whatever kind, than John Wesley : sensible as he was both to pleasure and pain, and intensely as he desired the hajDpiness of his disciples, still the impression made on him by adverse occurrences, though no doubt often sharp, was always transient. Be the exigence what it might, after adopting what appeared the best mea- sures, he dismissed it from his thoughts. This happy faculty secured to him, through his long life, unbroken rest by night, and unclouded cheerfulness in tlie day : but it was a faculty which, I conceive, he could not 432 IlEMARKS ON THE LIFE AND liave possessed, had not his views been perfectly pure and disinterested. The emotions of a generous and upright heart, however strong, imply no thraldom ; but as soon as the feeling becomes selfish, the power of surmounting it is proportionally lost. I should think this is a fair test ; and if so, the mind of John Wesley stands acquitted from every suspicion of self- ishness : for certain it is, that as far as could consist with mortality, his life was a course of constant self- possession, and uninterrupted self-enjoyment; the past being unreservedly committed to God's gracious reckoning, and the future no less simply left to his unerring providence. Another charge against Mr. Wesley, I cannot equally dispute, namel}^, that of enthusiasm. Still he was an enthusiast of no vulgar kind : as Nelson was an enthu- siast for his country, so was John Wesley for religion. Where the highest interests of man were concerned, Mr. Wesley made no account of precedent, or public opinion, or maxims of human or even of ecclesiastical prudence. The Church of England appeared to him to have fallen into a state of stupor like that of the ancient Jewish Church ; and it was his persuasion that a kind of second John the Baptist, a " voice of one crying in the wilderness," was necessary to awaken it : to this duty he conceived himself providentially called, and he engaged in it with as firm a purpose, as if he had been commissioned by a voice from heaven. But in this material respect John Wesley differed from all vulgar enthusiasts — that he did not imagine any such voice, nor had he the slightest thought of either im- pulse or intimation from above. Singular as his course was, he no more supposed himself raised above the guidance of his reason than of his conscience ; but the premises from Avhicli he reasoned frequently derived so much of their shape and colour from the abstracted view which he took of them, and the sanguine spirit CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 433 in which he regarded them, as to produce results dif- fering perhaps little, in appearance, from those of strict and proper fanaticism ; while, in reality, they were only the regular workings of his peculiarly formed and, at the same time, religiously devoted mind. As this remark applies especially to the earlier stages of his career, so, I conceive, its truth is sup- ported by the manner in which experience and reflec- tion led him, in some important instances, to acknow- ledge the excess, and to correct the severity, of his for- mer doctrinal conceptions. It may, perhaps, be asked, whether the revolution which Mr, Wesley describes as having taken place in his mind at the Society in Aldersgate-street, on the 24th of May, 1738, does not fix a charge of enthu- siasm both on his mental character and on all his subsequent plans of conduct ? I should be obliged to answer, that if that occurrence justified such a charge, several of the most eminent persons in the Christian world must equally be deemed enthusiasts : for exam- ple, St. Cyprian and St. Augustin, in former times, and in times nearer our own, George Herbert, Robert Boyle, and Bishop Ken. This last-mentioned orna- ment of our Church has told his own story, in a poem on the Divine Attribute of Truth : I could wish Mr. Southey to turn to it, and to judge Avhether it is not in substance the very counterpart of John Wesley's statement. I must repeat, however, that I dispute the enthusiasm of John Wesley's mind only in the gross and palpable sense of the term : nor can I say, that it was through dislike of strict and proper enthu- siasm, that he escaped its influence : I even think he would have been an enthusiast if he could. He was always gratified by hearing or reading of illapses, or raptures, or supposed extraordinary manifestations, when he was assured of the moral rectitude of the party ; and, in his letters to his female correspondents, VOL. II. r p 434 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND we find him sometimes as anxious to know all the particulars of what passed in their minds, as if each daily or hourly vicissitude of feeling bore a stamp of divine operation. But while he thus delighted in the soarings of others, he himself could not follow them in their flights : there was a firmness in his intellectual texture which would not bend to illusion. It was easy to deceive his reasoning faculty, but there was a soundness in his imagination Avhich preserved him, personally, from all contagion of actual fanaticism. His zealous maintenance of what he called " the witness of the Spirit," especially in the former part of his course, is notorious ; and yet it appears he did not himself profess to have attained it. " By your own confession," says Whitefield, in a letter quoted by Mr. Southey, "you have not the witness of the Spirit within yourself. I am assured God has given me that living witness in my soul." But why had not John Wesley that inward impression as well as Whitefield, when he equally believed it to be attainable ? Was it not simply because, from the native tone of his mind, he Avas less susceptible of illusive persuasions ? It is remarkable that others, beside John Wesley, have had a value for those seemingly extraordinary sensations in the minds of others of which they had no consciousness in their own. Nicole says, on this subject : " J'estime beaucoup ces sortes d'histoires, quand elles viennent par le canal d'un honnne sincere et intelligent, et qui ne fait pas une vertu d'une credu- lite indiscrete. II me semble que ce sont des nouvelles de I'autre monde qui servent a detacher de celui-ci." The same estimation of those mental phenomena, without the same guards, rather indeed with as much credulity as could occupy a mind not physically in- sane, betrayed Mr. Wesley, I conceive, into some of the weakest parts of his conduct. Respecting those instances which are chargeable CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 435 with inconsistency, it will be necessary to advert to another of Mr. Wesley's liabilities ; namel}^, his tendency to yield himself to those who, with or with- out just claims, had obtained his coniidence. He was apt to conceive strong attachments ; and they who were thus distinguished by him did not always appear to impartial persons as worthy of that preference. To Mr. C. Wesley those predilections of his brother were often annoying. "Are you one of my brother's fa- vourites ?" said he to a worthy person who was at that time Mr. Wesley's travelling companion ; and, on his frankly confessing that he was not, Mr. C. Wesley replied, " I do not like you the worse for that." There was, in fact, no concealment on this point between the brothers. In a letter to me, in 1780, Mr. Wesley refers to those differences of liking : " My brother," says he, " laughs at me, and says, ' Nay, it signifies nothing to tell you any thing, for whomever you once love, you will love on through thick and thin.' " This habit, however, was of much less consequence while Mr. Wesley's natural strength of mind remained unim- paired ; but when advancing years made him not less infirm of purpose than of frame, the ascendancy of those to whom he Avas partial could not fail to mislead him, when they were induced by their own views to exert a warping influence. Mr, Southey well knows that, during the last seven years of Mr. Wesley's life, several circumstances con- curred to favour the attempts which were made by some of his preachers to draw him from his allegiance to the Established Church; and I presume it can hardly be matter of question that strong urgency must have been used to effect that purpose in the particular instance of ordination. Still, however, Mr. Southey seems to suppose (and I do not by any means wonder at such an impression being made) F F 2 436 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND that Mr. Wesley's own inclination seconded the views of his advisers ; and that, on the whole, his measures had at least as much in them of premeditated design as of misled imbecility. I, however, who attended to those occurrences at the time with painful interest, and who have had some opportunity of informing myself respecting the secret springs of action, cannot but express my conviction that in those last trans- actions of Mr. Wesley's life he was infinitely more "sinned against than sinning;" and that while it is impossible to acquit him of lamentable inconsistency, he was utterly unconscious of artifice or duplicity. Nothing, surely, could have evinced pure weakness of mind more clearly than the strange business of making Dr. Coke a bishop. That Dr. C. urged Mr. Wesley to this proceeding, I know with certainty from the Doctor himself; and full acquaintance with this well-meaning but very inconsiderate man, makes me feel that Mr. Wesley could scarcely have had a more unfortunate adviser. The argument by which Mr. Wesley brought himself to comply with Dr. C.'s wish, is itself an evidence that his reasoning faculty had greatly fiiiled. I need not point out his childish misapprehension of the case in question, as it has been noticed and justly remarked upon by Mr. Southey. At the same time, I do not wonder that Mr. Wesley's conduct in this instance should be thought to bespeak the duplicity rather than the infirmity of his mind, and that Mr. Southey should accordingly suppose Dr. Coke's express assumption of the episcopate in America to have called forth only " a semblance of displeasure from Mr. Wesley, merely intended to save appearances;" and yet would fain hope that, if Mr. Southey will take the trouble of referring to the lately published edition of Moore's Life of Wesley, from the 335th to the 345th page of the second volume, and particularly the letter to Mr. Asbury, he will see that Mr. Wesley's dis- CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 437 pleasure, however inconsistent, was not feigned, but actually and strongly felt by him. It would be impossible for Mr. Southey to condemn the measures into which Mr. Wesley was betrayed more cordially than I did at the time, and continue to do to the present moment. But the question most important to Mr. Wesley's moral character is, whether he was led captive by the solicitations of others, acting upon the assailable points of his then debilitated mind, or whether, from an ambitious desire to con- solidate his community, and perpetuate his name, he was induced to sink the long-maintained character of an evangelist in that of a wily and sinuous politician. This latter supposition Mr. Southey has felt himself obliged, I am sure most reluctantly, to entertain. In addition to the semblance of displeasure already referred to, Mr. Southey remarks that Mr. Wesley's " conduct upon this point was neither consistent nor mgenuous ; " and he says still more strongly that, however dexterous he had been in saving " himself from any sacrifice of pride, he was not always so suc- cessful on the score of principle ; for his attachment to the Church was sacrificed to the desire of extend- ing and preserving his power." That such, to every appearance, is the natural con- struction of Mr. Wesley's conduct, I regret to acknow- ledge ; and nothing short of my personal acquaintance with Mr. Wesley, and my actual attention at the time to the transactions in question, would authorise me to dispute its justness. Mr. Southey has fully shown his disposition to judge of Mr. Wesley not only can- didly, but kindly ; I therefore venture to submit to Mr. Southey, whether the allegations just quoted can, in the nature of things, be imputable, if the testimony I have borne to John Wesley's general character in the preceding paragraphs be founded. But I am glad to think that I am not obliged to rest my vindication F F 3 438 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND of his intentional rectitude merely on probable evidence. There are circumstances connected with the case itself which may, and in some instances, I think, must, have escaped Mr. Southey's observation, but wdiich, I trust, when considered, will be found to dispel every suspicion of duplicity, as implying a mode of conduct which could not consist with artifice, and only bespoke the most painful and pitiable vacillation. Before adverting to those particulars, I would observe, that in one of my first interviews with Mr. Wesley, after the occurrences in question, I thought it right to disclose to him my whole mind upon the subject ; and from the manner in which he heard me, and from what he said in reply, I saw clearly that he felt himself in a vortex of difficulties, and that, in the steps he had taken, the yielding to what he thought pressing exigencies, he nevertheless had done violence to undissembled and rooted feeling. I had been long aware that two dissonant principles wrought in Mr. Wesley's mind ; that he was unfeignedly attached to the Church of England, but that he was more sensi- tively and practically united to his o'svn Society ; not, I was persuaded, because it was his own Society, but because he overrated its value, and had an extrava- gant notion of its providential destination. Accord- ingly, in his well-known " Reasons against Separation," though they were stated with clearness, and urged with all his accustomed energy, he concludes with asserting only the inexpediency of such a measure ; while Mr. Charles Wesley, in adding his signature, recorded also his conviction that a separation of the Methodists from the Church of England was unlawful as well as inexpedient. Mr. Southey is well acquainted with Mr. Charles Wesley's unshaken consistency. But this early difference between the brothers seems somewhat to qualify Mr. John Wesley's eventual in- CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 439 consistency, and, in point of fact, to shelter him from the charge of dissimulation. I need scarcely say that it is only in what regards moral feeling that I am anxious John Wesley should stand acquitted. His affection for the Church of England, I have every reason to know, was unfeigned and cordial ; and yet I believe that if, at any time after the formation of his Society, he had been reduced to the alternative of being expelled from the Church, or of relinquishing his system, he would have suffered the former, rather than resolve upon the latter ; simply because he conceived that the spiritual benefits conferred on individuals, by means of his Society, were too deep and too extensive to allow that he should abandon it. And yet so much did he deprecate a gratuitous separation, that when, some years before his death, I asked him, in a ]Drivate con- versation, how he should wish his friends to act in case of the Methodists withdrawing from the Esta- blished Church, his answer was, I would have them adhere to the Church, and leave the Methodists. It is on the proofs which Mr. Wesley gave to the last of this same feeling every now and then recover- ing its ascendency, even after he had yielded, and, strange to think, was occasionally still yielding, to contrarious counsels, that I ground my exculpation of him from intentional duplicity. I submit the par- ticular instances to Mr. Southey's consideration : he will judge whether they do not give evidence of a mind at distressing variance with itself, and as inca- pable of forming any politic design for its own pur- pose, as of detecting the representations of interested or prejudiced advisers. The first remarkable instance of the kind to which I allude, occurred more than two years after his first ordination for America. A spirit of decided dissent broke out at Deptford, and Mr. Wesley was urged to r F 4 4 to REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND allow the ]\Ictliodists there to hold their Sunday ser- vice at Church hours. But he refused compliance, on the ground (Journal, 1st edit., Sept. 24. 1786) that " this would be a formal separation from the C'liurch." •' To "fix," (our service) he adds, " at the same hour, is obliging them to separate, either from the Church or us ; and this I judge to be not only- inexpedient, but totally unlawful for me to do." This remonstrance, however, had but a transient effect ; for, on the 2nd of January following, his words are : "I went over to Deptford ; but it seemed I was got into a den of lions : most of the leading men in the Society were mad for separating from the Church. I endeavoured to reason with them, but in vain ; they had neither sense nor even good manners left. At length, after meeting the whole Society, I told them, " If you are resolved, you may have your service in the Church hours : but, remember, from that time you will see my face no more ! This struck deep, and from that hour I have heard no more of separation from the Church." How Mr. Wesley could overlook the encouragement wdiich he himself had given to such movements of dissent, I acknowledge I do not comprehend. But these expressions not only bear an indubitable stamp of feeling, but it is impossible to conceive why, in that instance, he should have spoken otherwise than he felt, and still more, tliat he should have made such a record without a conscious sense of sincerity. Com- mon policy would have especially forbidden its pub- lication^ had he been in a state of mind duly to weigh either his own recent measures, or the consequences morally certain to ensue from them. AVhen those, however, whom we may suppose to have advised those measures, came themselves into power, they did their utmost to suppress this unques- tionable evidence of Mr. Wesley's variance with CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 441 himself, or rather of what were still the unbiassed workings of his heart. In every edition of Mr. Wes- ley's Journal, subsequent to his death, the former passage (Sept. 24th, 1786) is mutilated, and the latter passage (Jan. 2nd, 1787) wholly cancelled. They, doubtless, hoped to consign this virtual protest against their meditated plan to everlasting oblivion. But I happened to procure the original edition, and thereby had it in my power to quote both passages in a small pamphlet which I published in England in the year 1794, against the then commencing sepa- ration, and from that pamphlet I have now tran- scribed them. Their suppression is remarkable not only for the wily policy of the act itself, but also as it serves to illustrate the kind of influence under which Mr. Wesley was placed during the last years of his life. Some other evidences of his radically unchanged principles (however he might ha\'e been seduced to depart from them in those strange instances of prac- tice) could not be similarly put out of view, though no endeavour of this kind was wanting. Thus, when Mr. Wesley was in Ireland, in the year 1789, at a distance from prejudiced advisers, and amongst per- sons cordially attached to the Church of England, he composed a sermon on Hebrews, v. 4., which he pub- lished, twelve months after, in the Arminian Magazine, containing as energetic a testimony as could be ex- ])ressed in language against separation from the Church, and assumption by his preachers of the priestly office. That even in this sermon there are gross inconsistencies and self-impositions, I must allow; but where he urges what he considered the main point, the expressions are self- evidently the language of his heart. Fully aware that there was an ambition amongst his preachers to assume the ministerial office, he tells them : " Ye never dreamed 442 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND of tliis for ten or twenty years after ye began to preach. Ye did not then, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, seek the jyriestlwod also. Ye knew, no man taheth this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as ivas Aaron^ He then proceeds : " 0 ! contain yourselves within your own bounds. Be content with preaching the Gospel. I earnestly advise you, abide in your place ; keep your own station. Ye were fifty years ago, those of you who were then Methodist preachers, extraordinary messengers of God, not going in your own will, but thrust out, not to supersede, but to provoke to jealousy the ordinary messengers. In God's name stop there. Ye your- selves were at first called in the Church of England; and though ye have, and will have, a thousand tempt- ations to leave it, and set up for yourselves, regard them not. Be Church-of-England men still. Do not cast away the peculiar glory which God hath put upon you, and frustrate the design of Providence, the very end for which God raised you up." How very unpalatable this language was, to those whose counsels had already made the evil too strong for repression, appears from their omission of this ser- mon in the volume of Mr. Wesley's yet uncollected discourses, published after his death. He had himself collected into four volumes the sermons he had written for the Arminian Magazine ; but as he persevered in this labour until within the last three months of his life, enou2;h remained at the time of his death to form an additional volume. But the sermon from which I have transcribed the above passage was suppressed, and has never since appeared in any edition of Mr. AYesley's sermons. It follows that if Mr. Wesley had been wholly guided by those persons who occasionally, toward the close of his life, had influence upon him, and who came into full power at his death, that dis- course never would have a])pcared, nor, indeed, ever CHAKACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 443 would have been written. Although, therefore, this sermon aiFords little evidence of Mr. Wesley's firmness or consistency, since, in the former part of it, he gives up the principle which he had so strenuously main- tained in September, 1786, and January, 1787, yet the case altogether clearly shows, that there was no community either of counsels or of feelings between Mr. Wesley and that separating faction to which, not- withstanding, in spite of himself, he was gradually giving way. Hence then, I conceive, all that I am anxious to prove necessarily follows ; I mean, that John Wesley's share in those separating movements had nothing in it of artful contrivance, or of system- atical design, but that it was a reluctant yielding to circumstances which had become embarrassing in pro- portion as he became incapable of managing them ; while, at the same time, he foresaw results which he would fain have palliated, but which he could not anticipate without unfeigned anguish of heart. That such strictly were Mr. Wesley's feelings within the last twelve months of his life, appears from a paper which he published in the Arminian Magazine for April, 1790. It is his object to defend himself against the charge of being a separatist ; but his arguments are better fitted to excite pity than to produce con- viction. Every thing he says bespeaks present per- plexity, and apprehension for the future : the last paragraph in particular expresses, in language beyond all deceit, the painful forebodings of an afflicted heart. " I never," he says, " had any design of separating from the Church ; I have no such design now : I do not believe the Methodists in general design it. I do, and will do, all that is in my power to prevent such an event : nevertheless, in spite of all I can do, many will separate from it ; although I am inclined to think not one half, perhaps not a third of them. These will be so bold and injudicious as to form a separate party, 444 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND which, consequently, will dwindle into a dry, dull, separate party. In flat opposition to these, I declare, once more, that I live and die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgement or advice mil ever sej)arate from it." The false reckonings which Mr. Wesley still enter- tained, when he wrote this paragraph, neither affect its import nor abate its force. It is neither more nor less than John Wesley's own final deep-toned manifesto against that very thing which his people became, as soon as it was in their power, after his death. It is needless to say, that he never could have thus ex- pressed himself, had he in any degree consciously symbolized with them, or even if he had been half- hearted upon the subject. Still, however, it may be objected, that soon after the publication of that paper, the conclusion of which I have just transcribed, Mr. Wesley, according to Mr. Moore (Life of Wesley, vol. ii. p. 386.), added one more to the number of those who had been ordained by him and his two associates. But on full consider- ation, I cannot see that even this strange act would warrant the suspicion that, in deprecating secession from the Church, he had not spoken from his heart. On the contrary, I can conceive that, partly from the general illusiveness of his views, and partly from the increased weakness of all his mental powers, he might have persuaded himself that, by giving the best ordi- nation he could, to a few of his preachers, on whose discretion and steadiness he thought he might rely, he would not further, but impede a general sef)aration. I grant, on the first view, it must appear unreason- able that even the imbecility of old age could have formed such a thought ; but that it might not be wholly without plausibility to John Wesley's j^er- plexed and boding mind, is countenanced by this remarkable fact, that in the actual event of separation, CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 445 the orders conferred by Mr. Wesley were treated with jealousy and neglect, if not with absolute scorn. It was determined that the few preachers who had re- ceived those orders, instead of communicating them to the rest, (which would of course have been the case on the supposition of a concerted plan,) should, on the contrary, be allowed no kind of pre-eminence; but that the preachers generally, in proportion as societies might wish for it, should, without any previous cere- mony, exercise every ministerial function, that is, should literally realise what Mr. Wesley had repro- bated as the crime of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. The absurdity of Mr. Wesley's conduct, as well as of his calculations, is one thing, but the duplicity of it is quite another thing ; and I submit whether the actual event (proving, as it does, a complete dissonance of design Ijetween him and the leading preachers,) must not be held to acquit him of prevarication or collusion, as much as it convicts him of practical vacillation and palpable self-deception ? I should certainly feel it much more difficult to understand Mr. Wesley's conduct, if I were not previously acquainted with the peculiar anomalies of his mind. As I have already inti- mated, there were two sets of affections, of which each had a real place in his heart. In his prevalent tastes and likings, as an individual, he was a Church-of-England man of the highest tone : not only did he value and love that pure spirit of faith and piety which the Church of England inherits from Catholic antiquity ; but even in the more circumstantial part, there was not a ser- vice or a ceremony, a gesture or a habit, for which he had not an unfeigned predilection. He was not only free from every puritanical leaning, but the aversion for those early enemies of the Established Church which he had imbibed in his youth, though repressed and counteracted, Avas by no means wholly subdued, even in the last stage of his life. His own ecclesiastical irregu- 446 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND larities had arisen, not from choice, but solely from what he himself had considered an imperative call of duty. By obeying this call, he conceived he had been an in- strument of inestimable good to many thousands of human beings ; and to sustain that good in its ex- tension, or even existence, he regarded his Society as indispensable. Here, therefore, (as I have already, more than once, intimated,) was the single consider- ation to which he was prepared to sacrifice, in case of absolute necessity, those original attachments which, I am certain, notwithstanding, existed to the last hour in his heart. It appears, however, to have been his wish and hope to avert any such necessity, and by partial compliances, like many another mistaken poli- tician, to arrest a revolutionary progress, which, when completed, he had still judgement enough to foresee would effect what he accounted the ruin of his insti- tution. Were I called upon to express my sense of Mr. Wesley's conduct in those unfortunate conjunctures, under the most solemn sanction, and with all my own recollections before me, I could not deviate from the view I have now given ; and, with respect to his general character, from all I perceived in him, or have known concerning him, I must deliberately express my conviction, that Mr. AYesley "prided himself" in nothing, and that he was not more devoid of the love of money than of the love of power ; that while he certainly had some of " the talents," he had not a par- ticle of what could be called " the temper, of a states- man ; " that Mr. Fletcher himself was not more devoid of ambition than Mr. Wesley ; and, in one word, that while he possessed every amiable, and excellent, and saintlike quality, wdiich Mr. Southey has so elo- quently and so cordially ascribed to him, there never was a mere human being more completely free from those very tVailties of temper and heart, to which Mr. CHARACTEK OF JOHN WESLEY. 447 Southey has, with so much apparent reason, been led to impute Mr. Wesley's concluding inconsistencies. I even again express my entire persuasion, that had Mr. Southey personally known Mr. Wesley, as I knew him, he would have borne substantially the same testi- mony as I am now bearing. He would have equally condemned the inconsistency into which Mr. Wesley was betrayed ; but, I rest confident, he would have acquitted him of every thing which could imply arti- fice or duplicity, or which in any respect impeached the humility of his mind, or the purity of his heart. In that case, I strongly think Mr. Southey would have judged more favourably of Mr. Wesley's conduct on a particular occasion in the earlier part of his course, the external circumstances of which Mr. Southey has very exactly detailed ; I mean Mr. Wesley's difference with Count Zinzendorf and his people. That, in this instance, Mr. Wesley never acted or spoke indiscreetly, is more than I could assert : he had, in fact, so intimately connected himself with the Moravian Brethren, as to make a subsequent separation peculiarly painful and embarrassing. Mr. Southey seems to be of opinion that this disagreement was, on Mr. Wesley's side, a result of ambitious jealousy, rather than of conscientious principle ; and, considering the light in which Mr. Southey has been led to view Mr. Wesley's general character, I do not wonder that he should put this construction on that particular trans- action. But to me, who from close and often-repeated inspection of Mr. Wesley, am convinced of his free- dom from every selfish frailty, his proceedings in separating from the Moravians appear to involve no- thing, in substance, which was not enjoined by Mr. Wesley's views of duty, and the circumstances of the case. I must even acknowledge, that had he acted ma- terially otherwise with respect to Count Zinzerdorf and his missionaries, after becoming acquainted with their 448 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND real character, I could not have regarded him in the same morally pure and spotless light in which he has always appeared to me ; nor could I, by any means, equally esteem him an important instrument of mys- terious Providence. I mentioned, in my former communication, that tlie feature in Mr. Wesley's character which chiefly ex- cited my esteem, and which seemed to me to cast a softening light over even his errors and excesses, was his ardent and uniform zeal for the moral spirit of Christianity. This I deliberately think it was which alone animated him in all his conflicts with con- temporary religionists. Hence, exclusively, arose that remarkable controversy, in the later part of Mr. Wesley's life, wherein the pure-minded Mr. Fletcher had so distinguished a share. The native tone of Mr. Wesley's moral nature, heightened, as I have said, by his close and cordial study of the ancient Fathers, and the Anti-Calvinist divines of the Church of England, made it impossible for him to endure the solifidian system in any shape or form, and, least of all, in that gross modification of it, which the disciples of Zinzendorf were anxious to promulgate. Mr. Wesley had evidently found nothing of this kind in his communications with Peter Boehler. In his visit to the Moravian settlements of Marienborn and Hernhuth, he met several matters which, whether with or without reason, he was inclined to question ; butgross unsoundness of doctrine did not yet present itself. That a limited confidence was placed in Mr. Wesley, as being not fully prepared for initiation, may be inferred from what Count Zinzendorf said in the subsequent conversation at Gray's Inn Walks. It would seem, however, that the doctrinal views of the Moravians themselves had assumed somewhat of a new form during the years 1739 and 1740, and that theprinciples which called forth Mr. Wesley's strenuous opposition, in the year 1741, had been scarcely suspected by him. CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 449 until they were actually promulgated. Even then, I should suppose, the more gross extravagances of the Count were, at least, but in embryo ; at any rate (as Mr. Southey observes), they "had not been transplanted into England;" otherwise Mr. Wesley's resistance would have been far more energetic, and his secession immediate. Mr. Southey has attentively noted the particulars of this remarkable event in Mr. Wesley's course. But I am obliged to take a very different view of the motives and feelings from which it proceeded. / see Mr. Wesley, as I myself knew him, working his painful but most upright way, through those per- plexing circumstances ; I discover no movement which was not dictated by his regard for evangelical truth, or suggested by his gratitude for what he esteemed spiritual benefit. The latter sentiment accounts to me for every instance of caution or hesitation ; the former, for his practical decisiveness, in the issue. I allow that Mr. Wesley "was not born to hold a secondary place;" but I most conscientiously and solemnly maintain that it was exclusively from his firmness of principle, and independence of spirit, and in no respect from an overbearing temper, or an arrogant mind. Besides, it seems to me that no two human minds could have been more opposed to each other, in spirit and habits, than the mind of Count Zinzendorf and that of John Wesley. Count Zinzendorf was specious, artful, and insinuating ; and, it would appear, could make out by contrivance what was wanting in fact. John Wesley, on the contrary, wore no disguise ; he disdained every shape and form of artifice ; and perhaps never was as attentive as he should have been to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the harmless7iess of the dove. They could not, therefore, have gone on together, had their doctrinal disagreement been less essential. But, things being VOL. II. G G 450 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND as tliey were, the concentrated pointing of John Wesley's sternly moral mind, and religiously devoted heart, led him irresistibly to that uncompromising course which he actually pursued. Mr. Southey remarks, that after the formal breach, " the Moravians forbore from all controversy on the subject: but Wesley did not continue the tone of charity and candour in which he had addressed them upon the separation." As to the silence of the Moravians, I apprehend, it was only an instance of their general determination. At no time, perhaps, could Count Zinzendorf have satisfactorily explained his measures; and the more his system advanced, the necessity seems to have become greater, for avoid- ing development. Mr. Wesley, I am persuaded, would have still continued his tone of charity and candour, if fresh grounds of animadversion had not come before him. Mr. Wesley's former intimacy with the Moravians made it impossible for him to escape entire knowledge of those enormities in sentiment, if not in practice, by which Count Zinzendorf scan- dalised Christianity, and outraged common decency. Mr. Southey, with the most obvious ^vish not to be unduly severe, justly describes the Count's offensive language and conduct as " loathsome and impious extravagances." If the "perilous error" of this in- fatuated man be thus revolting to Mr. Southey, in the distant retrospect, with what feelings could Mr. Wesley have regarded it, at the moment, but those of indi";nation and horror ? I would also observe, that the instances of dis- continued " charity and candour" which Mr. Southey has adverted to, occurred more than ten years after the formal separation. During that interval the Count had been playing " such fantastic tricks before high heaven" as astounded all sober-minded Christians throughout Protestant Europe. And though I think CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 451 Mr. Wesley would have done much better, had he passed over the ostentatious parade of titles, where there were such weightier matters of censure, and though 1 by no means question that it was very injudicious to found general charges on private com- munications to himself, when so many particulars of a gross and flagrant kind were authentically before the public ; yet, considering the general strain of Mr. Wesley's Journal (how far, in itself, allowable or ex- ceptionable, I am not inquiring) and the habitual freedom with which he gives his thoughts of men and things, it would be to me, knowing Mr. Wesley as I did, a matter of wonder, if his strictures on Count Zinzenclorf had been less explicit or less emphatical. I have not a doubt that his hatred of the Count's character and conduct was as intense as his own love of purity, " simplicity, and godly sincerity ;" and, cir- cumstanced as he was, and had been, he must have felt and resented, perhaps more than any other of his contemporaries, the depth and virulence of the scandal. I plead, however, for Mr. Wesley's correct- ness of judgement in few things, either actual or verbal ; but I unfeignedly and cordially offer myself as an evidence (perhaps the only impartial one now living) to his utter incapacity of every thing " dis- ingenuous;" to his childlike "candour," and to his invincible " charity." Mr. Southey says, most justly, of Mr. Wesley, that he " never returned railing for railing," and that he was " always calm and decorous in controversy." But I venture to assert that this was not merely, or chiefly, because " he had his temper entirely under command^'' but rather, because he had no unkindly temper to control. I repeat what I have said in effect already, that I never knew a man who seemed to me more deeply imbued with that heavenly principle of which St. Paul says, " Oy c^ufrioDra;, oux oL(T-^\i.ov{i^ ou ^r}Ta7 rot eayT%, G G 2 452 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND ou Trapo^uvzTai." The ascribing the ilhiess of his chief antagonist to the " arm of the Lord," bespoke that want, Avhich often shewed itself; I mean, of sober judgement ; but, prone as he was to resolve every thing into particular Providence, it was a natural result of this persuasion to put that construction on the seemingly opportune fettering of one whom he con- sidered, as "not ceasing" (like Elymas of old) to "pervert the right ways of the Lord." It has been a common error of Reformers to suppose themselves standing on the same ground as the Apostles ; and though in John Wesley this persuasion was qualified by a generous temper, a cultivated mind, and an understanding as clear, in some instances, as it was obscured and limited in others, he nevertheless felt an habitual confidence, that, in his conflicts for "pure and undefiled religion" (that "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord,") the hand of God was with him. Such a contention strictly he considered that with Mr. Molther. He was not supporting one opinion against another. He conceived himself resisting the grossest adulteration possible of evan- gelical morality. On his own principles^ therefore, he was likely to suppose a providential interference, though he was as charitable as a ministering angel. The weakness and precipitancy of such a reckoning I entirely allow ; but as I can conceive St. Paul to have struck Elymas Avith blindness, and yet have no particle of uncharitable feeling toward the unhappy victim, so can I similarly suppose John Wesley to have been as devoid of malevolence as the Apostle himself; the delusiveness of the one case, as opposed to the reality of the other, implying the greatest difference in what concerns the understanding; but, as it seems to me, no difference necessarily in what con- cerns the heart. Still, had I not personally known Mr. AVesley, and been thereby entitled to judge more CHARACTEK OF JOHN WESLEY. 453 exactly respecting his dispute with the Moravians, I might possibly have felt, Avith Mr. Southey, that Mr. Wesley's justification of himself against Mr. Church's charge of imagining "immediate punishments" from heaven " on those who opposed " him, was " very discreditable." I can well understand that Mr. Wesley's limitation of his assertion, as not having said that it was "a judgement of God for opposing" him^ should appear, even to the most candid reader, little better than an unworthy quibble. But, from my nearer acquaintance Avith Mr. Wesley's character, I feel entire conviction, that he meant honestly to express what Avas really in his heart. The opposition of Mr. Molther to liimself^ I am infinitely assured, never cost him a thought. Even as a man, he rose above selfish passions, and as a Christian he abhorred them. But his zeal for evangelical virtue Avas uncompromising and intense ; and where this best of interests appeared to him to be either outrageously or insidiously opposed, his over ardent imagination was too apt to mistake common casualties for special interferences of heaven. I am well aAvare that this Avas one of his very Aveakest points ; but I most deliberately avouch, once more, that his OAvn honour, or his own consequence, Avas to him as the small dust of the balance ; and that he cared for nothing on this earth, but that Avhich he conceived vitally connected Avith the practical religion of the heart. And he too well knew the nature of this heavenly principle, and Avas himself much too deeply imbued and animated Avith its influence, to conceive for a moment that " the wratli of man " could Avork, in any instance or manner, " tlie righteousness of GodT Mr. Southey remarks that John Wesley's doctrine of perfection was at least as objectionable to the Moravians as their mysticism to him ; and gives his oAvn judgement, that assuredly it was more dan- gerous. G G 3 454 KEMARKS ON THE LIFE AND I can venture to say, from my knowledge of Mr. Wesley, that if mysticism alone had been chargeable on the Moravians, his objections would have been much more easily obviated. He certainly considered the supposed self-annihilation of mysticism to be in opposition to the tenor of Holy Scripture, which uniformly addresses itself to man's natural thirst for happiness ; but still, he thought, that whatever per- nicious consequences were to be feared from the mystical illusion, itself might coexist with the deepest piety. In those Moravians, however, he saw it strangely associated with principles leading directly to laxity of practice ; and on this account he seems to have animadverted on mysticism with more severity than was his usual custom. In fact, had he not regarded mystics generally with liberal indulgence, he would hardl}^ have abridged Law's later works, and Madame Guion's Life of Herself, for circulation amongst his people. But Mr. Southey expresses a strong opinion that John Wesley's doctrine of perfection was more dan- gerous than the Moravian mysticism. On this point it is my wish merely to state facts, in order to enable Mr. Southey, after hearing evidence, to iix the extent of Mr. Wesley's liability to censure. It is a fact, then, that in one stage of Mr. Wesley's course, he carried the doctrine of religious perfection to such an extreme as to call forth his own subse- quent censure and retractation. In a preface to a volume of hymns, published in the year 1741, he made those excessive statements ; and to a republica- tion of that preface, in 1777, he appended notes for the purpose of disavowing several of his former posi- tions. Still, hoAvever, he retained his persuasion, that that maturity of Christian virtue for Avhich he con- tended was, though not always, yet in general, sud- denly acquired, and that there was a special witness CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 455 of the Holy Spirit, by which those who attained it Avere inwardly and immediately assured of its posses- sion. In both which instances, Mr. Wesley appears to have relied exclusively on what he conceived him- self to have seen and heard within his own Society. How much he was exposed to delusion by relying on this standard, I have already remarked. But it was a necessary result of that credulity of which Mr. Southey most justly says, that it " was Wesley's peculiar weakness, and he retained it to the last." It is, however, not the less true, that "as he grew older, cooler, and wiser, he modified and softened down " the doctrine of perfection ; but I confess he does not appear to me to have " almost explained it away," but rather to have returned to that notion of it which he could not but know was alone counte- nanced by the consent of the ancient Fathers, and the most eminent anti-Calvinistic divines of the Church of England. I do not mean that his return was full and perfect ; I speak only of the substance of what he taught, as Mr. Southey has quoted it. He thinks that Mr. Wesley, having thus moderated the doctrine, should also have abandoned the term. That he made an injudicious use of it, so that the word became hackneyed, and the idea which it conveys perniciously misconceived, I freely allow ; but I would submit to Mr. Southey some of the authorities which counte- nanced the term itself substantially in the same sense in which Mr. Wesley af)plied it. Mr. Southey is not to be told that Peter Lombard, in his Book of Sentences, aims at giving a digested compendium of the theology taught by the Fathers. In correcting the excess of some innovators, who main- tained that the grace of charity^ once really possessed, is never lost, and who thought to support that position by St. Paul's declaration, that " charity never faileth," he says: " Potest tamen hoc, et csetera quae de cari- G G 4 456 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND tate dicta sunt, de 2?erfectd caritate intelligi, quam soli perfecti habent. Sunt enim virtutis exordia, et profectus, et iierfectior He even goes so far as to say, (quoting St. Augustin to bear him out,) that while not only caritas incipiens, but even caritas " provecta amitti potest, et soepe amittitur, jierfecta caritas sic radicata est, ut amitti nequeat." In which position, by the way, " the Master " is not followed by later Roman Catholic divines ; and accordingly, Istius, in his work on the Booh of Sentences^ enters a caveat against it ; while, on the contrary, the learned and judicious Bishop Overall (Appendix to Ford, De Articulis) quotes this very passage from Lombard, as in unison with the doctrines of the English Church. A nmch earlier writer than Lombard, but who, like him, strictly formed himself on the model of the ancients, has also made deliberate and deep use of the term in question. I the more readily refer to him, because I perceive that he does not stand higher in my estimation than in that of Mr. Southey ; I mean the truly venerable Bede. The passage from which I mean to quote is too long to be transcribed, which it would well deserve, notwithstanding its fancifully allegorical form. His subject is, the two altars in the Jewish temple ; the altar of burnt-offerings, and the altar of incense. These he ingeniously (however gratuitously) supposes to be emblematic of two de- grees of practical Christianity; that in which it is substantially commenced and established in the mind and heart, and that in which it has advanced to ma- turity. Those who belong to the lower state of grace, he says, " walk not after the desires of the flesh ; but having sacrificed their desires to God, they dedicate to His will, through the fire of the Holy Spirit, all their bodily senses." Li these he thinks he finds various points of resemblance to the brazen altar on which the sacrifices were consumed. Tliose, on the CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 457 other hand, whom he ooiiceives represented by the altar of incense, are they, " qui, majori mentis per- fectio7ie, extinctis prorsus et sopitis illecebris omnibus carnis, sola. Domino, orationum vota offerunt." He adds, that in Christians of this high character there remains, " nil quidem de carne, quod se impugnet ; nil de conscientia peccati, unde conturbentur ac paveant." Were my books just now within my reach, I dare say I might produce several other similar instances. But I had happened to make extracts from both Lombard and Bede, and to have them at hand. I might also produce several divines of the Church of England ; but I believe it will be sufficient to quote Bishop Taylor and Dr. Lucas, both of whom John Wesle}^ had peculiarly made " guides of his youth ;" and as he appears to have been, under Providence, in debted to them for some of his best principles, it is at least not to be wondered at that he should have adopted and retained, not only the matter of their sentiments, but their modes of expression.* Mr. Southey has recorded the deep impression on Mr. Wesley's yet unestablished mind, from reading Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living ; and he himself is doubtless well acquainted with the works of an author whose spirit was so congenial to his ovm. But probably he never happened on the following passage, in one of Taylor's latest discourses, which was preached before the University of Dublin in 1662. * Mr. Southey may reasonably ask, on what ground I have thus associated Lucas with Taylor in John Wesley's early institution. My answer is, that a hymn, which manifests J. W.'s peculiar manner, entitled Zeal, is to be found in his first volume of Hymns, which, while it expresses the highest soarings of a morally ambitious mind, is, from beginning to end, a close versification of a passage in Lucas, in which, under the term of zeal, the highest supposable state of grace on earth is vividly, and I might say sublimely, delineated. 458 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND " Lastly, there is a sort of God's dear servants who walk in i:}erfectne8s ; who perfect holiness in the fear of God ; and they have a degree of charity and divine knowledge more than we can discourse of, and more certain than the demonstrations of geometry, brighter than the sun, and indeficient as the light of heaven. But I shall say no more of this at this time ; for this is to be felt, and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their fingers may secretly, perhaps, laugh at it in their hearts, and be never the wiser. All that I shall now say of it is, that a good man is united unto God, xivrpou xsvr^io o-uva\(/at,-. As a flame touches a flame, and combines into splendour and glory, so is the spirit of a man united unto Christ by the Spirit of God. These are the friends of God, and they best know God's mind ; and they only that are so, know how much such men do know. They have a special unction from above." Mr. Wesley would be the more likely to catch the spirit, and even the expression, of such a glowing passage as this, because the tenor of Bishop Taylor's former writings give evidence that it was no mere burst of eloquence, or flight of imagination, but that it spoke the language of his uniform persuasion and settled judgement. Thus, in the dedication to Lord Carbery, of that very work by which Mr. Wesley had been so remarkably impressed, the Holy Living^ he could not have failed to notice an observation, which in difl'erent words conveyed substantially the same notion: " There are some persons," he says, " in whom the Spirit of God hath breathed so bright a flame of love, that they do all their acts of virtue by perfect choice, and without objection ; and their zeal is warmer than that it will be allayed by temptation ; and to such persons mortification by philosophical instruments, as fasting, sackcloth, and other rude- nesses, is wholly useless. If love hath filled all the CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 459 corners of our soul, lie alone is able to do all the work of God." I must not omit to mention, that in Mr. Wesley's own "account" of his doctrine " of Christian per- fection," he states that his feelings on that subject were first excited in reading the last-mentioned work of Bishop Taylor; "that part, in particular, which relates to purity of intention ^ Dr. Lucas is much less known in the present day than he ought to be. I can only account for it by supposing that his views of Christian piety are too moral and practical for those who belong to the '-'• EvangelicaV party, and too affectionate and spiritual for most of those who are adverse to it. In what estimation he was formerly held, may be seen in the sixty-third number of the Guardian. " An Enquiry after Happiness," in two volumes, 8vo, is his principal work; the third part of which fills the second volume, and is entitled Religious Perfection. I have already mentioned one evidence of Mr. Wesley's esteem for this treatise: another is, that he inserted it, with little abridgement, in his Christian Library. A single passage will enable Mr. Southey to judge whether Mr. Wesley's language, as well as his practical view of the subject, is not countenanced by this wise and excellent divine. " Religious perfection," he says, " is nothing else but the moral accomplishment of human nature, — such a maturity of virtue as man in this life is capable of. Conversion begins, perfection consummates, the habit of righteousness : in the one, rehgion is as it were in its infancy ; in the other, in its strength and manhood ; so that perfection, in short, is nothing else but a ripe and settled habit of true holiness. Accord- ing to this notion of religious perfection, he is a perfect man whose mind is pure and vigorous, and his body tame and obsequious ; whose faith is firm 460 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND and steady, his love ardent and exalted, and his hope full of assurance ; whose religion has in it that ardour and constancy, and his soul that tranquillity and pleasure, which bespeaks him a child of the light and of the day, a partaker of the Divine nature, and raised above the corruption Avliich is in this world through lust." Such is Dr. Lucas's statement of that full grown Christian piety which he denominates religious per- fection^ and which, under this notion, he proceeds to expand and enforce. After having completed his design, in his conclusion he thus expresses himself: " An opinion of the impossibility of perfection has both been begot and cherished by those bold schemes of it which have been drawn by the hands of a flaming, indeed, but an indiscreet zeal. But I have here recommended to the world no fantastic or enthusiastic perfection : I have advanced no heights of virtue, but what many do, I hope, actually feel and expe- rience in themselves ; none but what I am sure the followers of the blessed Jesus actually attained and practised. Be ye followers of us, said the Apostles, as we are of Christ." That Mr. Wesley had not always followed Dr. Lucas in his discretion (while he used his language), I have already quoted him as virtually acknowledging. But it appears that even that excess was not his own fanatical conception, but arose from following too implicitly the overcharged, though still beautiful, draught of a iJerfect Christian by Clemens Alexan- drinus. He says, in one of his letters (xxx"'), " I do not admire that description now as I did formerly ; I now see a stoic and a Christian are different cha- racters." In the moderated view here referred to, and stated more fully in the letter which Mr. Southey has quoted, I would beg to submit whether Mr. Wesley has done more than come down from the height CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 401 which he at length saw to be imaginary, to Dr. Lucas's sounder and more inteUigible level; I would venture to ask whether he can be fairly censured for retaining the exp7'essions, while soberly reducing his doctrine to the notion of perhaps the soundest mind which had thought upon the subject. ^^ Soberli/," I mean, as to the substance of the doc- trine ; but I must again confess, not as to all its circumstances. I most sincerely regard as untenable and perilous the "urging" of "believers," (as he understood the term,) or any persons whatever, so to "go on to perfection," as " to expect it every moment." I believe scarcely any thing tended so much to the detriment and discredit of Wesleyan Methodism as the prevalence (so far as it did prevail) of that very urgency for present effect, which Mr. Wesley insisted on. At the same time, I must freely own, that had not Mr. Wesley retained Lucas's term, when he so far " softened down" his doctrine into Lucas's sanity, I could not regard him in exactly the same interesting light in which he now appears to me. My meaning is, that if he had not retained the exact language of the ancient divines, and those in the Church of Eng- land, who have followed them, he would not have been an equally fit instrument of Providence for counteracting the adulterating influence and aggres- sive spirit of the contemporary religious agency which was at once, in some respects, so similar to his own, and in others so discordant. Mr. Southey knows well, that there was not a more perpetual bone of contention between John Wesley and the whole phalanx of Calvinistic religionists, than the single word perfection. Could he have been induced to relinquish this one obnoxious term, I am not sure that the other more speculative differences would have long prevented coalition. But the point-blank contrariety of the notion conveyed by the word per- 4G2 REMAKKS ON THE LIFE AND fection^ to every shape or form of solificliaiiism, I conceive to be such as to have made its retention a certain pledge of interminable disagreement and opposition to each other. Had this term been of Mr. Wesley's own manufac- ture, the question respecting it would have a very different aspect : nor could I then have presumed to dispute the justness of Mr. Southey's objection to its use. But fully as I acknowledge, and sincerely as I dissent from, the crude coingrediency to which the principles of those great men (who are in truth but the specimen of " a cloud of witnesses") were sub- jected, in the hand of so precipitate and indiscrimi- nating a propounder, still I conceive it of infinite importance that, notwithstanding all his circum- stantial extravagances, the agreement of heart and spirit which he maintained to the end, with the pure spiritual moralists of the Christian Church, both ancient and modern, has served, and will yet serve, to direct attention to those luminaries, and bring under their safe and happy guidance, those sounder understandings, and more exalted minds, which would fain be devotedly religious, and yet can find, in those theories which pass for evangelical^ nothing with which they are satisfied, and much with which they are disgusted. I would here take the liberty of observing, that there is nothing in Mr. Southey's work which has interested me more than the view which he appears to me to take of God's providential government ; and I have read with sincere pleasure, in a very recent publication, the strong avowal of his "persuasion, that all things upon the great scale have tended to the general good, and the development of the great scheme of Providence." The frequent application of this principle to Mr. Wesley's commencement and career, has always gratified and sometimes surprised CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 463 me ; I mean, because I found in some instances such a concurrence with preconceptions of my own. The necessity which Mr. Southey has so luminously shown (in his ninth chapter) for some interposition of Pro- vidence to resuscitate the practical sense of religion in the English mind, at the period when Messrs. Wes- ley and Whitefield began to sound their alarm, has always appeared to me to invest the phenomenon of Methodism with a character wholly remote from mere contingency. I must not now, however, digress into the particular line of thought to which I have been led respecting such movements ; but I confess I have been disposed to conclude, not merely that Wesley and Whitefield were raised to supply a defect for which the Church of England had not provided, but rather to serve a purpose to which such an esta- blishment as ours was perfectly inadequate. The strict canonical order of our Church, which at once furnishes aliment for the most advanced piety, and preserves that piety, however elevated, from every alloy of fanaticism, afforded no proportioned means of awakening an entire people from a moral sleep, which was consanguineus lethi. Had even any number of the established clergy felt the exigence of the case, and set themselves to remedy it by their exertions, the effect at best would have been local, and most probably transient ; while, perhaps, the regularity of the Church might have been disturbed, and its spirit, if not vitiated, at least diluted, by the adoption of measures which honest zeal might have inspired, and without which it might have been, perhaps justly, thought that little or nothing was to be accomplished. An agency, therefore, was called forth, which might go every length that was thought expedient, without blemishing the character of the Established Church, or deranging its machinery. And the two extraor- dinary persons who were to serve this providential 4G4 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND purpose seemed so selected, that their exertions, jointly and severally, might be sufficient to diffuse a new religious feeling through the multitude, and to effect, eventually, a kind of moral revolution in the most intelUgent and enlightened of nations. I do not now rate the work which has been done by its intrinsic qualities (the crudeness of which might be fitted for an immature state of the public mind), but by its magnitude, and by the contrast now apparent with that prevalent indifference to religion which I myself remember. In this view, then, it appears to me, that had my good old friend possessed a sounder understanding, and more cautious disposition, he might have been pro- portionably disqualified for his special destination ; and, much as I disapprove and dislike the tem- pestuous ardour of his first addresses, and still more the astounding effects produced by them, I am not sure that a more sober commencement might not have failed in bringing an individual into such uni- versal notoriety. I am, therefore, disposed to apply to those very revolting phenomena which attended Mr. Wesley's earlier labours, that same notion of pro- vidential permission, and mysterious adjustment, by which weakness of mind and faultiness of conduct have been so often and so variously made to subserve the purposes of Omniscient goodness. I do not, however, confine this remark to the first stage of Mr. Wesley's course ; for it would seem that his actual destination, however valuable in its essential principles, and important in its ultimate results, was never to emerge from circumstantial extravagance. While in certain respects he was susceptible of mental improvement, and by that means may have infinitely risen in value, as an instrument of Providence, for eventual benefit^ such I conceive was the native character of his intellectual machinery, that he was CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 465 to be always liable to fallacious apprehension, false calculation, and disproportioned energy both of design and execution. He was (if I mistake not) to furnish invaluable matter for discriminative extraction, and skilful defecation ; but never, even to the last, to in- duce any discerning mind, indiscriminately, to take him for an example, or to rely on him as a guide. Mr. Southey has remarked, that notwithstanding Mr. Whitefield's singular powers of excitation, his discourses did not produce the same violent emotions as those of Mr. Wesley. A¥hatever might have been the reason of this difference, it remarkably accorded with the dissimilar results of their respective exer- tions. Though jMr. Wesley was in every respect the more accomplished person ; far excelling his fellow- labourer as a scholar, a man of mental talent, and a gentleman ; still, it was his lot to work, with few exceptions comparatively, on the lower, if not the lowest, classes ; out of which, almost exclusively, his Society was collected. It was not, therefore, wholly unsuitable that, in the first instance, the feelings of that class should be roused by gross and palpable means ; and, however incongruously those agitations and swoonings were associated with any kind of Christian preaching, it may be questioned whether, all things considered, the primary nucleus of Wes- leyan Methodism would have been formed either so speedily or so fermentingly, if the first impression on its component members had been more rational or less sensitive. Mr. Whitefield (as Mr. Southey has noticed) did not, like Mr. Wesley, aim at forming regular and ex- tended societies ; and, however powerfully he seemed at first to impress the colliers of Kingswood, his per- manent disciples belonged generally to the more decent classes ; and, at length, became conspicuous among the higher ranks of the community. What- VOL. II. H H 4G6 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND ever, therefore, was the cause of Mr. Whiteiield's attractive addresses being received with less impas- sioned emotion, there seems to have been a striking suitableness in this circumstance to the particular kind of effect which was to follow from his labours. His disciples were not, as in the case of Wesleyan Methodism, to be subjugated to an organised system of practical discipline, by which the entire course of life was not only morally but circumstantially to be controlled and moulded. He obviously had neither talents nor inclination for embarking in such an un- dertaking ; and, in point of fact, he looked solely to the decisive influence of his preaching on the dis- positions and principles of his hearers. He was satis- fied with producing lasting effects in their minds and hearts, without trenching farther on the common habits of life than seemed to him to be required by religious consistency. But the difference of manner in which the hearers of those two remarkable persons were affected was, perhaps, not more correspondent to their different plans of discipleship, than it was a natural conse- quence of the dissimilarity which existed in their sys- tems of instruction. Though Mr. Whitefield, after his second visit to America, diverged from Mr. Wesley more professedly than before, their lines of public teaching were never exactly concordant. The most obvious difference lay in this particular, that, from the beginning, Mr. AYhite- field's preaching had a doctrinal cast, which never similarly appeared in that of Mr. Wesley's ; and those primary tendencies became fixed and systematised by his intercourse with American Calvinists. Hence, the relio'ious consolation which Mr. Whitefield uro-ed his hearers to look for, was to consist in speculation, as well us in sensation ; in supposed truth, to be received and rested in by their understandings, as really as in CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 467 perceptible influences animating their minds and en- gaging their affections. John Wesley, on the other hand, however at his commencement he appeared to adopt certain resem- bling phrases, confined his idea of spiritual consola- tion to sensation alone. He protested against resting the hope of salvation on an}^ speculative ground ; and he urged on his disciples the pursuit and expectation of an internal revolution, which was to endue them with spiritual power over sin, and consequent peace of conscience. Thus, and thus only, were they to be assured of the forgiveness of their sins ; their 23ractical preservation from new guilt being, in Mr. Wesley's judgement, the only certain evidence that their former guilt Avas effectually cancelled. Whatever comparative estimate is to be made of the two different methods of teaching, one thing seems probable, that where the two different faculties of im- passioned feeling and notional apprehension were con- jointly engaged, the force of the former would be, in some measure, abated by the intermingled action of the latter, and the consequent emotions would be less violent than where the discourse was directed solely to the feelings. It appears indisputable that a certain fuel of re- ligious sensation is deeply lodged in man's natural constitution. It may not be equal, even originally, in all ; but, as a native property, it seems never to be wholly wanting. It is, of course, variously modified by education ; and is liable to be repressed, if not de- stroyed, by worldly engagements, and the multiplied seductions of common life. It is, accordingly, most observable in early years; though it may be hoped that, in numberless instances, it grows with growth, and making alliance with reason, through the con- current blessing of Heaven, goes on through life, adding animation to principle, and giving wing to n H 2 4()8 KEMARKS ON THE LIFE AND devotion. Considered, however, merely as a natural instinct, it is most likely to retain its original sim- plicity without improvement, yet still without abate- ment, in the least cultivated classes of society ; and in these, particularly, it may be expected to show itself in those mixed emotions of mental and animal nature which are conjointly excitable by any strong impres- sion on the imagination, or on the senses. It Avould seem that, however barbarous the habits, or incon- siderate the conduct, this moral tinder of the soul may remain in unsuspected readiness to rise into a flame, when such a lighted match is applied to it as was peculiarly exemplified in the instance of John Wesley. I need say nothing of the dangers to which this process was exposed, or of the excesses which, in the case before us, it actually involved ; but I doubt if, in point of fact, religious emotions were ever before, in modern times, so widely extended through the rude multitude as by Mr. Wesley's labours. And yet I must express my conviction, that this result owed nothing to premeditated adaptation. Mr. AVesley, beyond doubt, deemed himself specially called to " preach the Gospel to the poor ; " yet it was only by terse simplicity of diction, and lucid arrangement of matter, that he sought to accommodate himself to his illiterate hearers. The views which he pressed upon them, and the solicitude he wished to excite in them, Avere strictly those of his own mind and heart. His own religious conceptions were simply affectionate and practical ; and he honestly thought that he could do nothing better for others, than by bringing them to the same frame of mind of which he himself was conscious. It is also to be remarked, that when Mr. Wesley formed a Society, he proceeded exactly on the same principle of sensible excitement which characterised CHARACTEE OF JOHN WESLEY. 469 liis public addresses ; and, accordingly, from its origin to the death of its founder, Wesleyan Methodism was no other tlian an apparatus for cherishing and deep- ening religious sensation. And though Mr. Wesley's commencino^ ardours were soon in some measure cor- rected, he retained to the last the same supreme and, in some sort, exclusive solicitude for maintaining in his disciples those affections and termpers in which, from the first, with a singular independence on doc- trinal theory, he had placed the essence of genuine and vital religion. When Mr. Wesley entered on his course, he neither understood the energies he was exerting, nor the effects he was producing. He was not aware of the aptitude of his addresses to work upon the natural feelings of the human mind : nor had he a just notion of that inflammability which he seemed earnest to raise to a conflagration. He therefore did not duly estimate the too probable fallacy of those emotions, whose very violence seemed to portend their speedy termination ; nor fully apprehend the danger that, where there was constitutional unsoundness of mind,, the result might be, not piety, but insanity. Pro- bably, what he soon witnessed in both respects had its share in bringing him to less sanguine reckonings, and a more temperate style of exhortation. From this important amendment it followed that the natural attractiveness of Mr. Wesley's radical principles came more fully into operation. His ad- dresses were directed as much as ever to the innate sensibilities of the soul, but far less to the natural dread of misery, and, in fact, prevalently to the natu- ral desire of happiness. Regarding this inextinguish- able appetite of the inner man as no other than an instinctive propension toward the supreme good, he made it his object to urge vital Christianity as that Divine provision in which alone this ceaseless craving H H 3 470 REISIARKS ON THE LIFE AND of the heart could find satisfaction and repose. I am far from meaning to say that this central character of John Wesley's teaching was not obscured by many of its accompaniments ; but such assuredly was the point at which he sincerely and uniformly aimed : and I must add, that I have always considered his cordial pursuance of this course as constituting, above every other discernible circumstance, the remarkable mag- netism by which both his public and more private labours were so lastingly distinguished. " However impressive Mr. Whitefield might have been in his manner, or however popular in his elocu- tion, his discourses had no tendency whatever to excite the same oiatural interest in the minds of his hearers. The Calvinistic principles whicli he had embraced, made him contemplate mankind as under a universal curse, and condemned to everlasting misery ; and as having no means of escape but through accepting those ofi^ers of Divine mercy which he deemed himself commissioned, as a minister of the Gospel, to proclaim. He, doubtless, urged the neces- sity of Divine grace, both to produce that faith in God's mercy through Christ, on which he insisted, and to create a disposition to obey the Divine com- mandments. But notwithstanding this honest concern for the moral purposes of the Gospel, the benefit which he propounded, was much rather escape from misery, than acquisition of positive happiness. Nor was the misery on which he chiefly dwelt of that moral kind, for the reality of which an appeal might be made to the inward feelings of every rational man ; but it was rather such a misery as, itself, depended little less on doctrinal belief than the propounded remedy. The universal corruption flowing from the first transgression, he doubtless took for granted and assented to ; but it was the imputation of that trans- gression to every descendant of Adam whicli, in Mr. CHARACTEK OE JOHN WESLEY. 471 Whitefield's view, constituted the height of human wretchedness ; and, by parity of reason, the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer appeared to him the primary blessing of the Gospeh In fact, he conceived that in this one blessing every other was insured, for time and for eternity. It is likely that Mr. Wesley was not at first fully aware of the dissonance between Mr. Whitefield's doc- trines and his own. He saw what he regarded as most desirable results ; and he would therefore be less disposed to animadvert even on what might have appeared to him verbal improprieties or speculative exaggerations. Besides, it was only when he began to correct his own excesses that he would have been disposed to notice those of his fellow-labourer, whose differences, as I said, were less substantial until after his second visit to America. The impression then made on Mr. Wesley by Mr. Whitefield's predestina- rian zeal, not only led him to condemn, in that re- spect, the preaching of his colleague, but probably served to incline him to a more decided adoption of that attractive method which, henceforth at least, formed the distinguishing character of his exhorta- tions. Contemplating, probably more than ever (from that controversy), the infinite philanthropy of God, he be- came more than ever directly intent on the happiness for which such a creature as man must have been destined by such a Creator. He accordingly gave himself to what was, in truth, the native propension of his mind ; and, like Dryden's priest, '' He taught the Gospel, rather than the Law ; He forced himself to drive, but lov'd to draw : For fear but freezes minds ; but love^ like heat. Exhorts the soul sublime to seek her native seat." Mr. Whitefield himself was not more convinced of the moral morbidness of man's natural state, nor H H 4 472 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND urged with greater earnestness the necessity of super- natural grace, to deliver the soul from its native and too generally deepened enthrahnent, and to reanimate it with a new and heavenly life. But Mr. Wesley minfrled with these trutlis nothin"; which was to be taken on trust ; nor, in fact, urged any thing which he did not think was, or ought to be, matter of actual experience. I must also remark, that while thus averse from the gloom of the Calvinist, j\lr. Wesley stood little less aloof from the haze of the mystic- He conceived, not that the conscious spirit of man was to be lost, and, as it were, annihilated in the immensity of God, but that it was to be so united to Him in love as to be not less rationally than morally satisfied with His infinite fulness. It was, in truth, this moral enjoy- ment of God, and the moral assimilation essential to such beatitude, which held the supreme place in all Mr. Wesley's aspirations for others, or for himself; and while I freely acknowledge the nebulous accom- paniments of his brightest radiations, I cannot but attach inexpressible value and importance to such a testimony, from such a personage. I already remarked that Mr. AVesley had been originally trained in the school of our most illustrious Church-of-England divines ; and doubtless it was from them that he imbibed those pure principles of Christian morality which subsequent impressions, for a time, might have somewhat concealed, but would in no wise impair, and which, as if from their own in- trinsic force, so very soon regained their due ascen- dency in his own breast, and in all his public addresses. That this rationality of religion should so signally keep its hold, through such seemingly contrarious movements, and amid so many hostile influences, is ■orobablv as strong an exemplification of its own CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 473 essential soundness as human experience could afford. The fact was, that this paramount principle had, in the first instance, attracted the heai't of John Wesley ; and as the strength of his moral nature lay there,, far more than in his understanding or his imagination, the enshrined treasure was both too solid in itself, and too firmly fixed, to be either injured or disturbed by the errors of the one or the illusions of the other. The consequence has been, that by whatever im- perfections or hallucinations his writings may be ble- mished, the most genuine elements of pure and unde- filed religion are to be found in them, not oidy in an easily separable form, but, as it has appeared to me, when separated and systematised, possessing a con- sistency and plenitude of practical Christian truth, not, as far as I know, equally furnished by any other modern writer. The same principles have, I confess, been repeatedly maintained. They are (as I have intimated above, and more than once ventured to assert,) in substance those of our most celebrated Church-of-England divines. But in these latter there is generally some questionable admixture, which either obscures the brightness or abates the energy of the truths which they are solicitous to maintain. If the dogmas of Calvin are ever so completely re- jected, there is seldom an equal exemption from the opposite excesses of Pelagius in earlier, or of Epis- copius in later times. It would appear, perhaps, to have been reserved for John Wesley to draw a strictly definitive line between the one class of misconceptions and the other. The desideratum,, I should think, was a precise distinction between the supposed irresistibility of Divine grace, maintained by Augustin and Calvin, and that effective energy which is so clearly asserted throughout the New Testament, and so evidently accordant to man's moral exigencies. This latter, it 474 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND was far from the purpose of the excellent writers whom I have m vieAv to dispute. Doubtless they rejrarded the assurance of Divine influence as a most consolatory feature in the Christian dispensation, and have spoken largely of the grace of God as certainly co-operating with all sincere efforts of self- correction. But in comparatively few instances (though, happily, such are to be named,) have they adverted explicitly to those cheering and strengthening communications which are to be obtained by fervent prayer ; and by which, when consciously felt, the devout person may know, not enthusiastically, but with moral certainty, that he has not prayed in vain. It was their dwelling so much on internal consolations which gave their chief charm to Calvinistic authors, in so many serious minds. In John Wesley's scheme of practical re- ligion — I will not say for the very first time, but, I am inclined to think, in a degree and manner not equalled before — the same demand of the heart is pro- vided for, on principles not less consonant to sound philosophy than to sacred Scripture ; nor to the feel- ings of human nature, than to the solicitudes of awakened conscience. This remarkable separation of Christian and catholic truth from dogmatical envelopments, appears to me as at least one great object of John Wesley's provi- dential mission. Though he himself had uniformly rejected the peculiarities of Calvin, he for a time was imbued with the doctrines of Luther, on those points in which especialty the German and Swiss reformers Averc agreed : but Mr. Wesley came at length to see, that the view of jiistijication maintained by the one, was as unessential, as that o{ predestination^ contended for by the other, was inadmissible. Being thus liberated from all fetters of mere human theology, he delighted to contemplate practical Christianity as consisting solely of powerful principles and purified CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 475 affections ; while, by his exact and cordial retention of every Catholic verity, no shadow of risk was in- curred, that those principles should want adequate* sustenance, or those affections be without the means of safe and genuine devotional elevation. Such a service, therefore, to the cause of Christian faith and piety, as I already intimated, I must regard as inestimable. In Christianity thus repre- sented, there is nothing whatever to perplex the weak, to afford matter of cavil to the sceptic, or of apparent triumph to the infidel. Whatever mysteries may be necessarily inherent in the comprehensiveness of the Christian dispensation, nothing, in John Wes- ley's view, is demanded from our understandings, or our hearts, but what corresponds to our moral cir- cumstances, and is conducive to our moral happiness. It is, in a word, the strict proportion (as it seems to me, without excess or defect,) of the provisions of Christianity to man's exigencies and capacities, as an intelligent and immortal, but diseased and cor- rupted creature, that I so much admire in my old friend's most matured theology. Still, however, it is not merely, or even chiefly, to the matter of this testimony that I attach the im- portance of John AYesley's providential agency. The same discriminative line which he drew in his later scheme of doctrine, had been drawn by some before him, as I have intimated, however few in number. But there was nothing in the case of those wise and excellent persons to make the temperament which they maintained a matter of necessary impressive- ness, and of wide and lasting notoriety ; whereas, in the instance of ]\Ir. Wesley, these results appear to have been as infallibly secured as was possible in the course of human events. His commencing ardour (and, indeed, the whole career of his subsequent life,) could not fail to draw 476 REMARKS ON THE LIEE AND upon him the charge of enthusiastic zeal from the astonished public ; while, from the fact of his first labours as a field and street preacher being in close conjunction with those of Mr. Whitefield, it was natural to conclude that Mr. Wesley was as much agreed with his colleague in theological principles as in the singularity of their joint exertions. It must therefore, I conceive, have excited un- speakable surprise that the Calvinism of Mr. White- field should have found in his devoted fellow-labourer an equally determined and powerful antagonist. From no other quarter, assuredly, could so singular a promulgation of that gloomy and repulsive scheme have met so opportune and efficient an opposition : nor was it possible that so weighty a protest could be made against it, as by one who was as zealous as Mr. Whitefield himself in pursuing the conversion of his fellow-creatures ; and whose success in that pur- suit was at least as signal, and evidently much more extensive. It had been in its supposed connection with exactly such results, that probably the chief practical strength of Calvinism consisted. It had been the persuasion of its disciples, that their peculiar principles were those alone by which the stubborn heart of man could be effectually subdued, and brought unreservedly to submit itself to the grace of the Gospel. This pre- possession was not to be confuted by mere argument. As long as it kept its footing, the question could not be regarded as theoretical, but as affecting the great concern of salvation. How, then, was such a rooted prejudice to be dislodged, except by such a force as John AVesley, above all who before had made a like attack, was qualified to bring against it ? He could foil its champions with their own weapons, and com- bat them on their own ground ; since the facts sub- stantiated in the course of his labours afforded irre- CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 477 fragable evidence that what had been looked for, from Calvinistic doctrines alone, could be as fully attained, not only where those doctrines were omitted, but where they were opposed and rejected. The dogmas of Luther, and the more deeply con- structed theories of Calvin, had probably been per- mitted to connect themselves with the pure doctrines of the Gospel, in order the better to accommodate those doctrines to the apprehension of obscure and narrow minds; just as Christianity itself, in its whole external exhibition, had been permitted to assume a corporeal character, and to merge into a sort of re- newed Judaism, as if in condescension to the gross perceptions and barbarous habits of the Northern invaders, and their long-uncultivated posterity. But it was not unreasonable to expect, that when a fit time should arrive, providential means would be afforded for disencumbering evangelical faith and piety of their metaphysical^ no less than of their phy- sical envelopments. Am I then very extravagant in supposing that as Luther seems to have been raised in Germany, three hundred years ago, for the purpose of commencing that earlier service ; so John Wesley may, in like manner, have been an instrument of Providence, employed at the proper season, and under most wisely-adjusted circumstances, for sever- ing, by successive strokes, the strongest ligatures of the metaphysical veil, in order that our holy religion might at length be contemplated in all its unblemished and undisguised loveliness ? From the first softening of Mr. Wesley's tone, he cannot be charged with relapsing into his commencing severity. Yet it was not until after six-and-twenty years that, as it should seem, in somewhat of a revo- lutio nary way, he threw off all the trammels of dog- matical theology, and rose to that cloudless expansion of Christian liberality from which he never afterward 478 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND consciously receded. I more particularly advert to the crisis in Mr. Wesley's course which thus finally settled his theological creed, because it may possibly have escaped Mr. Southey's special notice ; and yet, when led to revert to it, he may deem it not unworthy of his attention. I copy the passage verbatim from his Journal. "December 1. (1767). Being alone in the coach, I was considering several points of importance ; and thus much appeared clear as the day. " That a man may be saved who cannot express himself properly concerning imputed righteousness ; therefore to do this is not necessary to salvation. " That a man may be saved who has not clear con- ceptions of it, yea, that never heard the phrase ; therefore clear conceptions of it are not necessar}^ to salvation ; yea, it is not necessary to use the phrase at all. " That a pious Churchman, who has not clear con- ceptions even of justification by faith, may be saved ; therefore clear conceptions even of this are not neces ■ sary to salvation. " That a mystic, who denies justification b}^ faith (Mr. Law, for instance), may be saved. But if so, what becomes of Articulus stantis vel cadentis Eccle- sia3 ? If so, is it not high time for us — Prqjicere ampullas^ et sesquipedalia verba. And to return to the plain word, He that feareth God and luorketh righteousness is accepted, icith Himy I have transcribed the whole of this remarkable record, as it so distinctly marks the course of thought through which Mr. Wesley arrived at a conclusion, not more satisfactory at tlie time to his understanding, than ever afterward predominant in his preaching and writing. Its most sis-nal result was that of the cele- brated Minutes of Conference^ in 1770, whicli power- fully proved that Mr. Wesley's enlarged views tended CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 479 as much to increase the exactness of his practical prin- ciples, as to enlarge the range of his Christian philan- thropy. The assistance which he received in the warfare, excited by the frank disclosure of his views, from his wonderful auxiliary Mr. Fletcher, certainly appeared to himself, and doubtless to many besides him, as tlie very stamp and signature of Divine Pro- vidence on the course which he had seen it his duty to pursue- By the extraordinary aid thus afforded him, he Avas, if that were possible, niore than ever confirmed in the conclusions he had formed ; and, in fact, such additional light was thrown upon his path as pre- cluded all liability to subsequent vacillation. From tliis conjoint testimony against Calvinistic excesses, an eifect of some importance seems already to have arisen in what is called the religious world. The class which accounts itself evangelical has, for some length of time, generally shrunk back from ex- plicitly propounding the more revolting features of their system ; and most of those persons seem ashamed to admit what, nevertheless, their received system does not allow them to deny. While they maintain the sovereign exercise of distinguishing grace in all who are saved, they seem desirous to shut their eyes against the equally sovereign dereliction of all besides. But this is a point at which common sense cannot long suffer them to stop, and the speculative antinomianism which begins to prevail among warmer dogmatists will probably compel their more sober brethren to trace to the true cause those evils which, however sincerely deplored by them, they must at length discover to be invincible on Calvinistic principles. When upright Christians become convinced of this fact, they will not be long in determining whether they are to relin(|uish Calvinism or practical Christianity. For such a conjuncture, I cannot conceive a more suitable provision than that which has been furnished 480 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND by the joint labours of Messrs. Wesley and Fletcher. To the zealous Calvinists of their own days they were no doubt very obnoxious : but their personal charac- ters, which some continued to revere even in the heat of theological contest, seem to be held, by later evan- gelics, in high estimation. Hence their doctrines will more readily engage the attention of such persons, in proportion as they become suspicious of their own. Whether something of tliis kind may not have been proceeding already in many individual minds, I can- not venture to decide ; but neither can I account it by any means improbable. Certain it is, that the present soi-disant evangelic system having itself grown out of Mr. Whitelield's Methodism, is still, in spite of doctrinal differences, a species of the same genus with the Methodism of Mr. Wesley ; and hence it follows, that, in a remarkable manner, the extraordinary movement distinguished by that general appellation has had within itself a twofold provision ; — one, for reviving the very same religious spirit which had so powerfully operated in England a hundred years before ; the other, for opposing to that spirit a corrective and, in some sort, antagonistic principle, fitted the more to its specific purpose by possessing so much of apparent congeniality. How much the entire apparatus has served to rouse the religious feelings of the British public, is at this day matter of notoriety, not to England only, but to every observant portion of Europe and of the world. When, therefore, it is considered, in the light of former events, to what hazards the rational and moral cha- racter of our holy religion might have been exposed, through the unrestrained ascendency of Calvinistic theology, I conceive it must appear, to serious and unbiassed minds, as an admirable order of Providence, that a counterpoise to that ascendency, so propor- CHARACTER OF JOHN AVESLEY. 481 tioned to tlie occasion, and notwithstanding its cir- cumstantial blemishes, so possessed of intrinsic excel- lence, should have been concurrently afforded. In thus estimating the importance of John Wesley's services, I think I see much reason why the particular course which he pursued, marked as it was with strange peculiarities, should have been, providentially permitted. Had, as I before observed, his prudence been greater, or his ardour less, he would not have accomplished the same work, nor risen to the same eminence. Yet, had he been less distinguished in these respects, there would have been a proportional want of force in that anti-Calvinistic testimony, the braving of which, as lie actually bore it, seems to have been his peculiar destination, it might almost be said, from his very birth, there being even in his parentage and earliest training a concurrence of circumstances singularly fitted to predispose him for such an ultimate purpose. I must once more observe, that in thus appreciating the happier features of Mr. Wesley's character, I always have before me those exceptionable concomi- tants, which, though no longer urged by him, were never substantially relinquished. I will mention two, which have appeared to me the most material. The first is, his notion of the witness of the Spirit ; for which, however, he has produced but one single verse of the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 16.), the con- struction of which he has really, though, I am certain, unconsciously, forced to his purpose.* At the same * Mr. Wesley, in commenting on Romans, viii, l6., ventures to assert that the preposition avv in the compoundecl verb (7v^tj.Lup-vps~i merely denotes sameness of time; and he accordingly translates rw TTvevj.iuTt f]f.ir, not as in our authorised version, uyith, but to, our spirit. But had he allowed himself to examine those other numerous instances in which the same preposition similarly occurs, he would at least have found the balance so clearly against him, as to discountenance his change of translation. VOL. II. I I 482 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND time, he propounds his sentiment with diffidence, probably because, as appears from Mr. Whitefield's letter already referred to, it was not supported by his own actual feeling. His words are : " Perhaps one might say (desiring any who are taught of God to correct, to soften, or strengthen the expression,) the testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God." It has always been my persuasion,, that, by admit- ting this definition of the ^aaprupj'a su savrcp, which the faithful Christian is encouraged to expect, Mr. Wesley opened a door for self-delusion, and even for practical deficiency, against which his utmost moral zeal could afford no adequate security. It was, I think, one of the strongest instances of his limited perception, not to see that there was no criterion by which such "an inward impression on the soul" coald be infallibly proved, even to its possessor, to come " directly" from the Spirit of God ; and that no impressions on the soul, except those which are essentially moral, can, with either certainty or sobriety, be ascribed to that adorable agency, the moral part of our nature being that alone with the laws of Avhich we can become competently acquainted. No part of Mr. Wesley's doctrine, however, seems to have been more acceptable to his own people than what they called "the direct witness of the Spirit;" and, probably, he rather learned it from them, than they from him. His own internal feelings, it has ap- peared, did not urge him to insist on it ; but if any number of his disciples concurred in asserting that such an impression had been made on their minds, that it continued with them, and formed the chief source of their spiritual happiness, it was just such a testimony, both in matter and manner, as John Wes- ley was ever prone to receive ; and thus, I imagine, lie CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 483 was early induced to adopt what, even when most advanced in sober judgement, he might consider too closely connected with the spiritual comfort of num- bers (on whom, perhaps, among his followers, he placed the highest value,) to admit of being safely questioned. That which most surprises me, is, that he did not discover the tendency of such a notion to impede that moral progress, for which he was chiefly solicitous. It was obvious, that as long as any person supposed him- self to possess this testimony from the Holy Spirit, he would account himself secure of salvation ; and yet the feeling thus relied upon, being not of a moral, but strictly of a sensitive nature, it might seem to remain, in spite of very real moral declension ; which, however, would naturally be less attended to, while evidence of sj)iritual safety was thought to be still afforded from an infallible quarter. Had Mr. Wesley ventured to examine into this fact, I suspect he would have been obliged, on his own moral principles, to doubt at least the soundness of his confidence in that supposed as- surance. But the truth is, that such a summary way of obtaining spiritual peace and consolation was pecu- liarly suitable to such sensitive minds as those with whom he was principally concerned, and his influence upon whom might have been in every way more limited, had he been less credulous respecting such in- ward persuasions. It is remarkable that, to this hour, the " direct witness of the Spirit " is as much as ever maintained by the Wesleyan Methodists, while they seem very little disposed to insist upon those more enlarged views which I have supposed to give in- creased interest to Mr. Wesley's later labours. The other uncorrected notion to which I referred, was, as it seemed to me, an inexplicable confusion in his view of the manner in which faith is conducive to spiritual salvation. While he did not fail to describe I I 2 484 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND faith (in accordance with the best divines) as a grace of God's Holy Spirit, which enables us to apprehend spiritual and eternal things Avith practical interest and predominant affection, he nevertheless taught that, by an exertion of faith, a mourning penitent might as it were transport himself into a state of mental peace and comfort; and an imperfect Christian, combating with his corruption, advance himself, in like manner, to spiritual victory and settled rest. More than forty years ago, my persuasion of the delusive tendency of this doctrine induced me to offer my thoughts to Mr. Wesley on the subject. But though I received from him two letters in reply, I could only conclude that he felt himself in a mist, from Avhich he had no power of emerging. He did not deny that his view involved difficulty, but looked for its solution only in another world. Mr. Wesley most probably derived his opinion respecting the effective exertion of faith from the Lutheran system, to which, for a time, he was at- tached. The Augsburg Confession says that men are justified "coram Deo cum credunt se ingratiam recipi et ]:)eccata remitti propter Christum, qui sua morte pro nostris peccatis satisfecit;" and it so hap- pened that in one particular sentence, the Homily of Salvation appeared to favour that definition, by describing the true faith of a Christian as a " sure trust and confidence in God, that by the merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God." Accordingly, of these latter Avords Jolm Wesley took special hold, and for many yeai's quoted them on all occasions, as expressing the exact doctrine on which he then insisted. At length he became less fond of them ; and after liis honestly- avowed " return to the plain word," probably never once repeated them. When, however, lie was under the full influence of CHAKACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 485 that Lutheran dogma, it was a natural result in so ar- dent a mind, that he should urge his penitent disciples to exert a " trust and confidence," on which immediate acceptance with God was thought to depend. So long as he imagined that the two states of Divine wrath and Divine favour were separated as if by a mathematical line, and that the transit from one to the other was to be effected by some sort of mental effort, it followed of course that he should exhort to the making of that effort; nor could he have consist- ently ceased from this endeavour, until he became persuaded that there was really no such marked transition, as he had supposed, from a state of con- demnation to a state of fixvour : but that " whosoever feared God and wrou2:ht rio-hteousness accordingf to Cj CD O his providental light, was at that very moment in a state of acceptance," and consequently that " the wrath of God" no longer abode upon him. It might indeed seem strange, that when Mr. Wesley went so far, he did not still go farther, and wholly relinquish the notion of that exertion of faith, for which, on his more enlarged principle, there was no longer the same necessity, nor, strictly, the same room. But the progress of his understanding was not proportioned to the expansion of his heart ; and instantaneous transitions had entered so deeply into the religious views of his people, that his mere con- cern for their spiritual safety might have inspired a dread of admitting, even in his own mind, that such transitions were unimportant. What, therefore, he had once insisted on, as the means of passing from a state of wrath to a state of acceptance, he still con- tinued to represent, but certainly witli much less intensity, as the best method of advancing from a lower to a higher degree in the spiritual life, or, as he himself termed it, (T should think not ifi all respects improperly, ) from the condition of a servant of God 1 I 3 486 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND to that of a child of God; in other Avords, from the state of obeying God sincerely and conscientiously, to that of supreme pleasure and delight in His service. Thus it was, that in softening the severity of his former doctrine (without a shade of conscious dupli- city), he gave no actual disturbance to the prepos- sessions of his people. They, on the other hand, expressed no dissatisfaction with his liberalised prin- ciples, which probably they did not entirely under- stand ; and they exulted in the triumphs obtained for him over his Calvinistic adversaries by his dis- tinguished auxiliary : but their habits of mind under- went no change ; the internal peculiarities of the system, with all their practical consequences, remain- ing substantially what they had been from the beginning. Of these peculiarities the persuasion that spiritual blessings are to be obtained by a " sure trust and confidence" in their actual and immediate communi- cation, seems not the least likely to involve danger of illusion and instability. This opinion, therefore, and that respecting " the direct witness of the Holy Spirit," I have always been inclined to consider as the two most exceptionable points in the theology of Wesleyan Methodists ; which, though they have not, in " honest and good hearts," prevented the sincerity of Christian piety, could not but materially obstruct its rationality and solidity ; while it can hardly be doubted that the evanescence of religious ardour, for the frequency of which Wesleyan Methodism seems to have been remarkable, even as compared with similar bodies, has peculiarly arisen from the im- portance attached to instantaneous impressions and equivocal emotions. Here, however, I venture to repeat the observation, that the providential purj^oses of Wesleyan ]\Iethodism might not have been equally provided foi', had the CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 487 system been less imperfect. Being, as I have re- marked, a scheme, not of doctrinal theory, but of devotional excitement, and apparently designed to make its way among those who had little other than animal sensibilities, even the two notions last ad- verted to, exceptionable as they are in themselves, might nevertheless have been necessary to its des- tined operation. It is obvious that sensitive minds could be engaged only by impressions suited to their gross apprehensions ; and therefore, if it was the will of Providence that a practical attention to religion should be strongly and widely excited in that very class of minds, might it not be indispensable that more palpable conceptions of the object should supply the place of intellectual and moral discernment ? I confess I am the more disposed to admit the idea of such providential accommodations, from a long received conviction that the Christian dispensation, though perfectly and immutably defined in the New Testament, yet in its actual development, was intended to be progressive, and for that reason, in its various and successive movements was left, as it were, to modify itself to existing capacities and the specific exigencies of the occasion. That human society is itself progressive, in all that relates to the comfort and enjoyment of this mortal life, cannot be doubted ; and if the exercise of intellect has not intrinsically improved, its field of action has been widely extended ; and intellectual activity having, for the three last centuries particularly, advanced more and more, now rolls onward as if with the force of a torrent. That the operative energies of Christianity, that last and best gift to man, and his appropriate endowment for immortality, should likewise manifest in some way an adaptation to the general course of human circum- stances, would be a matter of obvious probability, if even the persuasion were not warranted by express I I 4 488 KEMARKS ON THE LIFE AND and infallible notifications of the principles actually proceeded upon in the great economy of salvation. Of the nature of those principles we have certain evidence, and full exemplification, in the profoundly ordered succession of the three dispensations, Patri- archal, Mosaic, and Christian. We cannot doubt that this arrangement was exactly proportioned to the advancing capabilities of human society, and that the Christian revelation was delayed merely because what St. Paul has called ro TrXyjpw^a rod y^oovou* had not yet arrived. And yet, while (notwithstanding our short- sightedness) we see many powerful reasons why that particular time should have been chosen, the event has shown that it was a suitable season only for the introduction of Christianity, but by no means for its being adequately estimated, or at once simply and extensively received. In this obvious disproportion, then, between the excellency of the dispensation, and the receptive capacity of the world, what could be more reasonable than that the All-wise Disposer, with sufficient care for the perfect promulgation of evangelical truth, and its perpetual enshrinement in the sacred volume, should, in proceeding with his comprehensive design, employ, through his provi- dence, the same method of adaptation, which in strictly analogous circumstances he had been pleased expressly to order. I have presumed already thus to account for the early relapse into ceremonial religion, and the later, though scarcely less strange, adoption of irrespective predestination ; but I cannot help thinking that all the anomalous movements in the Christian Church, from the secession of the Albigenses or lAmlicians (perhaps I might include the heresies of earlier times) down to the present day, are resolvable, more or less directly, into the same * Galatiaiis, iv. 4. CHARACTER 0¥ JOHN WESLEY. 489 mysterious order ; and that while all that was excep- tionable in them occurred by the Divine permission, all that was useful in them must have come from Him of whom it is declared, " the good which is done in the earth, he doth it himself." I should not think myself warranted thus to specu- late on the most important of all subjects, were it not expressly declared in the New Testament that the scheme of redemption has a farther j^urpose than merely that of the salvation of man. This farther purpose is distinctly stated by St. Paul, in liis Epistle to the Ephesians (iii. 10.) : 'Iva. yvco^icrSri vuv Toig dp^aig xa) ToCig s^oucriaig sv tq7j; eTroupaviois 3/a t% sxxT^rimag 7] TfoXuTToiHiT^og (ro(pia. rod 0=o5.* These words, I con- ceive, open a view of equal extent and grandeur, and are, in fact, replete with most valuable information. The slow procedure, as it seems to us, for which it might be hard to assign a reason, were the design bounded to this earth, is fully accounted for by the notification of such an ulterior object. The institu- tion of angels in so sublime a science may with reason be concluded to require a proportioned apparatus. They had seen the exercise of the Divine power at that time, " when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." But in order to instruct them in " the manifold v^^isdom of God," another kind of process was indispensable, in which, not matter, but mind, should be the subject of operation. And whatever might be the 2^0 wer of God over mind, the most effective exertion of that attri- * Eph. iii. 10. " To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." It is remarkable that Chrysostom, in the preface to his comment on this epistle, says, that St. Paul speaks of matters licre which he scarcely mentions elsewhere, and quotes this verse as one of the instances. It also deserves notice, that St. Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Church at Ephesus, calls the Ephesian Christians the avfjijxvcrvcu of St. Paul. 490 RE1VLA.RKS ON THE LIFE AND butc would not have answered the end in view ; inas- much as wisdom can be manifested only in the effi- cient guidance of free agency to a destined point, without any actual violation of its freedom. If this rule be not observed, it is force^ not wisdom^ which accomplishes the result. As the power of God was displayed in the creation of the world, and the mechanical skill then exercised is illustrated by the undeviating regularity of visible nature, so does the wisdom of God, though less urgently, yet not less really, invite our observation in the profoundly concatenated order of Providence. If not "a sparrow falls " without the cognizance of the All-seeing Eye, in eventful movements there can have been no absolute contingency ; but human passions, in themselves morally imputable only to the subject of them, in their effluence have necessarily come under the control of Providence, and have, in all instances, been so directed as to subserve the purposes of the Supreme Disposer. Thus it is said (Psalm Ixxvi. 10.), " The wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remain- der of wrath shalt thou restrain." And thus we are told (Proverbs, xxi. 1.), " The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water : he turneth it Avhithersoever he will." In the earlier period of the world, the great object was, gradually to prepare both Jews and Gentiles for the advent of the Messiah. We learn from the Old Testament what mysterious methods of training were used in the case of the Jews ; and the prophecies of Daniel give decisive evidence that the chief political vicissitudes of the Gentile nations held each its pro- portioned place in the same prospective design. And if the revolutions of empires, so, by parity of reason, the progress of civilisation, the advancement of arts and sciences, and the extended light of moral philoso- ph}% must have been under the same direction, subor- CHAEACTEK OF JOHN WESLEY. 491 dinately to the one supreme purpose. But no pre- paratory measure is more remarkable than that, through the dispersion of so many Jews, the Old Tes- tament should be more or less known, synagogues erected, and proselytes made, in most principal cities ; and that thus, notwithstanding the perverseness and prejudices with which the Jews at that time seem to have been peculiarly chargeable, they were used as precursive missionaries with unspeakable advantage to the first promulgation of the Gospel. If then the "wisdom of God" was thus exercised in gradually accomplishing the 7rX7]f)(o[xa, rod ^povou^ at once providing the richest blessings for mankind, and as it Avere elaborately preparing mankind for its re- ception, we could not doubt, on mere grounds of rea- son, that the dispensation so introduced would be conducted with equally minute attention, and its pur- poses effected by the continued employment of equally apt and skilful expedients. But this fact is so fully established by the single text which has been quoted, as only to require our examination of the conduct of Providence respecting the Christian Church, in order tliat we may discover something, at least, of the man- ner in which those brief but significant words have hitherto had their fulfilment. The Church is represented as the great object of contemplation, because the wisdom of God is to have its chief evidence in the eventual attainment of the ends for which the Christian Church was established. But in that supreme regard, an attention to all event- ful movements on this earth must be included ; be- cause, as all such movements, in more ancient times, were permitted and over-ruled subserviently to the dispensation which was approaching, so, that dispen- sation having come, and being destined to advance progressively to a certain height of efiiciency, all the great movements of the modern world must be equally 492 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND and similarly permitted and over-ruled, in subservience to the same design, now actually realised, and more and more advancing towards its consummation. And yet it would seem that there is a peculiar pro- priety in representing " the Church " as the special sphere of the Divine wisdom. For however wisely, in time and measure, secular commotions and " the wrath of man " may be made subservient to the Divine purposes, the passions of pride, ambition, and cupidity are so prevalent, and in such constant readiness, that they need only the removal of restraints, and the favour of circumstances, to insure their eruption ; and then (if it may be said with due reverence) Provi- dence has nothing more to do than to direct and over- rule their course, and to limit their progress. But in the direct concerns of the Church very different movements are to be excited, and very different affec- tions to be set in operation. A moral victory is to be achieved — a moral transmutation to be effected ; and that, not by overwhelming energy — not by con- tinued repetition of miracles, like that on the day of Pentecost, or that which arrested and subdued St. Paul, but by the exercise of that divine attribute Avhich we must regard as, in its very essence, patient, accommodating, and conciliatory ; as carefully im- proving, but in no wise forcing, circumstances ; as watching, but never anticipating, occasions ; as pro- portioning all its measures to the particular time or season as really as to the ultimate end ; and as diver- sifying those measures in accordance with new emer- gencies, or such increased capability as admits of or calls for a more effective procedure. Such, I conceive, are the ideas necessarily suggested by that limited yet luminous disclosure ; and when we are assured that the Christian Church is as it were the laboratory in which this astonishing process is carried on, or rather, the very subject on which the Divine skill is exerted ; CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. ^ 493 that thereby " the depth of God's wisdom and know- ledge," in itself unfathomable, may, in some degree, be opened to the view of angels, however incapable we must feel ourselves, in our frail mortality, of actually participating in their sublime contemplation, — still we cannot but regard the various phenomena, whether consecutively or concurrently presented by the visible Church, with a different interest, and an- other kind of apprehension, from what we should have, if we thought we saw nothing but the folly or wicked- ness of man deforming or abusing the " unspeakable gift" which, though proceeding from the Divine good- ness, was supposed to depend for its results merely on man's free agency. While the view of over-ruling wisdom which St. Paul has opened to us preserves this free agency inviolate, it affords us, as to the future, an infinitely happier prospect, and enables us to form, as to . the present, a far more correct estimate. The errors of heresiarchs, and the witnesses of sectaries, are, in themselves, the same as ever. But, in their influence on the Church, they appear in a different light, and are no longer subjects of unmingied regret. In that sphere where the Divine superintendence regulates every thing, nothing can happen eventually amiss. But where the 7ro7^u7rol}ii7\.og (ro(^iot rotj Qsou is to be manifested, there must be mysterious permission, in order that there may be profound direction ; and even the comprehensive beneficence of the designed result may indispensably call for this mode of proceeding. The perfect preservation of the Catholic verities may, at one time, require a permitted incrustation of un- couth and fanciful observances ; at another time, an institution the most happily devised for continuity of right principles, may, from that settled uniformity which is necessary for its purpose, be exposed to the occurrence of devotional frigidity, and, by conse- 494 . REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND qucnce, of practical laxity. Hence, in the former case, it may be indispensable that the accumulation of gross envelopments should at length be thrown off by a revolutionary movement ; and, in the latter, that prevailing torpor should be opportunely corrected by some sort of epidemical excitation, proportioned to the exigence. In both cases, however, it would seem to accord best with the great ruling principle, that the instruments employed should be suffered to proceed each in its own natural way (the suitableness of which to the specific purpose might, indeed, be the motive of choice), and that the defects should be sup- plied, or the excesses counteracted, by other adequate provisions, alike illustrative of that exquisite manage- ment, under which the heavenly spectators must see the entire scheme advancing more and more to its destined consummation. Impossible as it is, that we in our Ioav estate should make any approach to this clearness of understanding, the 7iotijication must have been made to engage our attention, and to stimulate our inquiry ; and I should think, that the more closely we examine the history of the Christian Church, regarding it not as the sub- ject of God's inscrutable and irresistible sovereignty, nor as the strangely abandoned victim of men's follies, frenzies, and worst vices, but as the peculiar and divinely prepared theatre, where "the manifold wisdom of God "is to unfold itself to celestial intelligences ; the more, I say, we review the vicissitudes of the Church as serving this transcendent purpose, and soberly, yet fairly, pursue the consequences to which the unquestionable premises lead, the more shall we be disposed to join with " principalities and powers in heavenly places," in admiring (how distant soever from them in comprehending) the depth, the extent, and the unity of that wonderful economy, in which permission of evil has already been so often and so CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 495 amply compensated by acliievement of good ; and error, in successive instances, made so signally sub- servient to the clearer elucidation and advanced development of pure evangelical truth. I have taken the liberty of thus expressing my thoughts on a subject whicli would demand much deeper investigation, and which I am persuaded is by no means new to Mr. Southey, because it seemed to me that I could not otherwise explain the precise principles on which I have formed my judgement of John Wesley's singular character, and still more singular course ; and according to which, I make my estimate of the results which have arisen, or, as I conceive, may yet arise from the entire part, earlier and later, which he was led to act in the religious world. I now beg leave to add one or two remarks on the point which was last referred to, namely, Mr. Wesley's notion of saving faith. And here I am bound in candour, not less than by my esteem for the nobler qualities which prevailed in Mr. Wesley's mental character, to express my con- viction, that as in his practical principles generally, so particularly respecting Faith as a divinely operative grace in the heart, he never substantially swerved from the first lessons he had learned, however his intellectual views might have subsequently suffered circumstantial obscuration. Long before the doctrine of Luther had entered his thoughts, he had been taught by sounder instructors to consider Faith as such a mental sense of divine and eternal things, as engaged the heart, riveted the supreme affections, and thus governed both inward and outward conduct. Such a sense he of course believed no man could pro- duce in himself, by any kind of voluntary exertion ; and he accordingly regarded it strictly as a divine grace communicated by the Holy Spirit, to those who honestly exercised whatever measures of inferior 49G REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND grace had been already conferred on them. That this sober and solid view, was theoretically disturbed by the new lessons which he received from his German teachers, I fully admit ; but before much time had elapsed, his earlier impressions began to show them- selves ; and their influence on the tone of his discourses may perhaps be perceived to advance gradually, until at length it became actually ascendant. At the same time I allow, that for several years Mr. Wesley spoke on the subject of Faith in a manner which made it difficult to distinguish his sounder principles from the questionable positions with which they were more or less intermingled. It would seem that, during the time to which I refer, his mind was, not artfully, but honestly endeavouring to unite the moral verities, Avhich in his judgement as well as heart he immutably approved and loved, with those superinduced doctrines, from which, he conceived, he himself had derived valuable advantage ; and which he then regarded as essential articles of Evangelical truth. It is also to be observed, that frequently, when he was in accordance with the brightest luminaries of the Church, in the substance of his assertions, his manner of expression might be such as, even to sei'ious and candid hearers, would seem to justify a charge of fanaticism. I am not sure whether I may not have already re- marked, that altliough Mr. Wesley adopted the phrase of " Justification by Faith," — explaining it, however, as I have elsewhere mentioned, in a way of his own, — his favourite theme was " Salvation by Faith ;" and what his sense of this expression was, he briefly but clearly states, when he says, " Salvation by Faith is only, in other words, the love of God, by the knowledge of God ; or, the recovery of the image of God, by a true spiritual acquaintance with Him." Of Faith, as thus CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 497 regarded, lie gives the following more particular account — " Faith is Trpayixdrcov eXsy^og ou ^Xstto/xsj/ojv (Heb. xi. 1.), the demonstrative evidence of things a unseen, the supernatural evidence of things invisible, not perceivable by eyes of men, or by any of our natural senses or faculties. Faith is that divine evidence whereby the spiritual man discerneth God and the things of God. It is, with regard to the spiritual world, what sense is with regard to the natural. It is the spiritual sensation of every soul that is born of God." By way of farther explanation, he proceeds to ascribe to Faith, powers analogous to the corporeal faculties of sight, hearing, tasting, and feeling ; in most of which instances he adduces apposite passages of the New Testament, as where it is said, (Hebrews, xi. 27.) that Moses endured, as "seeing him who is invisible;" and (St. John, v. 25.) that "the dead* shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live ;" and also, (Hebrews, vi. 5.) where con- verts to Christianity are described as " tasting the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come." But at the same time, in each of those asserted exercises of Faith, he includes some or other of his then prevalent persuasions, in a way which I am satisfied he would not have defended in his later days. It has nevertheless been my constant belief, that the moral substance of what he inculcated was not vitiated, however it might be disguised, by these crude intermixtures ; and I accordingly^ have always considered the paragraph which next follows (Earnest Appeal, 8.) as the unequivocal expression, not merely of an upright, but of a morally exalted mind. " By this Faith we are saved from all uneasiness of mind, * Clearly the spiritnally dead, as is shown by what follows, vcr. 28. VOL. II. K K ^■2 1/ 408 KEMAEK8 ON TJIi: L1FI-: AND from the anguish of a wounded spirit, from discontent, from fear and sorrow of heart, and from that in- expressible listlessness and weariness, both of the world and of ourselves, under which we had so help- lessly laboured for many years, especially when we were out of the hurry of the world, and sunk into calm reflection. In this we find that love of God and of all mankind Avhich we had elsewhere sought in vain. This, we know and feel, and therefore cannot but declare, saves every one that partakes of it, both from sin and misery, from every unhappy and every unholy temper. ' Soft peace she brings ; wherever she arrives, She builds our quiet as she forms our lives ; Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even. And opens in each breast a little heaven.' " I must not wait to say under what limitations and conditions I admire the above glowing passage, the former part of which remarkably accords with Burke's pathetic description of the miseries so often felt by those who " have nothing on earth to hope or fear," in his Reflections on the French Revolution. The truth is, that no man was more deeply sensible to the instinctive inquiry of human nature. Quid minuat curas, quid te tibi reddat amicuni, Quid pure tranquillet ? than John Wesley ; and I believe one chief reason for his high estimation of Prior among English poets was, that he gives so many vivid sketches of man's wretchedness, in spite of all possible contrivances to enjoy life. But I go on to transcribe one or two of the next ensuing paragraphs, which are quite in Mr. Wesley's characteristic manner ; and serve to throw additional light on his notion of Faith. " If you ask, Why then have not all men this Faith ? CHAIiACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 499 all, at least, who conceive it to be so bappy a thing ? — why do they not believe immediately ? " We answer. It is the gift of God. No man is able to work it in himself. It is a work of Omnipotence. None can create a soul anew, but He who at first created the heavens and the earth. " May not your own experience teach you this ? Can you give yourself this faith ? Is it now in your power to see, or hear, or taste, or feel God ? Can j^ou raise in yourself any perception of God, or of an in- visible world ? Is it in your power to burst the veil that is on your heart, and let in the light of eternity ? You know it is not. You not only do not, but can- not (by your own strength), tlius believe. The more you labour so to do, the more you will be convinced it is the gift of God^ I am inclined to think that these passages, though strongly marked with the excessive ardour of Mr. Wesley's earlier course, do nevertheless evince that his notion of faith, even then, was essentially moral, how- ever as yet it might have been beclouded by some doc- trinal admixtures ; and that he considered the appro- priate objects of faith to be, not fanciful chimeras, but the morally influential realities of the invisible world. The confidence he at that time had, that faith was always communicated in a moment, tended to en- velope his better principles in a sort of vaporous atmosphere, and to conceal them even from the most dispassionate observers. But the victory obtained by those principles in Mr, Wesley's later years (however incomplete in some respects) has fully proved that they were always in existence, and makes it reason- able, as well as just, to attach a sound and practical sense to the expressions which have been quoted. How far the import of those expressions, and some even of the leading terms, have been sanctioned by divines of highest character, Mr. Southey is too well K K 2 500 REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND qualified to judge, for me to trouble him with in- stances. I will take the liberty, however, of tran- scribing two short passages, one from Scougal, the other from Archbishop Leighton, in both of which I conceive Mr. Wesley's essential idea of Faith is vir- tually, if not literally, recognised. Scouffal's words are as follow: — "As the animal life consisteth in that narrow and confined love which is terminated on a man's self, and in his propension towards those things which are pleasing to nature, so the divine life stands in an universal and unbounded affection, and in the mastery over our natural incli- nations, that they may never be able to betray us to those thino;s which we know to be blameable. The root of the divine life is Faith ; the chief branches are love to God, charity to man, purity, and humihty : for (as an excellent person hath w^ell observed), how- ever these names be common and vulgar, and make no extraordinary sound, yet do they carry such a mighty sense, that the tongue of man or angel can j^ronounce nothing more weighty or excellent. Faith hath the same place in the divine life, which sense hath in the natural ; being, indeed, nothing else but a kind of sense, or feeling persuasion, of spiritual things." The passage from Archbishop Leighton is to be found in hisMeditationesEthico-Criticse inPsalmumCXXX., and is this: — "Emortua itaque est et prorsus nulla, vulgarium ac nomine tenus Christianorum fides ; qua) eos ad gratiam illam divinam, quam se credere aiunt, avidissime exoptandum, et expectandum, non excitat. Vera et viva fides interioris hominis oculus est, luci- dum ac perennem boni fontem, et perfectissime ama- bilem Deum, conspiciens ; ex quo aspectu fervidissi- mum amorem nasci necesse est. Et divina ilia lux, quas coelitus anima? inimittitur, caloris vehicuhun est : et radiis suis ardentibus cor continue succendit. CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLF.Y. 501 Et infinitam pulchritudinem conspiciendam exhibens, totos animi effectus in sublime rapit." It seems to me, however, that this eloquent and beautiful description needs little less than what has been quoted from Mr. Wesley to be received under limitations and conditions. The excellent Archbishop gives a delightful view of Faith as it is in its own nature, and no doubt as he, in good measure at least, felt it in his own seraphic bosom. But he certainly describes what is much oftener possessed, even by the sincerest Christians, in its dawn, (happy is it for them if it be a growing dawn ! ) than in that meridian brightness which bursts forth as it were at once in these few sentences. It was not, it seems, in the Archbishop's mind, nor, indeed, suitable to the brevity of his remarks, to notice the advancing gradations be- tween what he so justly accounts " emortua et prorsus nulla fides," and that anticipatory heaven which the fulness of Ms Faith would imply. But, beyond doubt, he would have at all times recognised those grada- tions as expressly as they were recognised by John Wesley in the comparatively sober evening of his life ; and, indeed, if it were necessary to guard against a possible misconstruction of Leighton's expressions, it would not be easy to find any thing more to the purpose than in a remarkable passage in one of Mr. Wesley's later sermons, where, more explicitly per- haps than on any other occasion, he recants his for- mer errors. As I have referred to this passage more than once, without expressly quoting it, I will take the liberty of transcribing it, though it cannot have escaped Mr. Southey's eye, and I am not sure whether it is not noticed in his work. I think it confirms all I have said respecting Mr. Wesley's notion of Faith. "What," he asks, "is the faith which is properly saving, which brings eternal salvation to all those K K 3 .502 REMARKS ON TITK LIFE AND that keep it to the end? It is such a divine convic- tion of God, and the things of God, as, even in its infant state, enables every one that possesses it to 'fear God and work righteousness;' and whosoever, in every nation, beheves thus far, ' is accepted of Him ; ' he actually is, at that very moment, in a state of acceptance. But he is at present only a servant of God ; not properly a son : meantime, let it be ob- served, that 'the wrath of God no longer abideth upon him.' " Indeed, nearly fifty years ago, when the preachers commonly called Methodists began to preach that grand scriptural doctrine. Salvation by Faith, they were not sui3Eiciently apprised of the difference be- tween a servant and a child of God. They did not clearly understand that every one 'who feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him.' In consequence of this, they were apt to make sad the hearts of those whom God had not made sad. For they frequently asked those who feared God, ' Do you know that your sins are forgiven ? ' and upon their answering ' No ; ' immediately replied, ' Then you are a child of the Devil ! ' No ; that does not follow. It might have been said (and it is all that can be said with propriety), ' Hitherto you are only a servant ; you are not a child of God. You have already great reason to jDraise God that he has called you to his honourable service. Fear not. Continue crying unto him, and you shall see greater things than these.'" I should here conclude my remarks, were it not that I wish to add the transcript of a private letter, the original of which is in my possession ; and which shows with what deep and consistent cordiality Mr. Wesley had embraced the principles expressed in the foregoing quotation. It was written to a person de- pressed by a painful sense of spiritual deficiency. CHARACTER OF JOHN WESLEY. 503 July 11. 1778. "My dear , " It is a natural effect of your bodily weakness, and the turn of your mind, that you are continually in- clined to write bitter things against yourself. Hence you are easily persuaded to believe him that tells you that you are ' void of every degree of saving faith.' No ; that is not the case ; for salvation is only by faith, and you have r eceived a degree of salvation : you are saved from many outward sins — from the corruption that overspreads the land as a flood. You are saved, in a degree, from inward sins; from im- penitence, for you know and feel yourself a sinner. You are saved, in a degree, from pride ; for you begin to know yourself poor and helpless. You are saved from seeking happiness in the world. This is not a small thing. 0 praise God for all you have, and trust him for all you want ! " In closing these remarks, I must express my regret that they have been so long delayed. But from the beginning of November, 1826, until about two months since, I was obliged, by the weakness of one of my eyes, to relinquish both reading and writing. At length,, being able to write, I have hastened to fulfil my engagement ; but, being still unable to read with safety, I may possibly have repeated in the latter sheets what I had already said in those written fifteen months ago ; and I fear that, from the same cause, there are many other faults which will need kind in- dulgence. The truth is, I chose to exert my present power, such as it is, though with the hazard of executing my purpose very imperfectly, rather than defer longer what had been already so long, and to myself so painfully, protracted. But I am well as- K. K 4 504 REMARKS, ETC. sured that any defects in manner will have every allowance from that liberal and friendly mind, to which it is my sole anxiety that my matter should be interesting and satisfactory. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 507 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE I. Page 20. Thomas Olivers. " For four or five years," says this person, " I was greatly en- tangled with a farmer's daughter, whose sister was married to Sir I. P. of N — wt — n, in that country. What ' Strange reverse of human fates ! ' for one sister was wooed by, and married to, a baronet, who was esteemed one of the finest men in the country, Wlien she died, Sir I. was almost distracted. Presently after her funeral, he published an elegy on her of a thousand verses ! For her sake he said, ' O that the fleecy care had been my lot ; Some lonely cottage, or some verdant spot.' For some time he daily visited her in her vault ; and at last took her up, and kept her in his bedchamber for several years. " On the other hand, her sister, who was but little inferior in person, fell into the hands of a most insignificant young man, who was a means of driving her almost to an untimely end." The baronet whom Olivers alludes to, was probably Sir John Price of Buckland. A certain Bridget Bostock was famous in the county of Cheshire, in his time, for performing wonderful cures, and he applied to her to raise his wife from the dead. His letters upon this extraordinary subject may be found in the Monthly Magazine, vol. xxvi. pp. 30, 31.* The person by whom they * The successful application of animal magnetism in four or five cases of suspended animation — in two of them after every known means had been used for six hours to no purpose, and for which the Emperor of Russia, who was present, and the King of Prussia, had a medal struck, one of which, in gold, was given to Dr. Wolfant — may throw a conjectural gleam on the possible origin of 508 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. were communicated to that journal says, that they exposed the writer to the severest ridicule ; but in any good mind they would rather excite compassion. Sir Jolin fully believed that this woman could work miracles; and, reasoning upon that belief, he applied to her in full faith. NOTE II. Page 34. WJuit Haime saw was certainly a bustard. " The following very curious and authentic account of two bus- tards was published in the Gentleman's Magazine for the year 1805, by ]Mi-. Tucker, schoolmaster at Tilshead. 'A man, about four o'clock in the morning, on some day in June, 1801, Avas coming from Tinhead to Tilshead, when near a place called Ask- ings Penning, one mile from Tilshead, he saw over his head a large bird, which afterwards j)roved to be a bustard. He had not proceeded far before it lighted on the ground, immediately before his horse, which it indicated an inclination to attack, and, in fact, very soon began the onset. The man alighted, and getting hold of the bird endeavoured to secure it ; and after struggling with it nearly an houi', succeeded, and brought it alive to the house of Mr. Bartlett, at Tilshead, where it continued till the month of August, when it was sold to Lord Temple for the sum of thirty- one guineas. " About a fortnight subsequent to the taking this bustard, Mr. Grant, a farmer residing at Tilshead, returning from Warminster market, was attacked in a similar manner, near Tilshead Lodge, by another bird of the same species. His horse, being spirited, took fright and ran oif, which obliged Mr. Grant to relinquish his design of endeavouring to take the bird. The circumstance of two birds (whose nature has been always considered, like that of a turkey, domestic,) attacking a man and horse is so very singular that it deserves recording, and particularly as it is probably the last record we shall find of the existence of this bird upon our downs." — Sir Richard Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, p. 94. note. The birds certainly had their nest near ; and there is nothing more wonderful in the fact, than what every sportsman has seen in the partridge, when the mother attempts to draw him away from her young. But it was with the greatest pleasure that I Sir John's belief. There is no doubt that many of these wonder-cure-woikers were empirical magnetists, who had learnt the practice from tradition. — S. T. C. NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 509 recollected this anecdote in reading the Life of John Haime, not merely as explaining the incident in the text, but as proving his veracity ; for undoubtedly, without this explanation, many readers would have supposed the story to be a mere falsehood, which would have discredited the writer's testimony in every other part of his narration. NOTE III. Page 75. The renewal of the image of God in the heart of man. Mr. Toplady has a curious paper upon this subject. " When a portrait painter takes a likeness, there must be an original from whom to take it, Here the original are, God and Christ. ' Wlien I awake up after thy likeness,' &c. ; and, we are 'predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son.' " The painter chooses the materials on which he will delineate his piece. There are paintings on wood, on glass, on metals, on ivory, on canvass. So .God chooses and selects the persons on whom his uncreated Spirit shall, with the pencil of effectual grace, re-delineate that holy likeness which Adam lost. Among these are some whose natural capacities, and acquired improvements, are not of the first rate : there the image of God is painted on wood. Others of God's people have not those quick sensibilities, and poignant feelings, by which many are distinguished : there the Holy Spirit's painting is on marble. Others are permitted to fall from the ardour of their first love, and to deviate from their steadfastness : there the Holy Spirit paints on glass, which, per- haps, the first stone of temptation may injure. But the Celestial Artist will, in time, repair those breaches, and restore the frail, brittle Christian to his original enjoyments, and to more than his original purity ; and, what may seem truly wonderful, Divine Grace restores the picture by breaking it over again. It is the broken-hearted sinner to whom God will impart the comforts of salvation. " The ancients painted only in water-colours ; but the moderns (from about A.D. 1320) have added beauty and durability to their pictures by painting them in oil. Applicable to hypocrites and true believers. An hypocrite may outwardly bear something that resembles the image of God ; but it is only in fresco, or water- colours, which do not last ; and are, at best, laid on by the hand of dissimulation. But (if I may accommodate so familiar an idea to so high a subject) the Holy Spirit paints in oil ; he accomjianies his work with unction and with power ; and hence it shall be 510 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. crowned with honours, and praise, and glory at Christ's appear- ing."— The remainder of the paper is less apposite. NOTE IV. Page 76. The Neio Birth. " The ground and reason of the expression," says Wesley, " are easy to be understood. "When we undergo this great change, we may, with much propriety, be said to be born again, because there is so near a resemblance between the circumstances of the natural and of the spii'itual birth ; so that to consider the circumstances of the natural birth, is the most easy way to understand the spiritual. " The child which is not yet born subsists indeed by the air, as does every thing which has life, but feels it not, nor any thing else, luiless in a very dull and imperfect manner. It hears little, if at all ; the organs of hearing being as yet closed up. It sees nothing, having its eyes fast shut wp, and being surrounded with litter darkness. There are, it may be, some faint beginnings of life, when the time of its birth draws nigh ; and some motion conse- quent thei-eon, whereby it is distinguished from a mere mass of matter. But it has no se?ises ; all these avenues of the soul are hitherto quite shut up. Of consequence, it has scarcely any inter- course with this visible world ; nor any knowledge, or conception, or idea of the things that occur therein. " The reason why he that is not yet born is wholly a stranger to the visible world is, not because it is afar off: it is very nigh ; it surrounds him on every side : but partly because he has not those senses — they are not yet opened in his soul, whereby alone it is possible to hold commerce with the material world ; and partly because so thick a veil is cast between, through which he can discern nothing. " But no sooner is the child born into the world than he exists in a quite different manner. He now feels the air with which he is surrounded, and which pours into him from every side, as fast as he alternately breathes it back, to sustain the flame of life, and hence springs a continual increase of strength, of motion, and of sensation : all the bodily senses being now awakened, and fur- nished with their proper objects. " His eyes are now opened to perceive the light, which, silently flowing in upon them, discovers not only itself, but an infinite variety of things, with which before he was wholly unacquainted. His ears are unclosed, and sounds rush in with endless diversity. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 511 Eveiy sense is employed upon sucli objects as are peculiarly suitable to it ; and by these inlets the soul, having an open inter- course with the visible world, acquires more and more knowledge of sensible things, of all the things which are under the sun. "So it is with him that is born of God, Before that great change is wrought, although he subsists by Him in whom all that have life live, and move, and have their being, yet he is not sen- sible of God ; he does not feel, he has no inward consciousness of his presence. He does not perceive that divine breath of life without which he cannot subsist a moment. Nor is he sensible of any of the things of God. They make no impression upon his soul. God is continually calling to him from on high, but he heareth not ; his ears are shut, so that the ' voice of the charmer ' is lost on him, ' charm he ever so wisely.' He seeth not the things of the Spirit of God ; the eyes of his understanding being closed, and utter darkness covering his whole soul, surrounding him on every side. It is true, he may have some faint dawnings of life, some small beginnings of the spiritual motion ; but as yet he has no spiritual senses capable of discerning spiritual objects; conse- quently he discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. " Hence he has scarce any knowledge of the invisible world, as he has scarce any intercourse with it. Not that it is afar off. No : he is in the midst of it : it encompasses him round about. The other ivorld, as we usually term it, is not far from any of us. It is above, and beneath, and on every side : only the natural man discerneth it not ; partly because he hath no spiritual senses, whereby alone we can discern the things of God ; partly because so thick a veil is interposed, as he knows not how to penetrate. " But when he is born of God, born of the Spirit, how is the manner of existence changed I His whole soul is now sensible of God, and he can say, by sure experience, ' Thou art about my bed, and about my path ;' I feel thee 'in all my ways.' Thou besettest me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. The spirit or breath of God is immediately inspired, breathed into the new-born soul. And the same breath, which comes from, returns to God : as it is continually received by faith, so it is continually rendered back by love, by prayer, and praise, and thanksgiving ; love, and praise, and prayer, being the breath of every soul which is truly born of God. And by this new kind of spiritual respiration, spiritual life is not only sustained, but in- creased day by day, together with spiritual strength, and motion, and sensation. All the senses of the soul being now awake, and capable of discerning spiritual good and evil.* * Wherein differs reason from the spirit, in and to a man, if (as I believe) 512 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. " The eyes of his understanding are now open, and he seeth Him that is invisible. He sees what is the exceeding greatness of his ])ower, and of liis love towai'ds them that believe. He sees that God is merciful to him, a sinner ; that he is reconciled through the Son of his love. He clearly perceives both the pardoning love of God and all his exceeding great and precious promises. God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined, and doth shine, in his heart, to enlighten him with the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. All the darkness is now passed away, and he abides in the light of God's countenance. " His ears are now opened, and the voice of God no longer calls in vain. He hears, and obeys the heavenly calling : he 'knows the voice of his vShepherd.' All his spiritual senses being now awakened, he has a clear intercourse with the invisible world. And hence he knows more and more of the things which before ' it could not enter into his heart to conceive.' He now knows what the peace of God is : what is joy in the Holy Ghost, what the love of God which is shed abroad in the hearts of them that believe in him through Christ Jesus. Thus the veil being re- moved, which before intercepted the light and voice, the know- ledge and love of God, he Avho is born of the Spirit, dwelling in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." — Wesley's Works, voL vii. p. 268. NOTE V. Page 76. He entangled himself in contradictions. " The expression being born agaiti, was not first used by our Lord in his conversation with Nicodemus. It was in common use among the Jews when our Saviour appeared among them. "When an adult heathen was convinced that the Jewish religion was of God, and desired to join therein, it was the custom to baptize him first, before he was admitted to circumcision. And w^hen he was baptized, he was said to be born again ; by which they meant, tliat he who was before a child of the Devil, was now adopted into the family of God, and accounted one of his children. — Vol. vii. p. 296. reason be the presence of tlie Holy Spirit to a finite understanding — at once the light and inward eye? I answer, Even as the sense of light, in tlie absence of the sense of touch, and its accompanying sensation or feeling, would differ from the joint impression from the eye and the single and double touch. — S. T. C. " NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 513 Yet, in the same sermon, Wesley affirms, " that Baptism is not the New Birth, that they are not one and the same thing. Many indeed seem to imagine that they are just the same ; at least they speak as if they thought so ; but I do not know that this opinion is publicly avowed, by any denomination of Christians whatever. Certainly it is not by any within these kingdoms, whether of the Established Church or dissenting from it. The judgement of the latter is clearly declared in their large catechism : ' Q. What are the parts of a Saci-ament ? A. The parts of a Sacrament are two ; the one an outward and sensible sign, the other an inward and spiritual grace signified. Q. What is Baptism ? A. Baptism is a sacrament, wherein Christ hath ordained the washing with water to be a sign and seal of regeneration by his Spirit.' Here it is manifest, baptism, the sign, is spoken of as distinct from regene- ration, the thing signified." Wliere was Wesley's logic ? or where his fairness ? Can any thing be more evident, than that this catechism describes regene- ration as the inward and spiritual grace, and the act of baptism (sprinkling or immersion) as the outward and visible sign.* What follows is as bad. " In the Church Catechism likewise, the judgement of our Church is declared with the utmost clearness. ' Q. What meanest thou by this word Sacrament ? A. I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Q. What is the outward part or foi-m in baptism ? A. Water, wherein the person is bap- * Well ! and what then ? Southey forgets that washing with water is the catechismal translation of the Greek word Baptism ; and that the latter is not a larger term comprehending the former as one of its two parts. Now just put the words washing with water, instead of its Greek Equipollent; or rather omit the word, as it would have been omitted in any other mode of writing but that of catechetic, in which the last word of the question is always the first of the answer. "What is Baptism?" — "A Sacrament, in which the Baptism, or washing with water, is made a sign and seal of Regeneration." Wesley does not deny that the Regeneration must either have preceded, or accompany the Baptism, in order to be sealed by it. But Southey cannot be ignorant how many pious and zealous sons of the Church, whom no one suspects of any Puri- tan taint (such as George Herbert and the Author of the " Synagogue"), con- sidered the hypothesis of Anticipation as a doctrine that ought to be tolerated in the Church ; it being evident that the Gospel conditions, which are essential parts of true Baptism, are anticipated. Above all, Southey should consider that if Regeneration mean Baptism, then Baptism must mean Regeneration : for surely he will not say that the Regeneration required by Christ in his conversation with Nicodemus meant no more than the common ceremony of immersing pro- selytes, with which Nicodemus, a doctor in Israel, could not but be familiar? Suppose an estate conferred on an infant, under condition of maintaining such and such charities, which his guardians accept for him, promising, in the mean time, to take all the requisite measures for his due performance of these condi- tions when of age to do so; on passing out of his minority he comes to his estate, having satisfied the conditions. — S. T. C. VOL. II. L L 514 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. tized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Q. What is the inward parts, or thing signified ? A. A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.' Nothing therefore is plainer than that, according to the Church of England, baptism is not the New Birth." I do not believe that an instance of equal blindness or disin- genuity (whichever it may be thought) can be found in all the other parts of Wesley's works. So plain is it that the words of tlie catechism mean precisely what Wesley affirms they do not mean, that, in the very next page, he contradicts himself in the clearest manner, and says, " it is certain, our Church supposes, that all who are baptized in their infancy are at the same time born again. And it is allowed, that the whole office for the bap- tism of infants proceeds upon this supposition. Nor is it an ob- jection of any weight against this, that we cannot comprehend how this work can be wrought in infants." — Vol. vii. p. 302. NOTE VI. Page 78. Instantaneous Conversion, " An observation," says Toplady, " which I met with in reading Downmane's Christian Warftire, struck me much : speaking of tlie Holy Spirit as the sealer of the Elect, he asks, how is it pos- sible to receive the seal without feeling the impression." " Lord," says Fuller in one of his Scripture Observations, " I read of my Saviour, that when he was in the wilderness, then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and ministered unto him. A great change in a little time. No twilight betwixt night and day. No purgatory condition betwixt hell and heaven, but instantly, when out devil, in angel. Sucb is the case of every solitary soul. It will make company for itself, A musing mind will not stand neuter a minute, but presently side with legions of good or bad thoughts. Grant, therefore, that my soul, which ever will have some, may never have bad company." NOTE VII. Page 79. Salvation not to be sought by Works. This doctrine is stated with perilous indiscretion in one of the Moravian hymns. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 515 When any, thro' a beam of light, Can see and own they are not right, But enter on a legal strife, Amend their former course of life, And work and toil, and sweat from day to day, Such, to their Saviour quite mistake the way. NOTE VIII. Page 80. Faith. In methodistical and mystical biography, the reader will some- times be reminded of these lines in Ovid : — In prece totus eram, ccelestia numina sensi, Lcstaqiie purpurea luce refulsit humus. Non equidem vidi (valeanf mendacia vatum !) Te, Dea ; nee fueras adspicienda viro. Scd qucB nescieram, quorumque errore tenebar, Cognita sunt, nulla prcecipiente, mihi. Ovid, Fast. vi. 251-^254. NOTE IX. Page 84. Assurance. There is a good story of assurance in Belknap's History of New Hampshire : — "A certain captain, John Underbill, in the days of Puritanism, affirmed, that having long lain under a spirit of bondage, he could get no assurance ; till at length, as he was taking a pipe of tobacco, the Spirit set home upon him an absolute pro- mise of free grace, with such assurance and joy, that he had never since doubted of his good estate, neither should he, whatever sins he might fall into. And he endeavoured to prove ' that as the Lord was pleased to convert Saul while he was persecuting, so he might manifest himself to him while making a moderate use of the good creature tobacco ! ' This was one of the things for which he was questioned and censured by the elders of Boston." Vol. i. p. 42. " Another," says South, " flatters himself, that he has lived in full assurance of his salvation for ten or twenty, or, perhaps, thirty years ; that is, in other words, the man has been ignorant and con- fident very long." i> L 2 51(> NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE X. Page 85. Perfection. The Gospel Magazine contains a likely anecdote concerning this curious doctrine. " A lady of my acquaintance," says the writer, " had, in the early stage of her religious profession, very closely attached herself to a society of avowed Arminians ; she had im- bibed all their notions, and, among the rest, that of sinless perfec- tion. What she had been taught to believe attainable, she at last concluded she had herself attained as perfectly as any of the per- fect class in Mr. Wesley's societies ; and she accordingly went so far as to profess she had obtained what they call the ' second blessing,' that is, an eradication of all sin, and a heart filled with nothing but pure and perfect love. A circumstance, however, not long after occurred, which gave a complete shock to her self- righteous presumption, as Avell as to the principles from whence it sprung. Her husband having one day contradicted her opinion and controuled her will, in a matter where he thought himself authorised to do both one and the other, the perfect lady felt her- self so extremely angry, that, as she declared to me, she could have boxed his ears, and had great difficulty to refrain from some act declarative of the emotions of rising passion and resentment. Alarmed at what she felt, and not knowing how to account for such unhallowed sensations in a heart in which, as she thought, all sin had been done away, she ran for explanation to the leader of the perfect band. To her she related ingenuously all that passed in the interview with her husband. The band-leader, in- structed in the usual art of administering consolation, though at the expense of truth and rectitude, replied, ' IVliat you felt on that occasion, my dear, was nothing but a little animal nature!' My friend, being a lady of too much sense and too much honesty to be imposed upon by such a delusory explanation, exclaimed, ' Animal nature ! No ; it Avas animal devil ! ' From that moment she bid adieu to perfection, and its concomitant delusions, as well as to those who are led by them." " Gnat-strainers," says Toplady in one of his sermons, " are too often camel-swallowers ; and the Pharisaical mantle of superstitious austerity is, very frequently, a cover for a cloven foot. Beware, then, of driving too furiously at first setting out. Take the cool of the day. Begin as you can hold on. I knew a lady, Avho, to prove herself perfect, ripped off her flounces, and would not wear an ear- ring, a necklace, a ring, or an inch of lace. Ruffles were Baby- lonish. Powder was anti- Christian. A riband was carnal. A NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 517 snuff-box smelt of the bottomless pit. And yet, under all this parade of outside humility, the fair ascetic was — but I forbear entering into particulars : suffice it to say, that she was a concealed Antinomian. And I have known too many similar instances." NOTE XL Page 88. Ministry of Angels. Upon this subject Charles Wesley has thus expressed himself, in a sermon upon Psalm xci. 11.: '"'' He shall give his Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy loays." " By these perfections, strength, and wisdom, they are well able to preserve us either from the approach (if that be more profitable for us) or in the attack of any evil. By their wisdom they discern whatever either obstructs or promotes our real advantage ; by their strength they effectually repel the one and secure a free course to the other : by the first, they choose means conducive to these ends ; by the second, they put them in execution. One particular me- thod of preserving good men, which we may reasonably suppose these wise beings sometimes choose, and by their strength put in execution, is the altering some material cause that would have a pernicious effect ; the purifying (for instance) tainted air, which would otherwise produce a contagious distemj)er. And this they may easily do, either by increasing the current of it, so as natu- rally to cleanse its putridity ; or, by mixing with it some other substance, so to correct its hurtful qualities, and render it salu- brious to human bodies. Another method they may be supposed to adopt when their commission is not so general ; when they are authorised to preserve some few persons from a common calamity. It then is probable that they do not alter the cause, but the sub- ject on which it is to work ; that they do not lessen the strength of the one, but increase that of the other. Thus, too, where they are not allowed to prevent, they may remove, pain or sickness ; thus the angel restored Daniel in a moment, when neither strength or breath remained in him. " By these means, by changing either our bodies or the material causes that use to affect them, they may easily defend us from all bodily evils, so far as is expedient for us. A third method they may be conceived to employ to defend us from spiritual dangers, by applying themselves immediately to the soul to raise or allay our passions ; and, indeed, this province seems more natural to them than either of the former. How a spiritual being can act upon matter seems more unaccountable than how it can act on L L 3 518 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. spii'it : that one iinmaterial being, by touching another, should increase or lessen its motion ; that an angel should retard or quicken the channel wherein the passions of angelic substance flow, no more excites our astonishment than that one piece of matter should have the same effect on its kindred substance ; or that a flood-gate, or other material instrument, should affect the course of a river : rather, considering how contagious the nature of the passions is, the wonder is on the other side ; not how they can avoid to affect him at all, but how they can avoid affecting them more ; how they can continue so near us, who are so subject to catch them, Avithout spreading the flames which burn in them- selves. And a plain instance of their power to allay human pas- sions is afforded us in the case of Daniel, when he beheld that gloriously terrible minister, whose ' face was as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire ; his arms and feet like polished brass, and his voice as the voice of a multitude,' x. 6. ; when the tears and sorrows of the Prophet were turned so strong upon him, that he was in a deep sleep, void of sense and motion. Yet this fear, these turbulent passions, the angel allayed in a mo- ment ; when they were hun-ying on with the utmost impetuosity, he checked them in their course ; so that immediately after we find Daniel desiring the continuance of that converse which before he was utterly unable to sustain. " The same effx^ct was, doubtless, wrought on all those to whom these supei'ior beings, on their first appearance, used this salutation — 'Fear not;' which would have been a mere insult and cruel mockery upon human weakness, had they not, with that advice, given the power to follow it. Nearly allied to this method of influencing the passions, is the last I intend to mention, by which the angels (it is probable) preserve good men, especially in or from spiritual dangers. And this is by applying themselves to their reason, by instilling good thoughts into their hearts ; either such as are good in their own nature, as tend to our improvement in virtue, or such as are contrary to the suggestions of flesh and blood, by which we are tempted to vice. It is not unlikely that we are indebted to them, not only for most of those reflections which suddenly dart into our minds, we know not how, having no connection with any thing that went before them ; but for many of those also which seem entirely our own, and naturally conse- quent from the preceding." NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 519 NOTE XII. Page 89. Agency of evil Spirits. " Let us consider," says "Wesley, " what may be the employment of unholy spirits from death to the resurrection. We cannot doubt but the moment they leave the body, they find themselves sur- rounded by spirits of their own kind, probably human as well as diabolical. What power God may permit these to exercise over them, we do not distinctly know. But it is not improbable, he may suiFer Satan to employ them, as he does his own angels, in inflict- ing death, or evils of various kinds, on the men that know not God. For this end, they may raise storms by sea or by land ; they may shoot meteors through the air ; they may occasion earthquakes ; and, in numberless ways, afliiict those whom they are not suffered to destroy. Where they ax'e not permitted to take away life, they may inflict various diseases : and many of these, which we may judge to be natural, are undoubtedly diabolical. I believe this is frequently the case with lunatics. It is observable that many of these, mentioned in Scripture, who are called lunatics by one of the Evangelists, are termed demoniacs by another. One of the most eminent physicians I ever knew, particularly in cases of insanity, the late Dr. Deacon, Avas clearly of opinion, that this was the case with many, if not with most lunatics. And it is no valid objection to this, that these diseases are so often cured by natural means ; for a wound inflicted by an evil spirit might be cured as any other ; unless that spirit were permitted to repeat the blow. " May not some of these evil spirits be likewise employed, in conjunction with evil angels, in tempting wicked men to sin, and in procuring occasions for them? Yea, and in tempting good men to sin, even after they have escaped the corruption that is in the world. Herein, doubtless, they put forth all their strength, and greatly glory if they conquer." — Vol. xi. p. 31. " The ingenious Dr. Cheyne," says one of Mr. Wesley's corre- spondents, " reckons all gloomy wrong-headedness, and spurious free-thinking, so many symptoms of bodily diseases : and, I think, says, the human organs, in some nervous distempers, may, perhaps, be rendered fit for the actuation of demons : and advises religion as an excellent remedy. Nor is this unlikely to be my own case ; for a nervous disease of some years' standing, rose to its height in 1748, and I was attacked in proportion by irreligious opinions. The medicinal part of his advice, a vegetable diet, at last, cured my dreadful distemper. It is natural to think the spiritual part L I. 4 520 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. of his advice equally good ; and shall I neglect it, because I am now in health? God forbid ! — John Walsh. Armenian Maga- zine, vol. ii. p. 433. NOTE XIII. Page 93. Immortality of A?iimals. On this point Wesley's bitterest opponent agreed with him. " I will honestly confess," says Toplady, " that I never yet heard one single argument urged against the immortality of brutes which, if admitted, would not, 7nutatis mutandis, be equally conclusive against the immortality of man." NOTE XIV. Page 106. Itinerancy. There are some things in the system of the Methodists which very much resemble certain arrangements proposed by John Knox and his colleagues in the First Book of Discipline. " It was found necessary, says Dr. M'Crie, to employ some persons in extraor- dinary and temporary charges. As there was not a sufficient num- ber of ministers to supply the different parts of the country, that the people might not be left altogether destitute of public worshijj and instruction, certain pious persons who had received a common education, were appointed to read the Scriptures and the Common Prayers. These were called Readers. In large parishes persons of this description Avere also employed to relieve the ministers from a part of the public service. If they advanced in knowledge, they were encouraged to add a few plain exhortations to the read- ing of the Scriptures. In that case they Avere called Exhorters ; but they wei-e examined and admitted, before entering upon this employment. " The same cause gave rise to another temporary expedient. Instead of fixing all the ministers in particular charges, it Avas judged proper, after supplying the principal towns, to assign to the rest the superintendence of a large district, over Avhich they Avere appointed regularly to travel for the purpose of preaching, of planting churches, and inspecting the conduct of ministers, exhorters, and readers. These Avere called Superintendents. The number originally pi-oposed Avas ten ; but owing to the scarcity of proper persons, or rather to the Avant of necessary funds, there Avere never more than six appointed. The deficiency Avas supplied NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, 521 by Commissioners or Visitors, appointed from time to time by the General Assembly." — Life of Knox, vol. ii. pp. 6, 7. " We were not the first itinerant preachers in England," says Wesley : " twelve were appointed by Queen Elizabeth to travel continually, in order to spread true religion through the kingdom. And the ofiice and salary still continues, though their work is little attended to. Mr. Milner, late Vicar of Chipping, in Lanca- shire, was one of them." Itinerant preaching (without referring to the obvious fact, that the first preachers of Christianity in any country must necessarily have been itinerant) is of a much earlier origin than Wesley has here supposed. It was the especial business of the Dominicans, and was practised by the other mendicant orders, and by the Jesuits. And it was practised long before the institution of these orders. St. Cuthbert used to itinerate when he was abbot of Melrose, as his predecessor St. Boisil had done before him ; and Bede tells us, that all persons eagerly flocked to listen to these preachers. " Nee sohtm ipsi monasterio regularis vitce monita, simul et exempla prcebebat ; sed etvtdgus circumpositum longe lateque a vita stultce constietudinis ad ccelestium gatidiorum convertere curabat amorem. JVam et mnltifidem quani habebant, iniqtiisprofanabantoperibus; et aliqui etiam tempore mortalitatis neglectis fidei sacramentis (quibus era?it imbuti) ad erratica idololatrice medicamina conciir- rebant, quasi missam a Deo conditore plagam, per incantationes, vel philacteria, vel alia qucelibet dcemoniacce artis arcana, cohi- bere valerent. Ad utrorumque ergo corrigendum errorem, crebro ipse de monasterio egressus, aliquotiens equo sedens, sed scBpius pedibus incedens, circumpositas veniebat ad villas, et viam veritat.is prccdicabat errantibus ; quod ipsum etiam Boisil suo tempore facere consueverat. Erat quippe maris eo tempore populis An- glorum, ut veniente in villam clerico vel presbytero, cuncti ad ejus imperium, verbum audituri confluerent, libenter ea quce dicerentur audirent, libentius ea quce aiidire et intelligere poterant operando sequerentur. — Solebat autem ea maxime loca peragrare, et illis prcedicare in viculis, qui in arduis asperisque montibus procul positi, aliis liorrori erant ad visendum, et paupertate pariter ac rusticitate sua doctorxun prohibebant accessum : quos tanien ille, jno libenter mancijjatiis labori, tanta doctrince excolebat industria, ut de monasterio egrediens, scrpe hebdomada integra, aliquando duabus vel tribus, nonnunquam etiam mense pleno domum non rediret : sed demoratus in montanis, plebem rusticam verba prce- dicationis simul et exemplo virtutis ad ccelestia vocaret. — Beda, 1.4. c. 27. 522 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. St. Chad used to itinerate on foot. " Consecratus ergo in epi- scopatum Ceadda, maximam mox ccepit Ecclcsiasticce veritati e castitati cur am impendere ; humilitati, continenticB, lectioni operam dare ; oppida, riira, casas, vicos, costella, propter evangeUzandum non equitando, sed Apostolo?-um more pedibus incedendo pera- grare. (Beda. 1. 3. c. 28.) In this he followed the example of his master Aidan, till the primate compelled him to ride : Et quia moris erat eidem reverendissimo a?itistiti opus Evangelii tnagis ambulando per loca, quam equitando perjieere, jussit eum Theo- dorus, iihicumque longius iter instaret, equitare ; multumque reiii- tentem studio et amore pit laboris, ipse eum manu sua levavit in eqimm ; quia tiimirum sajictum virum esse comperit, atque equo vehi quo esset necesse, compulit. — Beda. 1. 4. c. 3. NOTE XV. Page 111. The Select Bands. " The utility of these meetings appears from the following con- siderations. St. John divides the followers of God into three classes, (1 St. John, ii. 12.). St. Paul exhorts ministers to give every one his portion of meat in due season. And there were some things which our Lord did not make known to his disciples till after his ascension, when they were prepared for them by the descent of the Holy Ghost. These meetings give the preachers an opportunity of speaking of the deep things of God, and of exhort- ing the members to press after the full image of God. They also form a bulwark to the doctrine of Christian perfection. It is a pity that so few of the people embrace this privilege, and that every jireacher does not warmly espouse such profitable meetings." — Mf/Ics's Chronological History of the Methodists, p. 34. The following letter upon tliis subject (transcribed from the original, which was written by Mr. Wesley a few weeks only before his death) shows how easily a select society was disturbed by puzzling questions concerning the perfection which the members professed. " To Mr. Edward Lcwlij, Biruiiugham. "My Dear Brother, London, Jan. 12. 1791. " I do not believe a single person in your select society scruples saying, Every moment, lionl, I need The merit of thy death. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 523 This is clearly determined in the ' Thoughts upon Perfection.' But who expects common people to speak accurately ? And how easy is it to entangle them in their talk ! I am afraid some have done this already. A man that is not a thorough friend to Christian Perfection will easily puzzle others, and thereby weaken, if not destroy, any select society. I doubt this has been the case with you. That society was in a lively state, and well united together, Avhen I was last at Birmingham. My health has been better for a few days than it has been for several months. Peace be with all your spirits. I am your affectionate Brother, " J, Wesley." NOTE XVI. Page 117. Psalmodt/. " About this time, David's Psalms were translated into English metre, and (if not publicly commanded) generally pei'mitted to be sung in all churches. The woi"k was performed by Thomas Stern- hold, (an Hampshire man, esquire, and of the Privy-chamber to King Edward the Sixth, who for his part translated thirty-seven selected psalms,) John Hopkins, Robert Wisedome, &c., men, whose piety was better than their poetry ; and they had drank more of Jordan than of Helicon. These Psalms were therefore translated, to make them more portable in people's memories, (verses bein"- twice as light as the self-same bulk in prose,) as also to raise men's affections^ the better to enable them to practise the Apostle's pre- cept, ' Is any merry ? let him sing psalms.' Yet this work met afterwards with some frowns in the faces of great clergymen, who were rather contented, than well pleased, with the singing of them in churches. I will not say, because they misliked so much liberty should be allowed the laity (Rome only can be guilty of so great envy) as to sing in churches : rather, because they conceived these singing-psalms erected in conviviality and opposition to the reading- psalms, which were formei-ly sung in cathedral churches : or else, the child was disliked for the mother's sake ; because, such tranS' lators, though branched hither, had their root in Geneva. " Since, later men have vented their just exceptions against the baldness of the translation, so that sometimes they make the Maker of the tongue to speak little better than barbarism ; and have in many verses such poor rhime, that two hammers on a smith's anvil would make better music. Whilst others (ratlier to excuse it than defend it) do plead, that English poetry was then in the nonage, not to say infancy, thereof; and that, match these verses for their 524 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. age, they shall go abreast Avith the best poems of those times. Some, in favour of the translators, allege, that to be curious there- in, and over-descanting with wit, had not become the plain song, and simplicity of an holy style. But these must know, there is great difference between painting a face and not washing it. Many since have far refined these translations, but yet their labours therein never generally received in the church ; principally, be- cause un-booklearned people have conned by heart many psalms of the old translation, which would be wholly disinherited of their patrimony if a new edition were set forth. However it is desired, and expected by moderate men, that, though the fabric stand un- removed from the main, yet some bad contrivance therein may be mended, and the bald rliimes in some places get a new nap, which would not much discompose the memory of the people." — Fuller's Church History, Cent. XVI., book vii. p. 406. In a letter of Jewel's, written in 1560, he says, "that a change appeared now more visible among the people. Nothing promoted it more than the inviting the people to sing psalms. That was begun in one church in London, and did quickly spread itself, not only through the city, but in the neighbouring places. Sometimes at Paul's Cross there will be six thousand people singing to- gether. This was very grievous to the Papists." — Burner's Reformation, part iii. p. 290. " There are two things," says Wesley, " in all modern pieces of music, which I could never reconcile to common sense. One is, singing the same woi'ds ten times over ; the other, singing different words by different persons at one and the same time, and this in the most solemn addresses to God, whether by way of prayer or of thanksgiving. This can never be defended by all the musicians in Europe, till reason is quite out of date." — Journal, xiii. p. 56. And again, officiating in the church at Neath, he says : " I was greatly disgusted at the manner of singing. First, tAvelve or fourteen persons kept it to themselves and quite shut out the congregation. Secondly, these repeated the same words, contrary to all sense and reason, six, eight, or ten times over. Thirdly, 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." — Journal, xv. p. 24. " From the first and apostolical age, singing was always a part of divine service, in which the Avhole body of the church joined together ; which is a thing so evident, that though Cabassutius denies it, and in his spite to the reformed churches, where it is generally practised, calls it only a Protestant whim ; yet Cardinal Bona has more than once not only confcssetl, but solidly proved NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 525 it to have been the primitive practice. The decay of this first brought the order of psalmistfB or singers into the church. For when it was found by experience that the negligence and unskil- fulness of the people rendered them unfit to perform this service, without some more curious and skilful to guide and assist them, then a peculiar order of men were appointed and set over this business, with a design to retrieve and improve the ancient psalmody, and not to abolish or destroy it." — Bingham, b. iii. c.7. §2. Whitefield was censured once for having some of his hymns set to profane music, and he is said to have replied, " Would you have the devil keep all the good tunes to himself ? " NOTE XVII. Page 119. Service of the Methodists. Mr. Wesley prided himself upon the decency of worship in his chapels. He says : " The longer I am absent from London, and the more I attend the service of the church in other places, the more I am convinced of the unspeakable advantage which the people called Methodists enjoy. I mean, even with regard to public worship, particularly on the Lord's Day. The church where they assemble is not gay or splendid ; which might be an hindrance on the one hand : nor sordid or dirty, which might give distaste on the other ; but plain as well as clean. The persons who assemble there are not a gay, giddy crowd, who come chiefly to see and be seen ; nor a company of goodly, formal, outside Christians, whose religion lies in a dull round of duties ; but a people, most of whom know, and the rest earnestly seek to worship God in spirit and in truth. Accordingly, they do not spend their time there in bowing and curtseying, or in staring about them : but in looking upward and looking inward, in hearkening to the voice of God, and pouring out their hearts before him. " It is also no small advantage that the person who reads prayers (though not always the same) yet is always one, who may be supposed to speak from his heart ; one whose life is no reproach to his profession ; and one who performs that solemn part of divine service, not in a careless, hurrying, slovenly manner, but seriously and slowly, as becomes him who is transacting so high an affair between God and man. " Nor are their solemn addresses to God interrupted either by the formal drawl of a parish clerk, the screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither feel nor understand, or the unreason- 52 G NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. able and unmeaning impertinence of a voluntary on tlie organ. When it is seasonable to sing praise to God, they do it Avith the spirit, and with the understanding also : not in the miserable, scandalous, doggrel of Hopkins and Sternhold, but in psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry ; such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Clu'istian, than a Christian to turn critic. What they sing is therefore a proper continuation of the spiritual and reasonable service ; being selected for that end, not by a poor hum-drum wretch, who can scarce read what he drones out with such an air of importance, but by one who knows what he is about, and how to connect the preceding with the following part of the service : nor does he take just ' two staves,' but more or less as may best raise the soul to God, especially when sung in well-composed and well-adapted tunes ; not by a handful of wild unawakened striplings, but by a whole serious congregation ; and then not lolling at ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, drawling out one word after another, but all standing before God, and praising him lustily, and with a good courage." NOTE XVIII. Page 131. Strong feelings expressed with levity. Fuller relates a remarkable example of this : — " When worthy master Samuel Hern, famous for his living, preaching, and writing, lay on his death bed (rich only in goodness and children), his wife made much womanish lamentation what should hereafter become of her little ones. ' Peace, sweetheart,' said he ; ' that God who feedeth the ravens will not starve the Herns.' A speech, censured as light by some, observed by others as prophetical, as indeed it came to pass that they Avere well disposed of." — Fuller's Good Thoughts. NOTE XIX. Page 145. Methodism in Scotland. The Methodists thus explain the cause of their failure in that country : — " There certainly is a very wide difference between the people of Scotland and the inhabitants of England. The former have, from their earliest years, been accustomed to hear the leading truths of the Gospel, mixed with Calvinism, constantly preached, so that the truths are become quite familiar to them ; NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 527 but, in general, they know little or nothing of Christian experi- ence ; and genuine religion, or the life and power of godliness, is in a very low state in that country. I am fully satisfied that it requires a far higher degree of the Divine influence, generally speaking, to awaken a Scotchman out of the dead sleep of sin, than an Englishman. So greatly are they bigoted to their own opinions, their mode of church government, and way of worship, that it does not appear probable that our preachers will ever be of much use to that people : and, in my opinion, except those who are sent to Scotland exceed their own ministers in heart-searching, experimental pi-eaching, closely applying the truth to the con- sciences of the hearers, they may as well never go thither." — Pawson. NOTE XX. Page 148. Effects of the Reformation upon Ireland. " Ireland, and especiallie the ruder part, is not stored with such learned men as Germanic is. If they had sound preachers, and sincere livers, that by the imbalming of their carian soules with the sweet and sacred flowers of holie writ, would instruct them in the feare of God, in obeieng their princes, in observing the lawes, in underpropping in ech man Ids vocation the weale publike ; I doubt not but, within two or three ages, M. Critabolus his heires should heare so good a report run of the reformation of Ireland, as it would be reckoned as civill as the best part of Germanic, Let the soile be as fertile and betle as anie would wish, yet if the husbandman will not manure it, sometime plow and eare it, some- time harrow it, sometime till it, sometime marie it, sometime delve it, sometime dig it, and sow it with good and sound corne, it will bring foorth weeds, bind-corne, cockle, darnell, brambles, briers, and sundrie wild shoots. So it fareth with the rude inhabitants of Ireland ; they lacke universities ; they want instructors ; they are destitute of teachers ; they are without preachers ; they are devoid of all such necessaries as apperteine to the training up of youth : and, notwithstanding all these wants, if anie would be so frowardlie set as to require them to use such civilitie, as other regions, that are sufiicientlie furnished with the like helps, he might be accounted as unreasonable as he that would force a creeple that lacketh both his legs to run, or one to pipe or whistle a galiard that wanteth his upper lip." — Stanihurst, in Holinshed^s Chronicles, vol. vi. p. 14. The ecclesiastical state of Ireland in 1576 is thus described by 528 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. John Vowell alias Hooker, the Chronicler : — " The temples all ruined, the parish-churches, for the most part, without curates and pastors, no service said, no God honoured, nor Christ preached, nor sacraments ministered: many were born which never were christened : the patrimony of the church wasted, and the lands embezzled. A lamentable case, for a more deformed and a more overthrown Church there could not be among Christians." — Holijished' s Chronicles, vol. vi. p. 382. " The Kernes, or natural wild Irish, (and many of the better sort of the nation also,) either adhere unto the Pope, or their own superstitious fancies, as in former times. And, to say truth, it is no wonder that they should, there being no care taken to instruct them in the Protestant religion, either by translating the Bible, or the English Liturgy, into their own language, as was done in Wales ; but forcing them to come to church to the English service, which the people understand no more than they do the mass. By means whereof, the Irish are not only kept in continual ignorance, as to the doctrine and devotions of the Church of England, and others of the Protestant churches, but those of Rome are furnished with an excellent argument for having the service of the Church in a language which the common hearers do not understand. And, therefore, I do heartily commend it to the care of the State (when these distempers are composed) to provide that they may have the Bible, and all other public means of Christian instruction, in their natural tongue." — Heylyns Cosmography, p. 341. 1 transcribe from the "Letters of Yorick," (Dublin, 1817) this " description of a parish in the county of Waterford: " — "Kilbarry is a lay impropriation. Mr. Fox, of Bramham Hall, Yorkshire, the patron and proprietor, maintains no curate, nor any other service than that of the occasional duties, for which he allows 2>l. 16s. 2>d. per annum. The lands are set tithe-free. There is but one Pro- testant family in the parish, Mr. Carew's of Ballinamona. The church is in ruins, but is accommodated with a church-yard. NOTE XXL Page 157. Wesley s Political Conduct. In a Letter written in 1782, Mr. Wesley says, " Two or three years ago, when the kingdom was in imminent danger, I made an offer to the Government of raising some men. The Secretary of War, by the King's order, wrote me word ' that it was not necessary : but if it ever should be necessary, His Majesty would let me know.' I never renewed the offer, and never intended it. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 529 But Captain Webb, witliout my knowing any thing of the matter, went to Colonel B. the new tSecretary of War, and renewed that offer. The Colonel (I verily believe to avoid his importunity) asked him ' how many men he could raise ? ' But the Colonel is out of ^ilace ; so the thing is at an end." NOTE XXII. Page 186. Weslei/s Separation from his Wife. The separation between Mr. and Mrs. Wesley is represented by all his biographers as final. Yet, in his Journal for the ensuing year, 1772, she is mentioned as travelling with him: " Tuesday, June 30. Calling at a little inn on the moors, I spoke a few words to an old man there, as my wife did to the woman of the house. They both appeared to be deeply affected. Perhaps Providence sent us to this house for the sake of those two poor souls." NOTE XXIII. Page 234. Trevecca. The following curious account of a society instituted partly in imitation of Lady Huntingdon's College, is taken from the preface to a tract entitled " The Pre-existence of Souls, and Universal Restitution, considered as Scripture Doctrines. Extracted from the Minutes and Correspondence of Burnham Society." Taunton, 1798. The editor was a singular person, whose name was Locke. Ml-. Wesley used to preach in the Society's room in the course of his travelling ; and Mr. Fletcher, John Henderson, Sir Richard Hill, and the Rev. Sir George Stonhouse were among the cor- responding members. " The small college, or rather large school, established at Tre- vecca, in Wales, for the maintenance and education of pious young men, of different religious sentiments *, suggested the idea of con- stituting a religious society at Burnham, in the county of Somerset, upon a similar plan, with regard to the difference of opinion. It was intended to ensure to its members not only all the advantages * Lady Huntingdon, the founder, leaned to the Supralapsarians ; tlie Rev. Walter Shirley, the president, to the Sublapsarians ; the Rev. John Fletcher, the superintendent master, defended the Arminian tenets of John Wesley; and John Henderson, teacher of the higher classics, was an Universalist, after Ston- house. VOL. II, M M 580 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. enjoyed by common benefit-clubs, from their weekly contributions, but to raise a fund sufficient to enable those who attended the monthly meetings to enjoy all the pleasures of one of Addison's Social Convivial Societies, subject, however, to a heavy fine for drinking to excess, because the entertainment was to be conducted upon the principles of a primitive Love Feast, which was to enjoy all things in common. "As the first or chief business of this society was to study plii- losopliy and polemic divinity, and debate on the difference of religious opinions, in brotherly love ; so ancient and modern con- troversy was to be introduced, and, of course, candidates of any religious denomination admitted as members of this philosophical society. But in order that religious controversy should not operate as a check upon the general good humour of the members, all per- sonal reflections or invectives, tart or sour expressions, harsh severe speeches, with every other impropriety of conduct, either by word, look, or gesture, contrary to patience, meekness, and humility, were punishable by fines and penalties ; and for non- compliance, the delinquents were either to be sent to Coventry or excluded. " The resolution entered into, of living in brotherly love, in the same manner as we conceive angels Avould live, were they to sojourn with men, and the liberal and rational plan upon which this society was founded, gathered to it upwards of five hundred members ; uj)on which a resolution was made, that no speaker should harangue more than five minutes at one time, supposing any other member rose to speak. Hence arose the necessity for disputants to conclude their debates in Avriting, with references to authors Avho had written upon the subject, in order for the society to deliver their opinions upon the question under consideration. " These debates, papers, and references to books, disclosed to the members (as their minds became more and more enlightened) a variety of indirect roads and by-paths, in the exploring of which they lost themselves ; for, however firmly they were united in acts of brotherly conformity in the service of one common Lord, tliey gradually returned to their old customs — some to the worship of iha'w family gods — a few to the service of their oio7i gods — others paid obedience to an unknown god — but most neglected the service of every god. " Tliis will account for the gradual desertion of members, and the apparent necessity of permitting this once famous society to degenerate into a mere benefit-club, which is now kept together by a freehold estate (of twenty pounds per annum neat) purchased by the president from the surplus contributions of members." " You formed a scheme," says Toplady to Mr. Wesley, " of NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 531 collecting as many perfect ones as you could to live under one roof. A number of these flowers were accordingly transplanted from some of your nursery-beds to the hot-house. And an hot house it soon proved. For, would we believe it ! the sinless people quarrelled in a short time at so violent a rate, that you found yourself forced to disband the whole regiment." — Toplady's Works, vol. V. p. 342. Does this allude to the Burnham Society ? NOTE XXIV. Page 237. Whitejield. The device upon Whitefield's seal was a winged heart soaring above the globe, and the motto Astra petamus. The seal appears to have been circular, and coarsely cut. A broken impression is upon an original letter of his in my possession, for which I am obliged to Mr. Laing, the bookseller, of Edinburgh. Mr. William Mason writes from Newbury Port, near Boston, to the Gospel Magazine, and contradicts " an account which was prevalent in London a few years past, and asserted with direct possitivity in the Evangelical Magazine ;" namely, "that the body of the late Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, buried in this port, was entire and uncorrupted. From whence such a falsehood could have arisen, it is impossible to decide. About five years past (he writes in 1801), a few friends were permitted to open the tomb wherein the remains of that precious servant of Christ were in- terred. After some difficulty in opening the coffin, we found the flesh totally consumed. The gown, cassock, and band with which he was buried, were almost the same as if just put into the coffin. I mention this particular as a caution to editors, especially of a religious work, to avoid the marvellous, particularly when there is no foundation for their assertions." The report, though it was as readily accredited by many persons as the invention of a saint's body would be in a Catholic country, seems not to have oi'iginated in any intention to deceive. Some person writing from America, says, " One of the preachers told me the body of Mr. Whitefield was not yet putrified. But several other corpses are just in the same state at Newbury Port, owing to vast quantities of nitre with which the earth there abounds." Whitefield is said to have preached eighteen thousand sermons during the thirty-four years of his ministry. The calculation was made from a memorandum-book in which he noted down the times and places of his preaching. This would be something more than ten sermons a week. M M 2 532 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Wesley tells us himself, (Jouriuvl xiii. p. 121.) that he preached about eight hundred sermons in a year. In fifty-three years, reckoning from the time of his return from America, this would amount to forty-two thousand four hundred. But it must be remembered that even the hundreds in this sum were not written discourses. Collier says, that Dr. Litchfield, rector of All Saints, Thames- street, London, who died in 1447, left three thousand and eighty- three sermons in his own hand. — Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 187. NOTE XXV. Page 242. Conference with the Calvinists. " I was at Bristol," says Mr. Badcock, " when the Hon. Mr. Shirley, by the order of my Lady Huntingdon, called him (Mr. Wesley) to a public account for certain expressions which he had uttered in some charge to his clergy, which savoured too much of the popish doctrine of the merit of good works. Various specu- lations were formed as to the manner in which Mr. Wesley would evade the charge. Few conjectured right ; but all seemed to agree in one thing, and that was, that he would some how or other bafiie his antagonist : and bafiie him he did ; as Mr. Shirley afterwards confessed, in a very lamentable pamphlet, which he published on this redoubted controversy. In the crisis of the dispute, I heard a celebrated preacher, who was one of Whitefield's successors, express his suspicion of the event : for, says he, " I know him of old : he is an eel ; take him where you will, he will slij) through your fingers." — Nichols's Atiecdotes, vol. v. p. 224. NOTE XXVI. Page 244. Ber ridge of Ever ton. This person (who was of Clare Hall) called himself a riding pedlar, because, he used to say, his master employed him to serve near forty shops in the country besides his own parish. If the poems in the Gospel Magazine, with the signature of Old Everton, are his, as I suppose them to be, the following slanderous satire upon Mr. Wesley must be ascribed to him ; for it comes evidently from the same hand : — NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 533 The Ser'pent and the Fox ; or, an Interview between old Nick and old John. There's a fox who resideth hard by, The most perfect, and holy, and sly. That e'er turn'd a coat, or could pilfer and lie. As this reverend Reynard one day Sat thinking what game next to play, Old Nick came a seas'nable visit to pay. O, your servant, my friend, quoth the priest, Though you carry the mark of the beast, I never shook paws with a welcomer guest. Many thanks, holy man, ci'ied the fiend, 'Twas because you're my very good friend That I dropt in, Avith you a few moments to spend. JOHN. Your kindness reqviited shall be ; There's the Calvinist-Methodists, see, Who 're eternally troublous to you and to me. Now I'll stir up the hounds of the whore That's called scarlet, to worry them sore, And then roast 'em in Smithfield, like Bonner of yore. NICK. O, a meal of the Calvinist brood Will do my old stomach more good Than a sheep to a wolf that is starving for food. JOHN. When America's conqvier'd, you know, ('Till then we must leave them to crow,) I'll work up our rulers to strike an home blow. NICK. An excellent plan, could you do it; But if all the infernals, too, knew it. They'd be puzzled, like me, to tell how you'll go through it. M M 3 534 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. JOHN. When they speak against vice in the Great, I'll cry out that they aim at the State, And the Ministry, King, and the Parliament hate. Thus I'll still act the part of a liar. Persecution's blest spirit inspire, And then ^^ Calmly Address" 'em with faggot and fire. NICK. Ay, that's the right way, I know well : But how lies with perfection can dwell, Is a riddle, dear John, that would puzzle all hell. JOHN. Pish ! you talk like a doating old elf ; Can't you see how it brings in the pelf ; And all things are lawful that serve a man's self. As serpents, we ought to be wise : Is not self-preservation a prize ? For this did not Abram the righteous tell lies ? NICK. I perceive you are subtle, though small : You have reason, and Scripture, and all : So stilted, you never can finally fall. JOHN. From the drift of your latter reflection, I fear you maintain some connection With the crocodile crew that believe in Election. NICK. By my troth, I abhor the whole troop ; With those heroes I never could cope : I should chuckle to see 'em all swing in a rope. JOHN. Ah, could we but set the land free From those bawlers about the Decree, Who're such torments to you, to my brother, and me ! As for WJiitefield, I know it right well, He has sent down his thousands to hell ; Andj for aught that I know, he's gone with 'em to dwell. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 535 NICK. I grant, my friend John, for 'tis true, That he was not so perfect as you ; Yet (confound him !) I lost him, for all I could do. JOHN. Take comfort ! he's not gone to glory ; Oi', at most, not above \\\q. first story : For none but the perfect escape purgatory. At best, he's in Umbo, I'm sure, And must still a long purging endure. Ere, like me, he's made sinless, quite holy, and pure. NICK. Such pui'ging my Johnny needs none ; By your own mighty works it is done, And the kingdom of glory your merit has won. Thus wrapt in your self-righteous plod, And self-raised when you throw off this clod, You shall mount, and demand your own seat, like a god. You shall not in paradise wait, But climb the third story with state ; While your Whitefields and Hills are turn'd back from the gate. Old John never dreamt that he jeer'd ; So Nick turn'd himself round, and he sneer'd. And then shrugg'd up his shoulders, and strait disappear 'd. The priest, with a simpei'ing face. Shook his hair-locks, and paus'd for a space ; Then sat down to forge lies with his usual grimace. AUSCULTATOR. NOTE XXVII. Page 245. Calvinism. " Some pestilent and abominable heretics there be," says the Catholic Bishop Watson, " that, for excusing of themselves, do accuse Almighty God, and impute their mischievous deeds to God's predestination ; and would persuade that God, who is the fountain of all goodness, were the author of all mischief; not only sufferino- M M 4 536 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. men to do evil by their own wills, but also inforcing their wills to the same evil, and working the same evil in them. I will not now spend this little time (for it was near the end of his sermon) in confuting tlieir pestilent and devilisli sayings, for it is better to abhor them than to confute theiu." — Holsome and Catholyke Doctrync, ]). 124. 1558. Dr. Beaumont has two good stanzas upon this subject in his Psyche, which is one of the most extraordinary poems in this or in any other language. O no ! may those black mouths for ever be Damm'd up with silence and with shame, which dare P'ather the foulest, deepest tyranny On Love's great God ; and needs will make it clear From his own Word ! thus rendering him at once Both Cruelty's and Contradiction's Prince. A prince whose mocking law forbids, Avhat yet Is his eternally-resolved will ; Who woos and tantalises souls to get Up into heaven, yet destines them to hell ; Who calls them forth whom he keeps locked in ; Who damns the sinner, yet ordains the sin. Canto 10. St. 7 1,72. In the Arminian Magazine, Wesley has published the Examina- tion of Tilenus before the Triers, in order to his intended settle- ment in the office of a public preacher in the Commonwealth of Eutopia, written by one who was present at the Synod of Dort. The names of the Triers are very much in John Bunyan's style. They are — Dr. Absolute, chairman ; Mr. Fatality, Mr. Praeterition, Mr. Fry-babe, Dr. Damn-man, Mr. NarroAv Grace, Mr. Efficax, Mr. Indefectible, Dr. Confidence, Dr. Dubious, Mr. Meanwell, INL-. Simulans, IVIi'. Take-o'-Trust, Mr. Know-little, and Mr. Imper- tinent. If the Abbe Duvernet may be trusted (a writer alike liable to suspicion for his ignorance and his immorality), Jansenius formally asserts, in his Augustinus, that there are certain commandments which it is impossible to obey, and that Christ did not die for all. He refers to the Paris edition, vol. iii. pp. 138. 165. NOTE XXVIII. Page 251. Fletcher's Illustrations of Calvinism. " I suppose you are still upon your travels. You come to the borders of a great empire, and the first thing that strikes you is a NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 537 man in an easy carriage going with folded arms to take possession of an immense estate, freely given him by the king of the country. As he flies along, you just make out the motto of the royal chariot in which he dozes, — ' Free Reward.' Soon after you meet five of the king's carts, containing twenty wretches loaded with irons ; and the motto of every cart is, ' Free Punishment.' You inquire into the meaning of this extraoi'dinary procession, and the sheriff attending the execution answers, Know, curious stranger, that our monarch is absolute ; and to show that sovereignty is the preroga- tive of his imperial crown, and that he is no respecter of pei-sons, he distributes every Anj free rewards and free punishments, to a certain number of his subjects. ' What ! without any regai-d to merit or demerit, by mere capi'ice ? ' Not altogether so ; for he pitches upon the worst of men, and chief of sinners, arid upon such to choose for the subjects of his rewards. (Elisha Coles, p. 62.) And that his punishments may do as much honour to free sove- reign lorath, as his bounty does iofree sovereign grace, he pitches upon those that shall be executed before they are born. ' What ! have these poor creatures in chains done no harm ? ' ' O yes,' says the sheriff, ' the king contrived that their parents should let them fall, and break their legs, before they had any knowledge ; Avhen they came to years of discretion, he commanded them to run a race with broken legs, and because they cannot do it, I am going to see them quartered. Some of them, besides this, have been obliged to fulfil the king's secret will, and bring about his pur- poses ; and they shall be burned in yonder deep valley, called Tophet, for their trouble.' You are shocked at the sheriff's account, and begin to expostulate with him about the freeness of the wrath which burns a man for doing the king's will ; but all the answer you can get from him is, that which you give me in your fourth letter, page 23., where, speaking of a poor reprobate, you say, ' such an one is indeed accomplishing the king's,' you say 'God's, decree;' but he carries a dreadful mark in his forehead, that such a decree is, that he shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the pi'esence of the lord of the country. You cry out, ' God deliver me from the hands of a monarch who punishes ivith everlasting destruction such as accomplish his de- cree !' and while the magistrate intimates that your exclamation is a dreadful mark, if not in your forehead, at least upon your tongue, that you yourself shall be apprehended against the next execution, and made a public instance of the king's free wrath, your blood runs cold ; you bid the postillion turn the horses ; they gallop for your life ; and the moment you get out of the dreary land, you bless God for your narrow escape." — Fletcher's JVorks, vol, iii. p. 26. 538 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. " You * decry illustrations,' and I do not wonder at it ; for they carry light into Babel, where it is not desired. The father of errors begets Darkness and Confusion. From Darkness and Con- fusion springs Calvinism, who, wrapping himself up in some gar- ments, wliich he has stolen from the Truth, deceives the nations, and gets himself reverenced in a dark temple, as if he were the pure and free Gospel. " To bring him to a shameful end, we need not stab him with the dagger of ' calumny,^ or put him upon the rack of persecution. Let him only be dragged out of his obscurity, and brought un- masked to open light, and the silent beams of truth will pierce him through ! Light alone will torture him to death, as the meridian sun does a bird of night, that cannot fly from the gentle operation of its beams. " May the following illustration dart at least one luminous beam into the profound darkness in which your venerable Diana delights to dwell ! And may it show the Christian world that we do not ' slander yon ' when we assert, you inadvertently destroy God's law, and cast the Redeemei''s crown to the ground : and that when you say, 'in point of justification,' (and consequently of con- demnation,) ' we have nothing to do with the law ; we are under the law as a rule of life,' but not as a rule of judgement ; you might as well say, 'we are under no law, and consequently no longer accountable for our actions.' " ' The king,' whom I will suppose is in love with your doctrines of free grace and free wrath, by the advice of a predestinarian council and parliament, issues out a Go5/9e/-proclamation, directed 'to all his dear subjects, and elect people, the English.' By this evangelical manifesto they are informed, ' that in consequence of the Prince of Wales's meritorious intercession, and perfect obe- dience to the laws of England, all the penalties annexed to the breaking of those laws are now abolished with respect to English- men: that His Majesty freely pardons all his subjects who have been, are, or shall be guilty of adultery, murder, or treason : that all their crimes ' past, present, and to come, are for ever and for ever cancelled :' that nevertheless, his loving subjects, who remain strangers to their privileges, shall still be served with sham-war- rants according to law, and frightened out of their wits, till they have learned to plead, they are Englishmen (i. e. elect^ : and then they shall also set at defiance all legalists ; that is, all those who shall dare to deal with them according to law : and that, excepting the case of the above-mentioned false prosecution of his chosen people, none of them shall ever be molested for the breach of any law. '•By the same supreme authority it is likewise enacted, that all NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 539 the laws shall continue in foi'ce against foreigners {L e. repro- bates), whom the King and the Prince hate with everlasting hatred, and to whom they have agreed never to show mercy : that accord- ingly they shall be pi'osecuted to the utmost rigour of every sta- tute, till they are all hanged or burned out of the way : and that, supposing no personal oifence can be proved against them, it shall be lawful to hang them in chains for the crime of one of their fore- fathers, to set forth the king's wonderful justice, display his glo- rious sovereignty, and make his chosen people relish the better their sweet distinguishing pi-ivileges as Efiglishmen. " Moreover, His Majesty, who loves order and harmony, charges his loving subjects to consider still the statutes of England which are in force against foreigners, as very good rules of life for the English, which they shall do tvell to follow, but better to break ; because every breach of those rules will ivork for their good, and make them sing louder the faithfulness of the King, the goodness of the Prince, and the sweetness of this Gospel-proclamation. "Again, as nothing is so displeasing to the King as legality, which he hates even more than extortion and whoredom ; lest any of his dear people, who have acted the part of a strumpet, robber, murderer, or traitor, should, through the remains of their inbred corruption and ridiculous legality, mourn too deeply for breaking some of their rides of life, our gracious Monarch solemnly assures them, that though he highly disapproves of adultery and murder, yet these breaches of rules are not worse in his sight than a wan- dering thought in speaking to him, or a moment's dulness in his service : that robbers, thei'efore, and traitors, adulterers, and mur- derers, who are freeborn Englishmen, need not at all be uneasy about losing his royal favour ; this being utterly impossible, be- cause they always stand complete in the honesty, loyalty, chastity, and charity of the Prince. " Moreover, because the King changes not, whatever lengths the English go on in immorality, he will always look upon them as his pleasant children, his dear people, and men after his oion heart; and that, on the other hand, whatsoever lengths foreigners go in pious morality. His gracious Majesty is determined still to consider them as hypocrites, vessels of ivrath, and cursed children, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever ; because he always views them completely guilty, and absolutely condemned in a cer- tain robe of unrighteousness, woven thousands of years ago by one of their ancestors. This dreadful sanbenito His Majesty hath thought fit to put upon them by imputation, and in it, it is his good pleasure that they shall hang in adamantine chains, or burn in fire unquenchable. " Finally, as foreigners are dangerous people, and may stir up 540 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. His Majesty's subjects to rebellion, the English are informed, that if any one of them, were he to come over from Geneva itself, shall dare to insinuate that his most gracious Gospel-proclamation is not according to equity, morality, and godliness, tlie first Englishman that meets him shall have full leave to brand him as a papist, with- out judge or jury, in the forehead or on the back, as he thinks best; and tliat, till he is farther proceeded with according to the utmost severity of the law, the chosen people shall be informed, in the Gospel Magazine, to beware of him, as a man ' who scatters fire- brands, arrows, and deaths,' and makes universal havoc of evert/ article of this sweet Gospel-proclamation. Given at Geneva, and signed by four of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State for the Predestinarian Department." John Calvin, Dr. Crisp, The Author of P. O. Rowland Hill. Fletcher's Works, vol. iii. p. 282. NOTE XXIX. Page 252. Arminiajiism described by the Calvinists. " Scarce had our first parents made their appearance, when Satan, the^r*^ Arminiati, began to preach the pernicious doctrine of free- Avill to them, Avhich so pleased the old gentleman and his lady, that they (like thousands of their foolish offspring in this our day) ad- hered to the deceitful news, embraced it cordially, disobeyed the command of their Maker, and, by so doing, launched their whole posterity into a cloud of miseries and ills. But some perhaps will be ready to say that Arminianism, though an error, cannot be the root of all other errors ; to which I answer, that if it first originated in Satan, then, I ask, from whence springs any error or evil in the Avorld ? Surely Satan must be the first moving cause of all evils that ever did, do now, or ever will make their ajipearance in this world ; consequently, he was the first })ropagator of that cursed doc- trine above mentioned. Hence Arminianism begat Popery, and Popery begat Methodism, and Methodism begat Moderate Calvin- ism, and Moderate Calvinism begat Baxterianism, and Baxterianism begat Unitarianism, and Unitarianism begat Arianism, and Arian- ism begat Universalism, and Universalism begat Deism, and Deism begat Atlieism ; and living and dying in the embracement of every of the above evils or istns, where Christ is, they never can come. Thus I consider that Arminianism is the original of all the per- nicious doctrines that are propagated in the world, and Destruc- NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 541 tionism will close the whole of them." — Gospel Magazine, 1807, p. 16. " Of the two (says Huntington the S.S.) 1 would rather be a Deist than an Arminian ; for an established Deist sears his own conscience, so that he goes to hell in the easy chair of insensibility ; but the Arminian, who wages war with open eyes against the sovereignty of God, fights most of his battles in the very fears and horrors of hell." — Huntington's Works, vol. i. p. 363. " The sons of bondage," says a red-hot Antinomian, who signs himself Rufus, " like Satan and his compeers, are unsatisfied with slavery themselves, unless they can entice others into the same dilemma. They are for ever forging their accursed fetters for the sons of God in the hot flames of Sinai's fiery vengeance ; and in the hypocritical age of the nineteenth century, pour forth whole troops of work-mongers, commonly known by the name of 3Iode- rate Calvinists, who, under an incredible profession of sanctity, lie in wait to deceive ; and, by their much fair speeches, entrap the un- wary pilgrims into the domains of Doubting Castle, binding them within those solitary ruins to the legal drudgery of embracing the moral or preceptive law, as the rule of their lives." Upon the subject of election, there is a tremendous rant by a writer who calls himself Ebenezer. " Before sin can destroy any one of God's elect, it must change the word of truth into a lie ; strip Jesus Christ of all his merit ; render his blood inefficacious ; pollute his righteousness ; contami- nate his nature ; conquer his omnipotence ; cast him from his throne ; and sink him in the abyss of perdition : it must turn the love of God into hatred ; nullify the council of the Most High ; destroy the everlasting covenant ; and make void the oath of Jeho- vah : nay, it must raise discord amongst the Divine attributes ; make Father, Son and Spirit unfaithful to each other, and set them at variance ; change the Divine nature ; wrest the sceptre from the hand of the Almighty ; dethrone him ; and put a period to his ex- istence. Till it has done all this, we boldly say unto the redeemed. Fear not, for we shall not be ashamed ; neither be dismayed, for you shall not be confounded." — Gospel Magazine, 1804, p. 287. NOTE XXX. Page 266. Young Grimshaiv. " He, too," says Mr. Wesley, " is now gone into eternity ! So, in a few years, the family is extinct. I preached in a meadow, near the house, to a numerous congregation ; and we sang with one heart — 542 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Let sickness blast and tleatli devour, If Heaven will recompense our pains ; Perish the grass, and fade the flower. Since firpa the word of God remains. NOTE XXXI. Page 360. The Covefiant. If proof were wanting to confirm the opinion wliich I liave advanced of the perilous tendency of this fanatical practice, William Huntington, S. S., a personage sufficiently notorious in his day, would be an unexceptionable evidence. He thus relates his own case, in his " Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer." " Having got a little book that a person had lent me, which recommended vows to be made to God, I accoi'dingly stripped myself naked, to make a vow to the Almighty, if he would enable me to cast myself upon him. Thus I bound my soul with numerous ties, and wept over every part of the written covenant which this book contained. These I read naked on my knees, and vowed to perform all the conditions that were therein proposed. Having made this covenant, I went to bed, wept, and prayed the greatest part of that night, and arose in the morning pregnant with all the Avretched resolutions of fallen nature. I now manfully engaged the world, the flesh, and the Devil, in my own strength ; and I had bound myself up with so many promised conditions, that, if I failed in one point, I was gone for ever, according to the tenor of my own covenant, provided that God should deal with me according to my sins, and reward me according to mine iniquity. " But, before the week was out, I broke through all these engage- ments, and fell deeper into the bowels of despair than ever 1 had been before. And now, seemingly, all was gone : I gave up prayer, and secretly wished to be in hell, that I might know the worst of it, and be delivered from the fear of worse to come. I was now again tempted to believe that there is no God, and wished to close in with the temptation, and be an established or confirmed atheist ; for I knew, if there was a God, that I must be damned ; therefore I laboured to credit the temptation, and fix it firm in my heart. But, alas ! said I, how can I ? If I credit this, I must disbelieve my own existence, and dispute myself out of common sense and feeling, for I am in hell already. There is no feeling in hell but what I have an earnest of. Hell is a place where mercy never comes : I have a sense of none. It is a separation from God: I am without God in the world. It is a hopeless state: I have no hope. It is to feel the burthen of sin : I am burthencd NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS 543 as much as mortal can be. It is to feel the lashes of conscience : I feel them all the day long. It is to be a companion for devils : I am harassed Avith them from morning till night. It is to meditate distractedly on an endless eternity : I am already engaged in this. It is to sin and rebel against God : I do it perpetually. It is to reflect upon past madness and folly : this is the daily employ of my mind. It is to labour under God's unmixed wrath : this I feel continually. It is to lie under the tormenting sceptre of ever- lasting death : this is already begun. Alas ! to believe there is no God, is like persuading myself that I am in a state of annihilation." — Huntingtonh Works, vol. i. p. 193. NOTE XXXII. Page 365. The Value of a good Conscience. Upon this subject the Methodist Magazine affords a good illus- tration. A poor Cornishman, John Nile by name, had been what is called under conviction twelve months, — in a deplorable state, walking disconsolate, while his bi'ethren were enjoying their justi- fication. One night, going into his fields, he detected one of his neighbours in the act of stealing his turnips, and brought the culprit quietly into the house with the sack which he had nearly filled. He made him empty the sack, to see if any of his seed turnips were there, and finding two or three large ones, which he had in- tended to reserve for that purpose, he laid them aside, bade the man put the rest into the sack again, helped him to lay it on his back, and told him to take them home, and if at any time he was in distress, to come and ask and he should have ; but he exhorted him to steal no more. Then shaking him by the hand, he said, I forgive you, and may God for Christ's sake do the same. What effect this had upon the thief is not stated ; but John Nile was that night " filled with a clear evidence of pardoning love," with an assurance, that having forgiven his brother his trespasses, his heavenly Father also had foi'given him." — Did the feeling pro- ceed from his faith, or his good works ? " The Scriptures," says Priestley, " uniformly instruct us to judge of ourselves and others, not by uncertain and undescribable feelings, but by evident actions. As our Saviour says, ' bf/ their fruits shall ye know men.'' For where a man's conduct is not only occasionally, but uniformly right, the principle upon which he acts must be good. Indeed, the only reason why we value good prin- ciples is on account of their uniform operation in producing good conduct. This is the end, and the principle is only the means." — Preface to Original Letters by Wesley and his Friends. 544 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE XXXIII. Page 368. Wesley's Doctrine concerning Riches. Upon this subject, Mr. Wesley has preserved a fine anecdote. "Beware," he says, " of forming a hasty judgement concerning the fortune of others. There may be secrets in the situation of a per- son, which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since, I told a gentleman. Sir, I am afraid you are covetous. He asked me. What is the reason of your fears ? I answered, A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year you subscribed only half-a-guinea. He made no reply ; but after a time asked. Pray, Sir, answer me a question : why do you live upon potatoes? (I did so between three and four years.) I replied. It has much conduced to my health. He answered, I believe it has. But did you not do it likewise to save money ? I said, I did, for what I save from my own meat, Avill feed another that else would have none. But, Sir, said he, if this be your motive, you may save much more. I know a man that goes to the market at the begin- ning of every week. There he buys a pennyworth of parsnips, Avhich he boils in a large quantity of water. The parsnips serve him for food, and the water for drink the ensuing week, so his meat and drink together cost him only one penny a Aveek. This he constantly did, though he had then two hundred pounds a year, to pay the debts which he had contracted before he knew God ! — And this was he, whom I had set doAvn for a covetous man." To this aifecting anecdote I add an extract from Wesley's Journal, relating to the subject of property. " In the evening one sat behind me in the pulpit at Bristol, who was one of our first masters at Kingswood. A little after he left the school, he likewise left the Society. Piclies then flowed in upon him; with which, having no relations, Mr. Spencer designed to do much good — after his death. But God said nnto him. Thou fool I Two hours after he died intestate, and left all his money to be scrambled for. " Reader ! if you have not done it already, make your icill before you sleep." — Journal xix. 8. I know a person who, upon reading this passage, took the advice. NOTES ^ND ILLUSTRATIONS. 545 MR. WESLEY'S EPITAPHS. ON THE T0MI5-ST0NK. To tlie Memory of The Venekable John Wesley, A.M. Late Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. This Gkeat Light arose (By the singular Providence of God) To enlighten these Nations, And to revive, enforce, and defend, The Pure, Apostolical Doctrines and Practices of The Primitive Church : A-Vhich he continued to do, by his Writings and his Labours, For more than Half a Century : And, to his inexpressible Joy, Not only beheld their Influence extending, And their Efficacy witnessed, In the Hearts and Lives of Many' Thousands, As well in the Western World as in these Kingdoms : But also, far above all human Power or Expectation, Lived to see Provision made by the singular Grace of God For their Continuance and Establishment, To the Joy of Future Generations ! Reader, if thou art constrained to bless the Instrument, Give God the Glory ! After having languished a few days, he at length finished his Course a?id his Life together ; gloriously triumphing over Death, March 2. An. Dom. 1791, in the Eighty-eighth Year Of his Age. VOL. II. N N 54G NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. W TIIK CHAPEL. Sacred to the Memory Of the Rev. John Weslky, M.A. Some time Felloiv o/" Lincoln College, Oxford. A Man, in Learning and sincere Piety, Scarcely inferior to any : In Zeal, Ministerial Labours, and extensive Usefulness, Superior (perhaps) to all Men Since the days of St. Paul. Regardless of Fatigue, personal Danger, and Disgrace, He went out into the highways and hedges. Calling Sinners to Repentance, And Preaching the Gospel of Peace. He was the Founder of the Methodist Societies ; The Patron and Friend of the Lay Preachers, By whose Aid he extended the Plan of Itinerant Preaching Through Great Britain and Ireland, The West Indies and America, With unexampled Success. He was born June I7th, 1703, And died March 2d, 1791, In sure and certain hope of Eternal Life, Through the Atonement and Mediation of a Crucified Saviour. He was sixty-five Years in the Ministry^ And fifty-two an Itinerant Preacher : He lived to see, in these Kingdoms only, About Three hundred Itinerant, And a Thousand Local Preachers, Raised up from the midst of his own People ; And Eighty thousand Persons in the Societies under his Care. His Name will ever be had in grateful Remembrance By all who rejoice in the universal Spread Of the Gospel of Christ. Soli Deo Gloria. Not long after ]\Ii-. Wesley's death a pamphlet was published, entitled, " An Impartial Review of his Life and Writings." Two love-letters were inserted as having been written by him to a young lady in his eighty-first year ; and, " to prevent all suspicion of their authenticity," the author declared that the original letters, in the handwriting of Mr. Wesley, were then in his possession, and that they should be open to the inspection of any person who Avould call at a given place to examine them. " With this de- NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 547 claration," says Mr. Drew, " many were satisfied ; but many who continued incredulous, actually called. Unfortunately, however, they always happened to call either when the author was engaged, or when he was from home, or when these original letters were lent for the inspection of others ! It so happened, that though they were always open to examination, they could never be seen." In the year 1801, however, the author, a Mr. J, Collet, wrote to Dr. Coke, confessing that he had written the letters himself, and that most of the pretended facts in the pamphlet were equally fictitious. The Ex-Bishop Gregoire has inserted one of these forged letters in his History of the Religious Sects of the last Century. He reckons among the Methodists Mr. Wilberforce, who, he says, has defended the principles of Methodism in his writings, and le poete Sir Richard Hill, Baronnet. But the most amusing specimen of the Ex-Bishop's accuracy is, where enumerating among the con- troverted subjects of the last century, La Reforme da Symbole Afhanasien, he adds, a cette discussion se rattache la Controverse Blagdonienne entre le cure de Blagdon, pres de Bristol, et Miss Hannah More. ADDITIONAL NOTES CONCERNING MR. WESLEY's FAMILY. Baktholomew Wesley is said to have been the fanatical minister of Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, who had nearly been the means of delivering Lord Wilmot and Charles II. to their enemies. Lord Clarendon's account, however, differs from this : he says that the man was a weaver, and had been a soldier ; but Mr. Wesley had received an University education. Samuel Wesley, the elder, was a student in a dissenting academy, kept by Mr. Veal, at Stepney; and, according to John Dunton, was "educated upon charity" there; an invidious expression, meaning nothing more than that the friends of his parents assisted in giving him an education which his mother could not have afforded. He distinguished himself there by his facility in versi- fying ; and the year after his removal to Oxford, published a volume entitled "Maggots, or poems on several subjects never before handled." A whimsical portrait of the anonymous author N N 2 548 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. was prefixed, representing him writing at a table, crowned with laurel, and with a maggot on his forehead : underneath are these words : — In's own del'ence the author writes, Because when this foul maggot bites He ne'er can rest in quiet. Which makes him make so sad a face, He'd beg your Worship or your Grace Unsight, unseen to buy it. It was by the profits of this woji-k, and by composing elegies, epitaphs, and epithalamiums, for his friend John Dunton, who traded in these articles, and kept a stock by him ready made, that Mr. Wesley supported himself at Oxford : not, as I have erro- neously stated (after Dr. Whitehead), by what he earned in the University itself " He usually wrote too fast," says Dunton, " to write well. Two hundred couplets a-day are too many by two thirds to be well furnished Avith all the beauties and the graces of that art. He wrote very much for me both in prose and verse, though I shall not name over the titles, in regard I am altogether as unwilling to see my name at the bottom of them, as Mr. Wesley would be to subscribe his own." Dunton and Wesley were brothers-in-law, and when the former wrote his " Life and Errors," they were not upon amicable terms. Dunton could not forgive him for having published a letter con- cerning the education of the Dissenters in their private academies. It appears, however, by his own account, that Mr. Wesley, little as he had to spare, had lent him money in his distresses ; and Dunton, even while he satirises him, acknowledges tliat he was a generous, good-humoured, and pious man. Mr. Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 84<.) says that Mr. Wesley's house was burnt twice. John, however, only says, tliat the villains several times attempted to burn it. He had made great progress in his laborious work upon the Book of Job, having collated all the copies he could meet with of the original, and the Greek and other versions and editions. All these labours were destroyed : but in the decline of life he resumed the task, though oppressed with gout and palsy through long habit of study. Among ot'ner assistances he particularly acknowledges that of his three sons, and his friend Maurice Johnson. The book was printed at Mr. Bowyer's press. How much is it to be wished that the productions of all our great presses had been recorded with equal diligence ! The Dissertationes in Lihrum Johi, I liave never seen ; but I learn from Mr. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, (vol. v. p. 212.) that a curious emblematical portrait of the author is prefixed to the NOTES AND ILLUSTllATIONS. 549 volume. It represents " Job in a chair of state, dressed in a robe bordered with fur, sitting beneath a gateway, on the arch of which is written Job Patriarciia. He bears a sceptre in his hand, and in the back-ground are seen two of the pyramids of Egypt. His position exactly corresponds with the idea given us by the Scrip- tures in the book of Job, chap. xxix. 7. : ' When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street :' ac- cording to the custom of those times, of great men sitting at the gate of the city to decide causes. The subscription on a tablet beneath his feet, An. cetat. circiter LXX. Quis mihi tribtiat ? mark it out as the quaint device of a man in years who thought himself neglected." Garth and Swift have mentioned Wesley with contempt : and Pope introduced him in the Dunciad, in company with Watts. Both names were erased in the subsequent editions. Pope felt ashamed of having spoken injuriously of such a man as Dr. Watts, who was entitled not only to high respect for his talents, but to admiration for his innocent and holy life : and he had become intimate with Samuel Wesley the younger. That excellent man exerted himself in every way to assist his father, when the latter had lost all hope of the preferment which he once had reason to expect. " Time," says Mr. Badcock, '■ had so far gotten the better of his fury against Sir Robert (Walpole), as to change the satirist into the suppliant. I have seen a copy of verses addressed to the great minister, in behalf of his poor and aged parent. But I have seen something much better. I have in my possession a letter of this poor and aged parent, addressed to his son Samuel, in Avhich he gratefully acknowledges his filial duty in terms so affecting, that I am at a loss which to admire most, the gratitude of the parent, or the affection and generosity of the child. It was written when the good old man was nearly fourscore, and so weakened by a palsy as to be incapable of directing a pen, unless with his left hand. I preserve it as a curious memorial of what will make Wesley ap- plauded wlien his wit is forgotten." — Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 220. The only works of the elder Wesley which I have met with are the two following, which were probably his most successful publi- cations. The History of the Old Testament in Verse, with One hundred and eighty Sculptures, in two Volumes, dedicated to Her Most Sacred Majesty. Vol. I. From the Creation to the Revolt of the Ten Tribes from the House of David. Vol. IT. From that Revolt to the End of the Prophets. — Written by Samuel Wesley, A.M., Chaplain to his Grace John, Duke of Buckingham and Marquis of Normanby, Author of the Life of Christ, an Heroic Poem. The 55U NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIO.;S. Cuts done by J. Sturt. London : printed for Clia. Harper, at the Flower-de-luce, over-against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street. 1704. 12mo. The History of the New Testament, representing the Actions and Miracles of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles '. attempted in Verse, and adorned with 152 Sculptures. Written by Samuel Wesley, A.M., Chaplain to the Most Honourable the Lord IMarquis of Normanby, and Author of the Life of Christ, an Heroic Poem. The Cuts done by J. Sturt. London : printed for Cha. Harper, at the Flower-de-luce, over-against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet- street. 1701. 12mo. The elder Wesley had a clerk who was a Whig, like his master, and a poet also, of a very original kind. " One Sunday, imme- diately after sermon, he said, with an audible voice, ' Let us sing to the praise and glory of God a hymn of my own composing.' It was short and sweet, and ran thus : ' King William is come home, come home, King William home is come ! Therefore let us together sing The hymn that's called Te D'um.'" — Wesley's Remarks on Mr. HilVs Farrago Double-distilled. Works, vol. XV. p. 109. THE END. London : Printed by A. Spottiswoodi:, New- Street- Square. re:cent works BIOGRAPHICAL & MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. I. The RIGHT HON. SIR JAI^IES MACKINTOSH'S LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE, Fcap. 8vo., Portrait, 5s.; bound in vellum, 8s. II. The RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S MIS- CELLANEOUS WORKS. Edited by R. J. Mackintosh, Esq. 3 vols. Svo. 42s. III. The LIFE OF JOSEPH ADDISON. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols, post Svo., Portrait after Kneller, 1 8s. IV. MIGNET'S ANTONIO PEREZ AND PHILIP IL OF SPAIN. Translated by C. Cocks, B. L. Post 8vo. 9s. V. MEMOIR AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE MRS. 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