DISASTERS AND DISSENTERS.—1702–1705.
We have already seen that Mr Wesley was seriously involved in debt.
During his attendance at convocation he seems to have received
considerable assistance. In a letter to Archbishop Sharpe, dated August
7, 1702, he mentions several sums which he had received from eminent
persons: the Dean of Exeter, £10; Dr Stanley, £10; Archbishop of
Canterbury, £10, 10s.; and, he adds:—“Even my lord Marquis of Normanby,
by my good lady’s solicitations succeeding your Grace’s, did verily and
indeed, with his own hand, give me twenty guineas, and my lady five.
With these and other sums I made up about £60, and came home joyful
enough,—thanked God,—paid as many debts as I could,—quieted the rest of
my creditors,—took the management of my house into my own hands,—and had
ten guineas left to take my harvest.”[160]
-----
Footnote 160:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_.
-----
What is meant by the last sentence but one, I hardly know. It is
difficult to regard it as a reflection on the household management of
his wife. Probably, on account of his wife’s feeble health, his domestic
matters had been managed by his servant; but, be that as it might, the
rector now, perhaps unwisely, took the management himself.
Still, however, the current of life was far from flowing smoothly. Soon
after the removal from the miserable hut at South Ormsby to the spacious
parsonage at Epworth, the rector’s barn fell down, and had to be
rebuilt; and now, on July 31st, 1702, another disaster occurred, which
was more serious than the former.
Mr Wesley shall tell his own story in the letter to Archbishop Sharpe
already quoted. He writes:—“On the last of July 1702, a fire broke out
in my house, by some sparks which took hold of the thatch, and consumed
about two-thirds of it before it could be quenched. I was at the lower
end of the town visiting a sick person, and went thence to R. Cogan’s.
As I was returning, they brought me the news. I got one of his horses,
rode up, and heard, by the way, that my wife, children, and books were
saved; for which God be praised, as well as for what He has taken. They
were all together in my study, and the fire under them. When it broke
out, Mrs Wesley got two of the children in her arms, and ran through the
smoke and fire; but one of them was left in the hurry, till the other
cried for her, when the neighbours ran in, and got her out through the
fire, as they did my books, and most of my goods; this very paper among
the rest, which I afterwards found, as I was looking over what was
saved.
“I find it is some happiness to have been miserable, for my mind has
been so blunted with former misfortunes, that this scarce made any
impression upon me. I shall go on, by God’s assistance, to take my
tithe; and, when that is in, to rebuild my house, having, at last,
crowded my family into what is left, and not missing many of my goods.
“I humbly ask your Grace’s pardon for this long, melancholy story, and
leave to subscribe myself your Grace’s ever obliged and most humble
servant, S. WESLEY.”
It is a somewhat singular circumstance that the sheet of paper on which
this letter was written, was one on which he had begun a letter to the
archbishop six days before the fire broke out. About four square inches
of the lower corner of the fly-leaf was burnt, and the whole was stained
by the water that helped to put out the flames.
The good archbishop, to whom this account was sent, came forward both
with his purse and influence; and this produced the following touching
and characteristic letter:—
“EPWORTH, _March 20, 1703_.
“MY LORD,—I have heard that all great men have the art of
forgetfulness, but never found it in such perfection as in your
lordship: only it is in a different way from others; for most forget
their _promises_, but your Grace those _benefits_ you have conferred.
I am pretty confident your Grace neither reflects on, nor imagines how
much you have done for me; nor what sums I have received by your
lordship’s bounty and favour; without which I had been, ere this,
moulding in a jail, and sunk a thousand fathoms below nothing.
“Will your Grace permit me to show you an account of some of them?
“From the Marchioness of Normanby, £20 0 0
The Lady Northampton (I think), 20 0 0
Duke of Buckingham and Duchess, 2 years since, 26 17 6
The Queen, 43 0 0
The Bishop of Sarum (Bishop Burnett), 40 0 0
The Archbishop of York, at least 10 0 0
Besides lent to (almost) a desperate debtor, 25 0 0
——————
£184 17 6
“A frightful sum, if one saw it all together; but it is beyond thanks,
and I must never hope to perform that, as I ought, till another world;
where, if I get first into the harbour, I hope none shall go before me
in welcoming your lordship into everlasting habitations; where you
will be no more tired with my follies, nor concerned at my
misfortunes. However, I may pray for your Grace while I have breath,
and that for something nobler than this world can give; it is for the
increase of God’s favour, of the light of His countenance, and of the
foretaste of those joys, the firm belief whereof can only support us
in this weary wilderness. And, if it be not too bold a request, I beg
your Grace would not forget me, though it be but in your prayer for
all sorts and conditions of men; among whom, as none has been more
obliged to your Grace, so, I am sure, none ought to have a deeper
sense of it than your Grace’s most dutiful and most humble servant,
“S. WESLEY.”
To a man with a large family, and who, if not at present, had recently
been £300 in debt, the burning of his house was a dire disaster; but,
alas! Samuel Wesley’s calamities did not end with this. During the
winter of 1704, which was very shortly after the rebuilding of his
house, another fire broke out, and burnt the whole of his flax; and,
five years after that, a third fire utterly destroyed his recently
re-erected rectory. But these are facts which, in chronological order,
will have to be noticed anon.
In the year 1703, a small pamphlet was published, entitled, “A Letter
from a Country Divine to his Friend in London, concerning the Education
of Dissenters in their Private Academies in several parts of this
Nation: Humbly offered to the consideration of the Grand Committee of
Parliament for Religion, now sitting. London, 1703,” 4to., pp. 15.[161]
Samuel Wesley was the writer of this letter; but it was printed without
either his consent or knowledge; and, as it led to a serious, prolonged,
and ill-natured controversy, it behoves us to examine its history.
-----
Footnote 161:
This is taken from Clarke’s _Wesley Family_; but it seems to be a
mistake to say that the letter consisted of 15 pages. The third
edition, published by Clavel, in 1706, is now before us, and consists
of only 8 pages 4to.
-----
Up to the time that Mr Wesley went to Oxford University, he was a
Nonconformist, the child, and the grandchild of expelled Nonconformist
ministers, and a student trained in Nonconformist academics, and having
none but Nonconformist acquaintances. His life at Oxford was retired,
and, therefore, not likely to make him many friends of another
description. On his return to London, in 1688, he not only kept up a
friendship with some of his old Dissenting associates, but also began to
become acquainted with several gentlemen of the Church of England. One
of these, knowing that Wesley had been educated in a Dissenting academy,
zealously, if not wisely, urged him to write an account of the inner
life of such establishments. For some time Wesley resisted this request;
but at length a circumstance happened which led him to comply. He tells
us that he went, with some of his Dissenting acquaintances, to a
Dissenting festival, held in a house in Leadenhall Street. The discourse
of these festive Dissenters was so fulsome, profane, and lewd, that he
was not able to endure it. In a little while they sat down to supper,
and now they all began to rail against monarchy, and to blaspheme the
memory of King Charles the martyr. These proceedings convinced Wesley
that his old friends, who some years before had prompted him to “dabble
in rhyming lampoons both on Church and State,” were as disaffected and
disloyal as ever. He felt disgusted, and leaving the room, he went home,
and, before he slept, wrote the letter, which was published some twelve
or thirteen years afterwards.
But here we must pause. The festival, at which Wesley was present, was
the anniversary of the notorious Calves-head Club, and a brief account
of that infamous fraternity seems needful.
In the British Museum, there is a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-two
pages, entitled “The Secret History of the Calves-head Club; or, The
Republican Unmasked: Wherein is fully shown the religion of the
Calves-head heroes, in their anniversary thanksgiving songs, on the 30th
January, by them called anthems, for the years 1693 to 1697; now
published to demonstrate the restless, implacable spirit of a certain
party still among us, who are never to be satisfied, till the present
establishment in Church and State is subverted. London: Printed and sold
by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1703.” From that pamphlet
the following particulars are taken:—
The preface states, that, “the poems, or ribaldry, and trash following
were composed and set to music for the use of the Calves-head Club,
which was erected by an impudent set of people, who have their feasts of
calves’ heads, in several parts of the town, on the 30th of January, in
derision of that day, and in defiance of monarchy; at divers of which
meetings the following compositions were sung, and which, in affront of
the Church, were called anthems.”
The preface then descants on the persecutions and indignities suffered
by King Charles I., and states that, “of all the indignities offered to
the manes of the injured prince, nothing equals the inhumanity and
profaneness of the Calves-head Club.”
It further alleges:—“That Milton and some other creatures of the
commonwealth had instituted this club, in opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr
Sanderson, Dr Hammond, and other divines of the Church of England, who
met privately every 30th of January, and, though it was during the time
of the usurpation, compiled a private form of service for the day, not
much different from what we now find in the Liturgy.”
It is stated further, that “after the Restoration, the eyes of the
Government being upon the whole (Calves-head) party, they were obliged
to meet with a great deal of precaution; but now, in the second year of
the reign of King William, they meet almost in a public manner, and
apprehend nothing.”
“A gentleman, about eight years ago, went out of mere curiosity to see
their club, which was kept at no fixed house, but removed as they saw
convenient. The place they met in, when he was with them, was in a blind
alley about Moorfields; and the company wholly consisted of Independents
and Anabaptists. The famous Jerry White, formerly chaplain to Oliver
Cromwell, who, no doubt, came to sanctify with his pious exhortations
the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After the table-cloth was removed,
the anniversary anthem, as they impiously called it, was sung, and a
calf’s head filled with wine, or other liquor, was placed before the
company. Then a brimmer went about to the pious memory of those worthy
patriots that had killed the tyrant, and had delivered the country from
his arbitrary sway; and, last of all, a collection was made for the
mercenary scribbler, who had composed the anthem, to which every man
contributed according to his zeal for the cause, or the ability of his
purse.”
Such are the principal statements contained in the edition of this
curious and scarce pamphlet, published in 1703; but, in another edition,
published two years afterwards, it is added: “That an axe was hung up in
the club room; and that the bill of fare was a large dish of
calves’-heads dressed in divers ways, a large pike with a small one in
his mouth as an emblem of tyranny, a large cod’s head to represent the
person of the king, and a boar’s head with an apple in its mouth to
represent the king’s bestiality. After the repast, one of the elders of
the club presented an Eikon Basilike, which, with great solemnity, was
burnt upon the table whilst the anthem was being sung; and then another
elder produced Milton’s ‘Defensio Populi Anglicani,’ upon which all laid
their hands, and made a protestation, in form of an oath, for ever to
stand by and to maintain it.”
The anthems for the years 1693 to 1697, inclusive, are then given in the
pamphlet, and contain some things which it would be criminal to reprint.
We subjoin the least objectionable specimens that we can give.
The anthem for 1693 consists of five verses of eight lines each, with a
chorus. The following lines are taken from the third and fourth verses:—
“Triumphant laurels too must crown that head,
Whose righteous hand struck England’s tyrant dead;
The heroes too, adorn’d with blood and sweat,
Who forced the opposing monster to retreat.
“’Tis force must pull the lawless tyrant down;
But give men knowledge, and the priest’s undone;
In vain he whines, in vain he cants and prays,
There’s not a man believes one word he says.”
The following infamous lines are taken from the anthem for 1694. After
describing the “fall of the tyrant,” and the satisfaction of the nation,
and their own celebration of the event, those bacchanalian revellers are
made to sing:—
“Then fill the calf’s cranium to a health so divine,
The cause, the old cause, shall ennoble our wine;
Charge briskly around, fill it up, fill it full,
’Tis the last and best service of a tyrannical skull.
Then to puss, boys, to puss, boys,
Let’s drink it off thus, boys,” &c.
The anthem for 1695 consists of five verses; the first, the second, and
the fourth verses are too profane and lewd to be reproduced. The
following are the third and fifth. After describing the people hurrying
to Church on the 30th of January, and asking what is meant by it, the
foul-mouthed members sing:—
“Oh! sir, it is a debt they say,
Mother Church must yearly pay
To her saints’ canonisation;
It is the day in which he fell,
A martyr to the cause of hell,
Justly crown’d with decollation.
“May the banish’d Tarquins’[162] fate,
Be as just, but not so great;
Some mean shameful death attend him:
May cursed Lewis, for old sores,
Turn him poorly out of doors;
Then may some friendly halter end him.”
-----
Footnote 162:
James II.
-----
The greater part of the anthem for 1696 is filthy and profane to a
horrible degree. The following are the last four lines, and the least
exceptionable:—
“Oh! how should we rejoice and pray, and never cease to sing a,
If bishops too were chased away, and banish’d with their king a,
Then peace and plenty would ensue, our bellies would be full a,
The enliven’d isle would laugh and smile, as in the days of Noll a.”
The anthem for 1697 consists of ten verses. The following are the eighth
and ninth:—
“They and we this day observing,
Differ only in one thing,
They are canting, whining, starving,
We, rejoicing, drink and sing.
“Advance the emblem of the action!
Fill the calf’s skull full of wine;
Drinking ne’er was counted faction,
Men and gods adore the vine.”
It is said that the author of these scurrilous productions was Benjamin
Bridgewater, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, “whose genius,” says
Dunton, “was very rich, and ran much upon poetry; but, alas! wine and
love were his ruin.” He was largely rewarded by the Calves-head Club for
his profane and lewd effusions.
Assuming the above description of the Calves-head Club to be correct, no
wonder that Samuel Wesley was disgusted with its proceedings; and,
though this perhaps scarcely justifies the writing of the letter which
was published in 1703, yet, it is some excuse for it. Wesley, in his
letter, apologises for writing against a body among whom he was
educated, to whom his ancestors belonged, and from whom he had received
many personal favours. He declares that he feels no enmity against the
party he had left; that he honoured some of them, and pitied others, but
hated none. He states that his purpose is to relate the methods used by
Dissenters to propagate a ministry in opposition to the Established
Church; to describe what kind of schools and colleges they had set up,
to supersede the necessity of going to the universities; and to show how
these were maintained, what principles they taught, and what sort of
arguments they used to confirm their pupils in their dissent, and to
hinder them from going over to the communion of the Church.
But now, it may be asked, why was Wesley’s letter, after the lapse of so
many years, given to the public in a printed form? It is somewhat
difficult to answer this; and yet there are certain facts which will
help to cast light upon it. In 1702, King William died, and Queen Anne,
the patroness of the High Church party, succeeded to the throne. The
Dissenters, who, for the last thirteen years, had received royal
favours, were now the objects of royal abhorrence. Just at this
juncture, Samuel Wesley’s letter respecting their academies was
published. In the same year, 1703, the first part of Clarendon’s History
of the Rebellion was printed, and dedicated to Queen Anne. In the
dedication occurs the following paragraph:—“What can be the meaning of
the several seminaries, and, as it were, universities, set up in divers
parts of the kingdom, by more than ordinary industry, contrary to law,
supported by large contributions, where the youth is bred up in
principles directly contrary to monarchical and Episcopal government?
What can be the meaning of the constant solemnizing by some men, the
anniversary of that dismal thirtieth of January, in scandalous and
opprobrious feasting and jesting, which the law of the land hath
commanded to be perpetually observed in fasting and humiliation? It is
humbly submitted to your Majesty whether this does not look like an
industrious propagation of the rebellious principles of the last age,
and whether it is not necessary that your Majesty should have an eye
toward such unaccountable proceedings?”
In 1704, a second part of Clarendon’s History was published, with
another dedication to the same royal patroness, in which, in reference
to the Dissenters, it is said:—“Let them clear themselves of that they
were lately charged with before your Majesty, that there are societies
of them which celebrate the horrid thirtieth of January, with an
execrable solemnity of scandalous mirth; and that they have seminaries,
and a sort of universities, in England, maintained by great
contributions, where the fiercest doctrines against monarchical and
Episcopal government are taught and propagated, and where they bear an
implacable hatred to your Majesty’s title, name, and family.”
In the same year that Samuel Wesley’s letter was published, Queen Anne
gave her first-fruits and tenths for augmenting the livings of the
poorer clergy. In addition to this, the “Occasional Conformity Bill” was
passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords, and created great
excitement in the nation. In the House of Peers, “Archbishop Sharpe said
he apprehended danger from the increase of Dissenters, and particularly
from the many academies set up by them, and moved that the judges might
be consulted what laws were in force against such seminaries, and by
what means they might be suppressed.”[163]
-----
Footnote 163:
Calamy’s _Life and Times_.
-----
It becomes an interesting inquiry to ask in what relation Mr Wesley’s
letter stood to “The Secret History of the Calves-head Club,” to the
strong language used in the dedicatory preface of Clarendon’s History of
the Rebellion, to the bounty of Queen Anne, to the “Occasional
Conformity Bill,” and to the speech of his faithful and affectionate
friend, Archbishop Sharpe? This is a question which we cannot answer,
but that his letter was deemed an important one is evident from the
attention it attracted, and the excitement it occasioned.[164]
-----
Footnote 164:
Burnet, in his _History of His Own Time_, (folio ed., vol. ii. p.
247,) mentions some other important facts belonging to this period. He
says, the Dissenters had quarrels and disputes among themselves. The
Independents were raising the old Antinomian tenets, and the
Presbyterians were accusing the Baptists of giddiness. One Asgil, a
member of Parliament, published a book to prove that since believers
recovered in Christ all that they lost in Adam, they are now rendered
immortal by Christ, and not liable to death. George Keith, who, for
thirty-six years, had been the most learned man among the Quakers, now
discovered that the Quakers were Deists, and treated the Christian
religion as allegorical; upon which he opened a new meeting to
convince the Quakers of their errors; and, having failed in doing so,
he was reconciled to the Established Church, and entered into holy
orders. The clergy also were much divided. Those who were now called
the High-Church party, had all along expressed a coldness to the
present settlement, and now began to complain about the grievances of
the clergy, and the danger the Church was in. Atterbury, who by his
great ability and eloquence, had become one of their leaders, attacked
the supremacy of the crown in ecclesiastical affairs, and the hot men
of the clergy readily entertained his notions.
-----
Most of the facts contained in Mr Wesley’s letter have been already
given in the third and fourth chapters of this work, and hardly anything
can be added here.
One of Wesley’s most offensive assertions is that the Dissenters are “a
sort of people none of the best-natured in the world,” though he admits
that “all or most of his relations and acquaintances” belong to that
denomination. He adds, that, he was deterred “writing lest he should be
thought ungrateful to those from whom, for some years, he received his
bread; and also, lest what he said should increase existing
animosities.” He says he “honours some of the Dissenters and pities
others, without hating any.” His statements must have been galling; but
we are bound to say there is no appearance of an acrimonious spirit. Had
his opponents possessed and evinced the same good-tempered moderation,
the controversy would not have been so painful and discreditable as what
it was.
Samuel Wesley’s first and chief antagonist was Samuel Palmer, an
Independent minister of some repute, upon whom Dunton lavishes the
highest praise. He tells us that he was educated by Dr Kerr, and pursued
his studies at the rate of seventeen hours a-day; that his temper was
open and sincere, and that he abhorred all trick and flattery; that he
was a man of great generosity, very charitable, and very humble; that he
never courted the rich, and was always ready to attend the poor; that he
preached without notes, and that his delivery, voice, and style were
excellent; that he took great pains with the rising generation, and that
his catechetical lectures were plain, easy, and full; that he was
well-beloved by all the clergy and gentlemen of the Church of England
who knew him, and that he was well skilled in law and politics—
“Sum all in him that’s good, and learn’d, and great,
Place him in learning’s, and in Bates’ seat;
He shines in wit, and yet is so sedate,
That none can equal, best but imitate.
In Palmer see, in Palmer all admire,
What nature, books, and honour can inspire.
Were Wesley but impartial, he would own
His learned answer lash’d him to the bone.
A better vindication none could write,
Nor any satire show us half the wit.”[165]
-----
Footnote 165:
Dunton’s _Life and Errors_.
-----
Samuel Palmer, as Dunton intimates, pursued his academical studies under
Dr Kerr, a gentleman of considerable reputation for classical learning,
who was first a tutor in Ireland, but was driven thence by the tyranny
of the Earl of Tyrconnel, and then settled at Bethnal Green, where he
met with great encouragement, and trained several Dissenting ministers,
who were ornaments to religion and learning. Palmer entered upon the
ministry at Grave Lane Chapel, Southwark, in 1698. His first two
publications were his replies to Wesley, published respectively in 1703
and 1705, and which were accounted very able performances, and procured
the author considerable reputation. Within a year or two after the
second of these publications, he, like Wesley, left the Dissenters, and
took orders in the Church of England, and had conferred upon him the
living of Malden in Essex. It is said that this conversion to the Church
of England arose out of his disappointment at not being rewarded
according to his apprehended merit for his pamphlets against Wesley. It
is further said, that, after he joined the Establishment, he grew lax in
his morals until his conduct became scandalous. We are not informed as
to the time and place of his decease; but, in 1710 he published an
octavo volume, entitled “Moral Essays, founded upon English, Scotch, and
Foreign Proverbs.”[166] Such was Wesley’s principal antagonist.
-----
Footnote 166:
_History of Dissenting Churches in London_, by Wilson.
-----
Mr Wesley’s letter gave the Dissenters great offence, but the reader
must not forget the circumstances under which it was written, and the
dishonourable way in which it was afterwards published. About the year
1690, Wesley was introduced to the meeting of the Calves-head Club
already mentioned. Rightly or wrongly, Wesley regarded Charles I. as a
“royal martyr,” for thus he emphatically speaks of him in the dedication
he prefixed to his “History of the Old and New Testaments in Verse;”
but, at the meeting at which he was now present, the name and memory of
Charles were treated with even profane derision and contempt. Is it
surprising that this spirited young man should leave the place with a
feeling of disgust, and that, in the heat of the moment, he should sit
down to write what he had often been solicited to write, an account of
the “Education of the Dissenters in their private academies”? He tells
us that he began to write his letter as soon as he left the club, and
that he finished it before five o’clock next morning. He then went to
bed, placing his manuscript beneath his pillow. While he slept, a
Dissenting friend, who had seen him thoughtful, came and stealthily took
the manuscript away and read it. Such behaviour was highly
dishonourable, and can be excused only on the ground of supposing that
Wesley and this Dissenter were intimate and confidential friends. Be
that as it may, when Wesley awoke and missed his letter, he charged the
Dissenter with having it. The purloiner produced the missing manuscript,
said he had read it, and that there was nothing in it but what was true.
Still he was doubtful respecting the expediency of divulging such
revelations, and persuaded Wesley not to send the letter to the person
for whom it was intended.
That person was Robert Clavel, a respectable and extensive dealer in
books, master of the Company of Stationers, and whom Dr Barlow, Bishop
of Lincoln, used to call “the honest bookseller.” By some means, Clavel
became possessed of Wesley’s letter. Wesley never intended it for the
public eye. He declares that he wrote it as a “_private_ letter to a
particular friend, and had not the least thought of its being
published.” Clavel kept the letter in his private possession for about a
dozen years. The Dissenters were rapidly rising into power. The High
Church party took alarm, and Queen Anne became a tool for the
accomplishment of their purposes. Just at this juncture Clavel, without
Wesley’s consent, and even without consulting him, took upon himself to
print the letter which Wesley, at a single sitting, had written some
twelve years before, and, to give it more importance, actually dedicated
it to the House of Commons, at that time most hostile to the Dissenters,
and eager to do something for their suppression.
What was the result? Wesley’s letter was published anonymously, but as
it contained a biographical sketch of the early history of the writer,
there was no difficulty in detecting the author. Accordingly there
appeared, almost immediately, a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-four
pages, with the following title:—“A Defence of the Dissenters’ Education
in their Private Academies, in an answer to Mr W——y’s disingenuous and
unskilful Reflections upon ’em; in a Letter to a Noble Lord.—London,
1703.” This was by Mr Palmer.
Mr Palmer’s defence is full of bitterness. He speaks of Wesley’s
“impotent malice,” “trifling stories,” and “unchristian and
ungentlemanly insinuations.” He says that Wesley’s accusation, that Mr
Morton’s pupils vindicated the murder of Charles I., is “scandalous and
false;” that “the Dissenters universally abhor the king-killing
doctrines;” and that they “have not opposed any king, nor defended any
tyrant.” He also denies that the Dissenters were “undutiful to the
Church and injurious to the Universities;” for “Dr Owen himself required
Wesley to go to the University.” He alleges that Wesley, in his letter,
has “acted unbecoming a scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian;” that he
“has betrayed the private conversations of his best friends, and
insulted the works of great and excellent scholars,” and yet Palmer
admits that Wesley’s “charges might be true, at least in part;” but
thinks the things “were excusable, considering the provocations the
Dissenters received at that period.” He says, Wesley “endeavoured, by
artful and false insinuations, to expose Dissenters to contempt;” speaks
of his letter as “perfidious;” and states that he had received “many
favours from Dissenters even since he conformed to the Church of
England, and that, till the appearance of his invidious letter, the
whole Dissenting party expressed for him, on all occasions, universal
esteem.” He says, Wesley’s works “are saved from contempt only by the
adorable name of Jesus which they bear, and the lovely memory of that
bright saint, the Queen; both of which names, the best poets think, are
injured by his trifling management.” Much of this is not only abusive,
but false.
Mr Palmer’s defence was written at the request of the nobleman to whom
it is addressed; and, besides rude reproaches, contains an account of
the academy in which he himself had been trained for the Christian
ministry. Dr Kerr, his tutor, was “a great and polite scholar, a curious
critic, a penetrating philosopher, a deep and rational divine, and an
accurate historian.” He never “heard him make one unhandsome reflection
on the Church of England; and he never offered to impose controverted
points upon his pupils. No man living could perform academical readings
better; and his pupils, in proportion to their number, were equal in
learning and virtue to those of any University in Europe.”
The course adopted by Dr Kerr was for his students to begin with logic,
then proceed to metaphysics, and then to natural philosophy. They
disputed every other day, in Latin, upon the several philosophical
controversies; and, “on Saturdays, all the superior classes declaimed by
turns, four and four, on noble and useful subjects.” On Mondays and
Fridays they read divinity; and every day, after dinner, they read Greek
and Latin authors. They also went through the Greek Testament once a
year. Dr Kerr began the scholastic exercises of every morning with
public prayer, sometimes in English, and sometimes in Latin. At divinity
lectures the eldest pupils prayed, and those of inferior genius were
allowed forms of prayer, either of their own composing, or others, as
they thought proper. Prayer in the family was most punctually observed,
and nine o’clock at night was the latest hour for any pupil to be out of
doors. Obscene or profane discourse, if known, would have been punished
with expulsion; though Palmer admits that some of the students broke the
rules, and gives an account of one or two who became rakes, had to
leave, and entered the Established Church. He adds, that the _rule_
among Dissenters was for every candidate for the ministry to have five
years of preparatory training, and that, before they were recommended to
a pastorship, they had to be examined as to learning, probity, and
virtue, and to have certificates from their tutors. Such is the
substance of Mr Palmer’s defence.
In 1704, Mr Wesley replied to this. His second pamphlet is entitled, “A
Defence of a Letter concerning the Education of Dissenters in their
Private Academies, with a more full and satisfactory account of the
same, and of their morals and behaviour towards the Church of England;
being an Answer to the Defence of the Dissenters’ Education. By Samuel
Wesley: London, 1704;” with this remarkable motto—
“Noli irritare crabrones!
`The Kirk’s a vixen; don’t anger her.’”
The pamphlet consists of sixty-four pages, besides eight of title,
preface, and contents.
In his preface, Mr Wesley gives an account of the writing and
publication of his former letter, which he solemnly declares was printed
without his consent or knowledge.
He then states, that, the reason why he now writes this “Defence” is,
because Palmer, by broad inuendos, has charged him with immoral and
scandalous practices while he lived among the Dissenters.
Wesley’s pamphlet chiefly consists of three parts:—1. The reasons which
induced him to write the letter which Clavel had published, and which
had “lost him the good graces of his old friends.” 2. A consideration of
Palmer’s defence of his party. 3. A refutation of the scandalous charges
brought against himself. The pamphlet is written with great smartness.
In 1705, Palmer published an answer to Wesley’s second pamphlet,
entitled, “A Vindication of the Learning, Loyalty, Morals, and most
Christian Behaviour of the Dissenters towards the Church of England; in
answer to Mr Wesley’s Defence of his Letter concerning the Dissenters’
Education in their Private Academies; and to Mr Sacheverell’s injurious
Reflections upon them. By Samuel Palmer: London, 1705.”
Palmer, in his preface, states that in his former pamphlet he had
charged Wesley with giving a perverse and invidious turn to some of the
Dissenters’ innocent actions; with an ungenerous betrayal of private
confidence, by reflecting upon private conversations; with insulting the
works of great and excellent scholars; and with base ingratitude to his
Dissenting friends. He also speaks most contemptuously of Wesley’s reply
to his previous production, and says he did not think Wesley was
“capable of writing so rash, impertinent, and virulent a piece.”
Palmer’s vindication, which consists of 115 closely—printed quarto
pages, is written with great ability, and is divided into nine chapters.
The first is intended to prove that the Dissenters have a right to have
private academies. The second shows that such academies are no injury to
the prerogatives of Queen Anne, and that their tutors are not guilty of
perjury. The third vindicates the ability of such tutors, and assigns
reasons why the Dissenters have published so few learned works. The
fourth gives the reasons why the Dissenters did not write more against
Popery during the reign of James II. The fifth asserts that the
principles and behaviour of the Dissenters are loyal. The sixth defends
the addresses which the Dissenters presented to James II. The seventh
justifies the personal and public behaviour of Dissenters towards the
Church of England. The eighth vindicates the moral principles and
conversation of Dissenters. And the ninth shows the value which
Dissenters place upon external worship, upon the sacraments, and upon
ordination.
Two years after this, Mr Wesley wrote a long and elaborate reply to this
second pamphlet of Mr Palmer’s; but, for the present, we must pause in
our narrative to glance at other matters now transpiring. It was a
period of intense excitement, and the dissenting controversy was the
great question of the day.
A few weeks after the accession of Queen Anne, the famous Henry
Sacheverell began the war by preaching his furious sermon, at Oxford, on
“political union;” in which, says Defoe, “he dooms all Dissenters to
destruction, without either bell, book, or candle.”[167] In this
celebrated sermon, Sacheverell lays it down as a principle, that
“religion and government, Church and State, make up one entire
compounded constitution, sharing the same fate and circumstances,
twisted and interwoven into the very being and principles of each other,
both alike jointly assisting and being assisted; and, like the
philosopher’s twins, they communicate to each other their mirth or
sorrow, and equally suffer or rejoice. A ruined Church and prosperous
Government are irreconcilable contradictions in experience, confronted
and confuted by the universal testimony of all ages and histories,
sacred and profane.”[168] Having attempted to illustrate and to
establish this principle, he then makes his doctrine to bear upon
English Dissenters, and uses language the most violent. The following
are specimens:—
The Dissenters are “a confused swarm of sectarists gathered about the
body of the Church of England, not to partake of its communion, but to
disturb its peace,” (p. 20.)
Men like Tillotson, who were in favour of the scheme for comprehending
the Dissenters within the pale of the Established Church, are designated
“false and perfidious members, who, under the hypocritical disguise of
charity and moderation, would have taken down the fence of the Church of
England, and removed its landmark, to make way for men to enter, who
would have debauched its doctrines, overrun its discipline, and
subverted its constitution. These shuffling, treacherous latitudinarians
ought to be stigmatised, and treated equally as dangerous enemies to
government, as well as Church,” (p. 20.)
-----
Footnote 167:
_Inquiry into Occasional Conformity_, by Defoe.
Footnote 168:
Sacheverell’s _Sermon_, pp. 6, 7.
-----
Again: “Presbytery and Republicanism go hand in hand. They are but the
same disorderly, levelling principles, in the two different branches of
our state, equally implacable enemies to monarchy and Episcopacy. They
were the same hand that were guilty both of regicide and sacrilege, that
divided the king’s head and crown, and that made our churches stables
and dens of beasts, as well as thieves,” (p. 20.)
Again, in reference to Tillotson’s comprehension scheme, this firebrand
orator exclaims: “And yet this Church must open her injured arms to
receive this sly and insidious viper into her bosom. Her sacred
enclosures must be laid open, that this boar out of the wood might waste
it. Her partition wall must be broken down, and the veil of her temple
rent in twain, to make way for that adversary to enter, whom no reason
ever yet could convince; no kindness ever yet could win; no
condescension ever yet could oblige; and whom nothing but the corruption
of our doctrine, the destruction of our discipline, and the
sequestration of our estates and revenues, can satisfy,” (p. 21.)
“The Dissenting party have more than once been joined with the Papists,
in their arms and counsels, as well to extirpate our government as to
subvert our Church. They were at first the bastard spawn of Papists, and
have ever since been the instruments of their malice, the propagators of
their schism, and the panders of that cursed train of mischief, that was
originally hatched in a conclave, and afterwards brought forth and
nursed up in a conventicle. They are not to be looked upon as a
religious sect, but as a political faction in our State, uneasy under
its laws, affronting its authority, denying its legal power,
endeavouring to supplant its jurisdiction, and to wrest the reins of
dominion out of our rulers’ hands,” (p. 22.)
The fiery preacher thus concludes:—“It is an amazing contradiction to
our reason, and the greatest scandal upon our Church, that any,
pretending to be her true sons, pillars, and defenders, should turn such
apostates and renegadoes to their oaths and professions, such false
traitors to their trusts and offices as to strike sail with a party that
is such an open and avowed enemy to our communion, and against whom
every man that wishes its welfare ought to hang out the _bloody flag_
and _banner_ of defiance. Is this the people for whom, at the expense of
hazarding our eternal safety, we must give up our ancient faith,
constitution, and form of worship? If the Church of England can have no
other way of showing her charity than by prostituting her purity, and
debauching her religion, I hope they will pardon her if she imitate her
blessed Author and Founder, under a temptation not unlike it, who, with
scorn and disdain, turned His back upon the devil when he asked Him to
fall down and worship him. We must watch against these crafty,
faithless, and insidious persons, who can _creep_ to our altars, and
partake of our sacraments, that they may be _qualified_ more secretly
and powerfully to undermine us. This is such a religious piece of
political hypocrisy as even no heathen government would have endured;
and, blessed be God, there is now a person on the throne, who so justly
weighs the interest of Church and State as to remove so false an engine
that visibly overturns both,” (p. 24.)
Such was the way in which the High Church party _began_ their campaign,
and four months afterwards their representatives, in the House of
Commons, brought in and passed their pet “Occasional Conformity Bill.”
The Dissenters, at this period, were an influential and important
community. They were, generally speaking, men of trade and industry, and
the moneyed interests of England were, to a great extent, in their
hands. Such was their consequence in the State, that, the parliamentary
discussions of the “Occasional Conformity Bill” seriously influenced the
money market, and the prices of stocks rose or fell just as the bill was
likely to be passed or to be rejected.[169] And yet, notwithstanding
their number and importance, they were, with a few exceptions, extremely
reasonable in their demands. Defoe, himself a Dissenter,[170] expounds
them in a pamphlet published at the time, and we presume that his
exposition may be considered tolerably correct and just. He suggests
that if Dissenters are to be excluded from all places of profit, trust,
and honour, they ought to be excused from all places attended with
charge, trouble, and loss of time; that if a Dissenter be pressed as a
sailor to fight at sea, or be enlisted as a soldier to fight on shore,
he ought not to be declared incapable of preferment; and that if
Dissenters must not only maintain their own clergy and their own poor,
but also join in maintaining the clergy and the poor of the Established
Church,—if they must pay the same taxes and the same duties that
Churchmen pay, it is somewhat hard that they are to be treated with so
much suspicion as not to be thought worthy of being trusted to set a
drunkard in the stocks.[171]
-----
Footnote 169:
Defoe’s _Dissenters’ Answer to the High Church Challenge_.
Footnote 170:
Defoe’s _Letter to John Howe_.
Footnote 171:
Defoe’s _Inquiry into Occasional Conformity_.
-----
Defoe further declares, that, so far as it respects himself, he has not
the least objection to the “Occasional Conformity Bill” becoming law. He
has no notion of “Christians of an amphibious nature, who have such
preposterous consciences that they can believe one way of worship to be
right, and yet serve God another way themselves. This is a strange thing
in Israel! It is like a ship with her sails set, some back and some
full. It is like a workman that builds with one hand, and pulls down
with another. It is like everything which signifies nothing. To say that
a man can be of two religions is a contradiction, unless there be two
Gods to worship, or he has two souls to save. If it be unlawful for me
to dissent, I ought to conform; but if it be unlawful for me to conform,
I must dissent. To say that you take the sacrament as a _civil act_ in a
church, and as a _religious act_ in a chapel, is _playing bo—peep_ with
God Almighty.”[172]
-----
Footnote 172:
_Ibid._
-----
Such were the sentiments of Defoe, and he declares that nine—tenths of
the Dissenters, numbering altogether about two millions, entertained the
same opinions.[173] All he asks for is, what the Queen had recommended
to parliament, peace and union. In such a case, “the concerns of
conscience would never make a rupture in civil society; men would be
gentlemen as well as Christians; they would be Dissenters, and yet not
Dissenters; and there would be conformity in civil ceremonies, though
none in religious. This would make the devil out of love with the
English climate, and the people would get to heaven with the less
interruption.”[174]
-----
Footnote 173:
Defoe’s _Dissenter Misrepresented_.
Footnote 174:
Defoe’s _Challenge of Peace_.
-----
Defoe was very far from being one of the mildest and most moderate of
Dissenters; and yet, who can carp at sentiments like these?
There can be no doubt that blackguards, calling themselves Dissenters,
annually joined in the profane, bacchanalian revelries of the
Calves—head Club; but, on the other hand, it is equally certain that
some of the High Church party, with a direct reference to the death of
King William being said to have been immediately occasioned by his horse
stumbling over a mole—hill, were accustomed to drink a health to the
“little gentleman dressed in velvet,”[175] and to the horse which so
fatally stumbled over the insignificant heap of earth that had been
raised by his proboscis.[176]
-----
Footnote 175:
Chadwick’s _Life of Defoe_, p. 144.
Footnote 176:
Defoe’s _Mock Mourners_.
-----
Defoe complains that the same party “endeavoured, by calumny and
reproach, to blacken the Dissenters with crimes of which they were
innocent;”[177] that “railing pamphlets, buffooning them and dressing
them up in the bear’s skin for all the dogs in the street to bait them,”
were published; “and that railing sermons, exciting the people to hate
them,” were preached. He says “they were threatened with the repeal of
the Toleration Act, blackened with slanders, and bullied with bloody
flags, defiances, and Billingsgate language from the press and from the
pulpit; their meeting houses were represented as houses of sedition, and
they daily suffered from the indignities of harebrained priests,
buffooning poets, and clubs of insolent pamphleteers.”[178]
-----
Footnote 177:
_Inquiry into Occasional Conformity._
Footnote 178:
Defoe’s _Challenge of Peace_.
-----
What was the result of all this? The greatest bitterness was created,
and pamphlets, full of scurrility and violence, literally swarmed. Among
the writers of these productions, Daniel Defoe was the most eminent. The
pamphlet which, above all others, occasioned the greatest commotion, was
his “Shortest Way with Dissenters; or, Proposals for the Establishment
of the Church.” This was published anonymously, and pretended to be
written by one of the High Church party, and to set forth their
complaints and wishes. The Church is said to have harboured Dissenters
too long, and to have nourished the viperous brood till they hissed and
flew in the face of the mother that had cherished them. The Church had
been huffed and bullied by the Act of Toleration, and canting synagogues
had been set up at its very doors. The Dissenters had butchered one
king, deposed another, and made a mock monarch of a third, and yet
expected to be employed by the fourth. If James I. had sent all the
Puritans in England away to the West Indies, the Church of England would
have been kept undivided and entire; but these Puritans, to requite the
lenity of the father, took up arms against the son, put to death God’s
anointed, and set up a sordid impostor who had neither the title nor the
understanding to manage the nation. Coming into power, they shared the
church lands among their soldiers, and turned the clergy out to starve.
During the reign of their own King William, they had crept into all
places of trust and profit, and had been preferred to the highest posts
in England; while, in Scotland, they had trampled down the sacred
orders, suppressed the Episcopacy, and made an entire conquest of the
Church. For such reasons, they ought to be rooted out from the face of
the land, and never would the nation enjoy uninterrupted union and
tranquillity till their spirit of Whiggism, faction, and schism were
melted down like the old money. It was true, that Queen Anne had
promised them toleration, but she had also promised to protect and
defend the Church; and if she could not effectually do that without the
destruction of the Dissenters, she must, of course, dispense with one
promise in order to fulfil the other. The Parliament, protected and
encouraged by a Church of England queen, had now the opportunity to
suppress the spirit of enthusiasm, and to free the nation from the
vipers that had so long sucked the blood of their mother. If they were
permitted to remain, they would corrupt posterity, plunder the estates
of the members of the Church, drag their persons to gaols, gibbets, and
scaffolds, and swallow up the Church itself in schism, faction, and
enthusiasm. If one severe law were made and executed, that all found at
a conventicle should be transported, and their preacher be hanged, they
would soon all come to church, and an age would make all parties one
again. Why should an enthusiast be less a criminal than a Jesuit? Why
should the Papist, with his seven sacraments, be worse than a Quaker,
with no sacrament at all? Why should religious houses be more
intolerable than meeting—houses? What with Popery on the one hand, and
schismatics on the other, the Church of England had been crucified
between two thieves. Now, let the thieves be crucified, and let the
foundations of the Church be established on the destruction of her
enemies.
Such is the substance of Defoe’s notorious pamphlet. For a time, and to
some extent, the High Church party believed it to be a genuine
production; and one of them, in a letter, declared that, next to the
Holy Bible and Sacred Comments, it was the most valuable thing that his
library contained, and he earnestly prayed that God would put it into
the heart of Queen Anne to carry its proposals into execution.[179] It
is certain that there was nothing in Defoe’s pamphlet but what had been
substantially enunciated from scores of High Church pulpits; but now
that it was published, and a national commotion was created, and
especially, as soon as it was suspected that the writer was not a
Churchman, but a despicable Dissenter, there was a pretence of the most
terrible indignation, and threats of the severest punishment to be
inflicted upon the audacious author.
-----
Footnote 179:
Defoe’s _Dissenters’ Answer_.
-----
Defoe was suspected, and had to flee for safety. He was advertised in
the _London Gazette_, and £50 was offered by Government for his
apprehension. The advertisement describes him as “a middle—sized, spare
man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark—brown
coloured hair, but wears a wig; has a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray
eyes, and a large mole near his mouth.” This advertisement is dated
January 10, 1703, the year in which Wesley’s letter was published.
Six weeks after, the House of Commons passed a resolution, “That this
book (Defoe’s) being full of false and scandalous reflections on
parliament, and tending to promote sedition, be burnt by the hands of
the common hangman in New Palace Yard.”
Meantime, Defoe was arrested, and, in July 1703, was brought to trial.
His sentence was to pay a fine to the Queen of two hundred marks; to
stand three times in the pillory; to be imprisoned during the Queen’s
pleasure, and to find sureties for his good behaviour for seven years.
In accordance with this sentence, on July 29, Defoe was placed in the
pillory before the Royal Exchange; on July 30, near the Conduit in
Cheapside; and on July 31, at Temple Bar. Such pillory exhibitions had
seldom been witnessed. On each of the three days, thousands of
sympathisers accompanied the condemned scribe from Newgate prison to his
place of shame, to protect him from hurt or insult, whilst his very
pillory was hung with garlands woven by the fingers of his friends.
The pen of Defoe was never plied more busily than while he was in
prison. He wrote more church defiances during his year of confinement in
Newgate than in any other year of his chequered life. Other persons were
equally busy, and in all forms of pamphlet, tract, and broadsheet, the
press poured forth its volumes of contention. All classes of society
seemed to catch the contagion. Dean Swift, in London at the time,
declared that the contention between Church and Dissent was so
universal, that the dogs in the streets took it up, and the cats debated
the question by night on the tops of the houses; yea, the very ladies
were so split asunder into High Church and Low Church, and were so warm
in their disputes, as to have no time to say their prayers.
It was in the midst of this excitement that Samuel Wesley’s letter was
published by Clavel, and that his controversy with Palmer took place.
But besides having Palmer for an antagonist, Wesley was attacked by his
old schoolfellow, the redoubtable Daniel Defoe. This was in a pamphlet
published in 1704, and which was probably written in Newgate prison. It
was entitled “More Short Ways with the Dissenters.” The Queen having
been obliged to dismiss her High Church Cabinet, on account of the storm
that had been raised by their attempts to pass the “Occasional
Conformity Bill,” and thereby to suppress the Dissenters, Defoe alleges
that now another scheme was being concocted for the accomplishment of
the self—same purpose. The “new attempt struck at the root of the
Dissenters’ interest. It would effectually destroy the succession of
them in the nation; for it was intended to prevent them educating their
children in their own opinions.”
He then adds, in reference to Wesley, “If I should say that a mercenary
renegado was hired to expose the private academies of the Dissenters, as
nurseries of rebellious principles, I should say nothing but what is in
too many mouths to remain a secret. The Reverend Mr Wesley, author of
two pamphlets calculated to blacken our education in the academies of
the Dissenters, ingenuously confesses himself guilty of many crimes in
his youth, and is the willinger to confess them, as he would lay them at
the door of the Dissenters and their schools, among whom he was
educated; though I humbly conceive, it is no more a proof of the
immorality of the Dissenters in their schools _that he was a little
rakish among them_, or that he found others among them like himself,
than the hanging five students of Cambridge, for robbing on the highway,
should prove that padding is a science taught in that university. He
takes a great deal of pains to prove, that in these academies were or
are taught anti—monarchical principles; but the author of these sheets
happens to be one that was educated under the same master that he was
taught by, viz., Mr Charles Morton of Newington Green; and I have now by
me the manuscripts of science, the exercises of Mr Morton’s school, and,
among the rest, those of politics in particular; and I must do that
learned gentleman’s memory the justice to affirm, that neither in his
system of politics, government, and discipline, nor in any other of the
exercises of his school, was there anything taught or encouraged that
was antimonarchical, or destructive to the government or constitution of
England. Allow, then, that Mr Wesley fell into ill company afterwards;
allow we had, and still have worse rakes among us than himself, does
this prove that our schools teach men thus, and that the Dissenters, in
general, profess principles destructive of monarchy?”
Defoe then proceeds to say, that the reason why Dissenters have erected
and opened private academies, to teach their children by themselves, is
because the Church party, by imposing unreasonable terms, have shut them
out of theirs. He states that, if they will admit the youth of the
Dissenters into their universities, without imposing upon them unfair
oaths and obligations, the Dissenters, though objecting to “university
morals, as to the _trifles of drunkenness and lewdness_,” yet, would
engage to have always as many as two thousand of their young people
students in these seats of learning.
The remainder of Defoe’s pamphlet is devoted to a violent refutation of
Sacheverell’s second sermon at Oxford; a sermon in which, he declares,
there are fourteen positive untruths, to the reproach of the preacher’s
coat, and the scandal of his ministerial function.
Mr Wesley, in his first reply to Mr Palmer, used the Latin line as his
motto, _Noli irritare crabones_. He wished not to irritate the wasps;
but whether he wished it or not, the thing itself was done. We have seen
what Palmer and Defoe say of him and of his unlucky letter; and, we are
bound to add, that others have been not less pointed and severe. Dunton
writes—“Mr Wesley’s first piece was a most unkind satire. The world had
not known him unless he had thought to make himself public. I am afraid
Mr Wesley’s vein has almost spent itself; the dregs come the last. His
taxing the morals and behaviour of the Dissenting ministers was a
malicious falsehood, published on purpose to carry favour with the High
Flyers, and to enlarge his preferments.” Chadwick, in his Life of Defoe,
broadly asserts that Samuel Wesley himself published his letter
respecting dissenting academies; and that his traducing the Dissenters
“was intended, through the royal patronage, to send this time—serving
flatterer into the archbishopric of Canterbury, upon the back of that
unprincipled miscreant, Dr Sacheverell.” Milner, in his “Life and Times
of Dr Isaac Watts,” observes—“It is difficult to shield Mr Wesley from
the charge of seeking to further the designs of tyranny by private
slander; and of endeavouring to enlarge a scanty income by gratifying
the heads of the Church, in vilifying the seceders from its communion.
There is too much reason to fear that hopes of preferment led him to
join the party of Sacheverell in the work of abuse and defamation. Mr
Southey says, the reason why he left the Dissenters, was his falling in
with bigoted and ferocious men, who defended the execution of King
Charles, and shocked and disgusted him by their Calves—head Club. The
only authority for this extraordinary assertion is the evidence of
Samuel Wesley, the younger, a violent Jacobite; and Mr Southey
introduces the statement into his pages as if no suspicion was to be
entertained of the truth of the facts it expresses. It may be true that
Mr Wesley was a member of the Calves—head Club; it may be true that he
frequented the blind alley, near Moorfields, on the 30th of January; but
it is not true that any other cause beside his own imprudence introduced
him into such society; it is not true that the scenes he there witnessed
led to his secession from the Dissenters; for they had no more to do
with such disgraceful proceedings than their accusers; so that, the only
inference we can derive from the representation of Mr Southey is, that
the elder Wesley, in his youth, associated with a band of profligates;
and, as extremes in politics often meet, the furious republican became
at last a blind worshipper of the royal prerogative.”
In these extracts, the reader has before him the substance of all the
charges which Dissenting ignorance and hatred have brought against the
character of this venerable man. It is scarce worth while to refute
them; for they are all in flat contradiction to the facts published in
the previous pages of this narrative; and yet, perhaps, a brief reply
may be of service:—
CHARGES. ANSWERS.
Defoe says that Wesley was a Defoe gave utterance to a malicious
“mercenary renegado.” slander; in support of which he
does not even attempt to adduce the
slightest evidence.
Defoe says that Wesley was hired to Who hired him? What was his
expose the private academies of remuneration? This also is an
Dissenters. unfounded assertion, unsupported by
a single particle of proof.
Defoe says that Wesley ingenuously All that Mr Wesley acknowledges is,
confesses himself guilty of many that he wrote some “silly lampoons
crimes in his youth; and that he on Church and State,” at the
was a little rakish while he was instigation and urgent request of
among the Dissenters. some Dissenting ministers, who
ought to have known better than
expose a youth from the country to
such temptations. He further
maintains that if he was not an
“_exemplary_ liver” while with the
Dissenters, he was, at least, not a
“scandalous one.”
Defoe says Mr Morton never taught Mr Wesley says the same; and also
antimonarchical principles. adds, that whenever Mr Morton heard
any of his pupils talking
disaffectedly, or disloyally, he
never failed to rebuke them.
Defoe meanly insinuates that Mr We have no account of his being in
Wesley fell into ill company after any ill company after he left the
he left the Dissenters. Dissenters, except on one occasion,
when he was in company with a
number of Dissenting scoffers at
the Calves-head Club.
Leaving Defoe, turn to Dunton. The The Dissenter who purloined the
latter says that Wesley’s letter manuscript from under Wesley’s
“taxing the morals and behaviour of pillow while he slept, and then
Dissenting ministers was a dishonourably read it, freely
malicious falsehood.” acknowledged that there was nothing
in the letter but what was true.
Dunton says that Wesley published Mr Wesley did not publish it at
the letter “to curry favour with all. That was done by Mr Clavel,
the High Flyers, and to enlarge his who published it without either
preferment.” Wesley’s consent or knowledge.
Besides, so far from it being
intended to “curry favour with the
High Flyers,” it was written at a
time when Wesley undeniably
belonged to the Low Church party,
the head of which was the man he so
greatly praised two or three years
afterwards, viz., Archbishop
Tillotson.
Chadwick says Wesley published the That is an unblushing falsehood.
letter himself.
Chadwick says Wesley traduced the This provokes a smile, but is too
Dissenters in order to become absurd to deserve a serious answer.
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Milner accuses Wesley of seeking to Mr Wesley was an enemy of tyrants.
further the designs of tyranny. Witness what he said when James II.
exhibited his tyranny at Oxford.
Milner says that Wesley Mr Wesley never intended his letter
“endeavoured to enlarge a scanty to be even seen by the heads of the
income by gratifying the heads of Church; much less hoped that,
the Church in vilifying the through them, it would be the means
seceders from its communion.” of enlarging his scanty income.
Milner says there is reason to fear Where is the reason to be found?
that hopes of preferment led him to
join the party of Sacheverell.
Milner says that Samuel Wesley, Samuel Wesley’s brother John says,
jun., was a violent Jacobite. “he was no more a Jacobite than he
was a Turk.” (See _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ for 1785, page 246.)
Milner says that Samuel Wesley, Nay; the story is recited by Samuel
jun., is the only authority Wesley, sen., in the Defence of his
attesting the truthfulness of the Letter, published by himself, in
story about the Calves-head Club. 1704.
Milner dishonourably insinuates When Mr Milner wrote this, he knew
that “it may be true that Wesley that Mr Wesley was not a member of
was a member of the Calves-head the club; and that, so far from
Club, and that he frequented its frequenting its meetings, he was
meetings on the 30th of January.” never there but once, and then he
came away disgusted.
Milner says it was his own Perhaps it was imprudent for him to
imprudence that introduced him into have been in such a disreputable
such society. place; but he left it, “indignant
at the villanous principles and
practices” he had witnessed: and
never went again.
Milner says it is not true that the No one says it was. He left the
scene at the Calves-head Club was Dissenters years before this. But,
the cause of his leaving the if the scene at the Calves-head
Dissenters. Club was not the cause of his
leaving the Dissenters, it was the
cause of his writing his letter
respecting Dissenting Academies.
Milner says that he infers that The only band of profligates with
Wesley, in his youth, “associated whom Wesley associated in his youth
with a band of profligates.” were the profligates at the
Dissenting academies, and, in one
instance, a band of profligates at
the Calves-head Club, who called
themselves Dissenters.
Milner says the Dissenters had no We do not, for a single moment,
more to do with the disgraceful entertain the thought that the
proceedings of the Calves-head Club Calves-head Club had the
than their accusers had. approbation of the Dissenters as a
whole, or of even any considerable
minority; but still, there cannot
be a doubt that the members of the
club were men who considered
themselves Dissenters,
notwithstanding their utter
unfitness to be members of any
Dissenting Church.
We have thus fully stated all the hard things which Mr Wesley’s enemies
have thought fit to say against him, and, in this summary way, have
replied to them. Those who wish for further refutations must refer again
to the pages they have already read. Defoe’s accusation is calumnious
slander of the worst description. Chadwick is a man whose vulgar ravings
are hardly worthy of being noticed. The life of a man like Dr Watts is
blurred and blotted by such utterly false, if not malignant, charges as
those which the writer has brought against Mr Wesley. We have no quarrel
with Mr Milner on account of his attempt to show that the Calves-head
Club was an infamous association, which the Dissenting body, as a whole,
condemned; but he had no right to impeach the veracity of Mr Wesley,
and, by a mean insinuation, to try to cast upon him the disgrace of the
possibility that he himself was a member of this godless gang. That is
an ungenerous reproach, which none but an irritated man would have
ventured to employ. The barbarous Calves-head Club was a disgraceful
association, of which the great bulk of the Dissenters totally
disapproved; for it is cheerfully acknowledged that some classes of the
Dissenters were deeply averse to the murder of King Charles I., and were
among the first to welcome his son Charles II., to the English monarchy;
but while all this is most readily allowed, we submit that this is no
refutation of the statement that the members of that abominable club
declared themselves to be Dissenters; nor is it any excuse for Mr
Milner’s attack on Mr Wesley’s veracity, and especially for his unworthy
suggestion that Mr Wesley himself might be an associate of the
profligate fellows of which the Calves-head Club consisted.
Believing Mr Wesley to be unimpeachable in the painful business that has
been here discussed, and feeling that his character and rank in society
make it of some importance to keep his fair fame without a blot, we
offer no apology for this lengthened, and, perhaps, tedious chapter in
his history. Dr Adam Clarke sums up the whole in terms to which we find
it impossible to assent. He writes: “In the heat of his zeal for the
Church, after his conversion from dissenting principles, Mr Samuel
Wesley, in his controversial writings, often overstepped the bounds of
Christian moderation.” Did he? We have read the whole of his
controversial writings; and, finding no proof of this, we respectfully
doubt it.