FIRE AND FURY-1709-1712.
On two previous occasions Samuel Wesley had been a heavy sufferer by
fire. In 1702, two-thirds of his parsonage was burnt; and, in 1704, all
his flax shared the same disastrous fate. Five years after this,
another, and even more serious, fire occurred. On February 9, 1709, at
midnight, when all the family were in bed, Hetty, who was now twelve
years old, was awoke by sparks of fire falling from the roof upon her
feet. On account of severe illness from which his wife was suffering,
Samuel Wesley was sleeping in a separate room. Hetty ran to alarm him,
and, at the same moment, he was startled by a cry of fire out of doors.
He hurried to Mrs Wesley, and bid her and her eldest daughters rise as
quickly as possible. He then burst open the nursery door, where in two
beds were sleeping five of his children and their nurse. The nurse
seized Charles, the youngest, and bid the others follow. Three of the
elder children did as they were bidden; but John was left sleeping. All
the family excepting him, a child seven years of age, were in the hall
surrounded with flames and unable to escape, the key of the door being
above stairs. Mr Wesley ran up and recovered the key a minute before the
stair steps took fire. The door was now opened, but the wind drove the
flames inwards with such violence that egress seemed impossible. Some of
the children now escaped through the windows, and the rest through a
little door into the garden. Mrs Wesley was not in a condition either to
climb to the windows or get to the garden door; and, naked as she was,
she was compelled to force her way to the main entrance through the fury
of the flames, which she did, suffering no further harm than the
scorching of her legs, hands, and face.
When Mr Wesley was counting heads to see if all his family were safe, he
heard a cry issuing from the nursery, and found that John was wanting.
He attempted to ascend the stairs, but they were all on fire, and were
insufficient to bear his weight. Finding it impossible to render help,
he knelt down in the blazing hall and commended the soul of his child to
God. Meanwhile the child had mounted a chest which stood near the
window, and one in the yard saw him, and proposed running to fetch a
ladder for his escape. Another seeing there was not time for that,
proposed that he would fix himself against the wall, and that a lighter
man should be set upon his shoulders. This was done—the child was pulled
through the window; and, at the same instant, the roof fell with a
fearful crash, but fortunately fell inwards, and thus the two men and
the rescued child were saved from perishing. When the child was taken to
an adjoining house where his father was, the devout rector cried, “Come,
neighbours, let us kneel down; let us give thanks to God; He has given
me all my eight children; let the house go; I am rich enough.”
The next day, as he was walking in his garden, and mournfully surveying
the ruins of his house, he descried part of a leaf of his Polyglott
Bible, on which the only words legible were: “Vade, vende omnia quae
habes, et attolle crucem, et sequere me.” “Go, sell all that thou hast;
and take up thy cross, and follow me.”
The house, the furniture, and the rector’s library were burnt; but
perhaps the severest loss, at least to posterity, was the destruction of
manuscripts. This included Mr Wesley’s long-continued literary
correspondence, the writings of his wife, and many important papers
relative to the Annesley family, and particularly to Dr Annesley
himself;—papers which the doctor had intrusted to Mrs Wesley as his best
beloved child. Besides these, all the sermons of the rector were
consumed, and likewise a large and important manuscript on Hebrew
poetry, in which he had turned the book of Psalms, and all the Hebrew
hymns in the Pentateuch, and in the book of Judges, into verse.
A few small mementoes of this terrible calamity were preserved, and
among others a hymn, written by Samuel Wesley, with music adapted,
probably by Henry Purcell or Dr Blow. This hymn is the only one, by the
rector of Epworth, that finds a place in the Methodist Hymn-Book, and
there even it is curtailed. We present it to the reader complete.
“Behold the Saviour of mankind
Nail’d to the shameful tree!
How vast the love that Him inclined
To bleed and die for thee!
“Though far unequal our low praise
To Thy vast sufferings prove,
O Lamb of God, thus all our days
Thus will we grieve and love.
“Hark, how He groans! while nature shakes,
And earth’s strong pillars bend;
The temple’s veil in sunder breaks;
The solid marbles rend.
“’Tis done! the precious ransom’s paid;
“Receive My soul,” He cries:
See where He bows His sacred head!
He bows His head and dies!
“But soon he’ll break death’s envious chain,
And in full glory shine:
O Lamb of God! was ever pain,
Was ever love like Thine!
“Thy loss our ruins did repair,
Death, by Thy death, is slain;
Thou wilt at length exalt us where
Thou dost in glory reign.”
Samuel Wesley himself wrote an account of this dire disaster to his old
patron, the Duke of Buckingham; and that account contains some
particulars not included in the preceding statement, taken from the
description furnished by his wife. He says, that on the day when the
fire occurred they had been brewing, but had finished the operation at
least six hours before the flames broke out. He was in his study till
half-past ten o’clock, but neither saw nor smelled anything of fire. The
reason why he slept in a room separate from his wife was because she was
near her confinement. Her daughters, Emilia and Susannah, were sleeping
with her. When he was aroused by the cry of fire, he ran to her room
with his nightgown and one stocking on, and his breeches in his hand.
They had about £20, in gold and silver, in the room occupied by Mrs
Wesley, which she wanted to take with her; but there was no time for
this, and she had to escape for her life as she left her bed. The whole
family had to flee in nothing but their night-dresses. While the nurse
was escaping with the infant child, Charles, in her arms, she was
saluted with a curse by one of the neighbours, and told that they had
fired the house themselves, the second time, on purpose. While Wesley
was running about the street, inquiring for his wife and children, he
met the chief man and chief constable of the town going from the house,
not towards it. Wesley took him by the hand and said, “God’s will be
done!” His surly answer was, “Will you never have done with your tricks?
You fired your house once before. Did you not get money enough by it
then that you have done it again?” Wesley replied, “God forgive you! I
find you are chief, Maw, still.” When he found his wife she was almost
speechless. She had waded, at the peril of her life, through two or
three yards of flame, having nothing on but her shoes and a wrapping
gown, and a loose coat, which she held about her breast. He adds, “When
poor Jackey was saved, I could not believe it till I had kissed him two
or three times. My wife said, ‘Are your books safe?’ I told her it was
not much, now she and all the rest were preserved alive. A little lumber
was saved below stairs; but not one rag or leaf above. We found some of
the silver in a lump, which I shall send up to Mr Hoare to sell for me.
Mr Smith, of Gainsborough, and others, have sent for some of my
children. I want nothing, having above half my barley safe in my barns
unthrashed. I had finished my alterations in the ‘Life of Christ’ a
little while since, and transcribed three copies of it; but all is lost.
God be praised! I know not how to write to my poor boy Samuel; and yet I
must, or else he will think we are all lost. I hope my wife will recover
and not miscarry, but God will give me my nineteenth child. She has
burnt her legs; but they mend. When I came to her her lips were black. I
did not know her. Some of the children are a little burnt, but not hurt
or disfigured. I only got a small blister on my hand. The neighbours
send us clothes, for it is cold without them.”[198]
-----
Footnote 198:
_C. Wesley’s Life_, vol. ii. p. 493.
-----
How are we to account for these repeated fires at the Epworth parsonage?
Were they the effect of design or of accident? Mr Maw, the chief man of
the town, who more than thirty years afterwards seems to have been a
friend to John Wesley, and to one of his itinerants, (_see_ Wesley’s
_Works_, vol. i. pp. 438 and 485; also, vol. ii. p. 45,) most cruelly
charged Mr Wesley with setting fire to the house himself. A more
atrocious accusation could not have been cast upon him. What reason on
earth was there to induce such a man to commit such an act? It is true,
he might expect money to be given to rebuild his house; but was that
sufficient to induce a man of Wesley’s high character to destroy not
only all his furniture, but his books, sermons, and manuscripts; to run
the risk of killing himself, his wife, and his eight children; and, at
the least, to leave the whole of them, in the depth of winter, without a
shred of clothing, and without a hut to shelter them; the whole family,
to use the rector’s own language, being reduced, in regard to house,
furniture, and clothes, to the same state as that in which “Adam and Eve
were when they first set up housekeeping?” To suppose the very
possibility of such a thing is a most monstrous outrage against reason
and common sense; and when such an accusation was made by “the chief man
of the town,” and by the foul-mouthed blasphemer that cursed the
nursemaid and little Charles, one cannot help suspecting that this was
done, not because they thought the rector guilty, but in order to hide
the guilt of the execrable villains whom they knew or suspected to be
the actual perpetrators of the deed.
If Wesley, then, was not himself the incendiary, was the fire an
accident? This also is unlikely. The fire did not occur in summer, when
a spark might ignite the thatch, but in winter, when the thatch was
saturated with rain, and snow. It occurred not in the day time, but at
the hour of midnight, when all the fires of the house were extinguished.
It broke out not in the lower part of the house, but in the roof of the
corn-chamber,[199] filled with wheat and other grain,[200] and therefore
must have been lighted from without. Wesley supposes the possibility of
the chimney having taken fire; but, as a set-off against such a
supposition, he adds that the chimney had recently been swept, and that
when he went to bed, about half an hour before the flames were seen, he
neither saw nor smelled anything of fire. Put all these facts together,
and the conclusion is almost inevitable that the house was not fired
either by Wesley himself, or by accident. If, then, the house was not
fired by the rector himself, nor yet by accident, how did the disaster
happen? John Wesley, and probably his father, held the opinion that the
house was designedly set on fire by some of Mr Wesley’s enemies. What
evidence is there in favour of this opinion?
-----
Footnote 199:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1846, p. 1087.
Footnote 200:
_C. Wesley’s Life_, vol. ii., p. 495.
-----
First of all, there is the fact that, during the last six years, Mr
Wesley had taken a prominent part in the great controversy of the
period,—the exceedingly bitter controversy between the Dissenters and
the High-Church party of the Church of England. This had made him many
enemies.
Secondly, he had, four years before, in the severely contested county
election, incurred great opprobrium, and not a little danger, by voting
for the Tory and High-Church candidates.
Thirdly, he had to deal with dishonest parishioners, and did not always
treat them with the utmost discretion. Take a case in point. Many of the
parishioners gave him trouble about his tithes, and, at one time, would
only pay in kind. Going into a field where the tithe corn was already
separated from the rest, Mr Wesley found the farmer very deliberately
cutting off the ears of corn from Wesley’s tithe sheaves, and putting
them into a bag. Wesley walked up to him, but, instead of accusing him
of his shabby theft, took him by the arm, and walked with him into
Epworth. Reaching the market-place, the rector suddenly seized the
farmer’s bag, and turning it inside out before all the people, told them
of the petty pilfering of which the farmer had been guilty. He then left
him, with his scattered spoils, to the judgment of his neighbours, and,
with the utmost composure, went home to his wife and family. The
beggarly thief richly deserved such a withering exposure; but such
treatment was likely to turn such delinquents into most insatiable
enemies.[201]
-----
Footnote 201:
Moore’s _Life of J. Wesley_, vol. i. p. 112.
-----
Fourthly, added to all this, it must be borne in mind that, at this
period, the people in the neighbourhood of Epworth, and living in the
Isle of Axholme, were little better than Christian savages, and that it
was no unusual thing for them to vent their hatred by burning the crops
and the farm-steads of those whom they regarded as their enemies. A few
years before the burning of the parsonage, a Mr Reading, with
commendable spirit, had enclosed about a thousand acres of Epworth manor
with a good substantial fence, and had ploughed it, and used other means
to make it productive; and, for this enterprising act and for other
reasons, the half-brutal inhabitants assaulted him and his servants
wherever they had a chance, and even fired guns at them. They destroyed
all Mr Reading’s out-buildings and his tenants’ houses; they chipped his
fruit-trees, burnt his fences, and turned his cattle into his standing
corn; and finally they fired his house, with the intention of burning
him, his wife, and his children in their beds. This lawless mob was
headed by a furious, termagant woman, called Popplewell; and she and
some others of her companions were indicted at Lincoln assizes, in 1694,
and were convicted, but, strangely enough, were allowed to escape
punishment by the payment of a paltry fine.
Mr Reading, after this, rebuilt his burnt house at a short distance from
the site of the former one; but no sooner was it finished than it was
set on fire during the night, the key-holes of the doors being filled
with clay to prevent the family making their escape. This was in April
1697; and two months afterwards, as though it was not enough to burn a
man’s house twice over, the rioters proceeded to pull down his farm
buildings, broke his lead pump in pieces, cut down his orchard, and
burnt all his implements of husbandry.[202] One reason assigned for all
this lawless outrage was that Mr Reading had been appointed to collect
the rents of the sixty thousand acres of swamps in the Isle of Axholme,
which, at an expense of £56,000, had been drained during the reign of
Charles 1., and on which recovered lands about two hundred Dutch
families and a number of French Protestants had settled. For more than
fifty years tumults were continual; and, in 1702, Mr Reading drew up a
memorial, in which he mentions his “having provided horses, arms, and
necessaries, with twenty hired men, and often more,” to maintain the
peace; and, that “after thirty-one set battles,” he had reduced the
riotous inhabitants to obedience. Proceedings in Chancery were
instituted, but these unhappy disputes, respecting the proprietaryship
of the soil, were not finally adjusted till 1719.[203]
-----
Footnote 202:
Stonehouse’s _History of Axholme_.
Footnote 203:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1845, p. 148.
-----
It was among such half-civilised savages that Samuel Wesley lived and
laboured. No wonder that, as in the case of his neighbour Mr Reading,
his house and premises should be set on fire once and again within the
space of seven short years. At that period this was the way in which the
men of the Isle of Axholme displayed and gratified their malignant and
revengeful feeling.
The second burning of Mr Wesley’s parsonage was a terrible calamity.
Apart from the loss of his furniture, books, and manuscripts, it was a
serious trial for himself, his pregnant wife, and his seven children, to
be left without a home, and almost without a rag to hide their
nakedness. The children were divided among their neighbours, relatives,
and friends, Matthew Wesley, the surgeon, taking two, Susannah and
Mehetabel. The rector and his wife, of course, had to remain at Epworth,
and provide for themselves in the best way they could. The house was
rebuilt within a year after it was burnt; but the rector was so
impoverished that thirteen years afterwards his wife declares that the
house was still not half furnished, and that to that very day she and
her children had not more than half enough of clothing.[204] No wonder;
for, in the self-same letter, Mrs Wesley expressly states that, after
deducting “taxes, poor assessments, sub-rents, tenths, procurations, and
synodals,” the Epworth living brought them not more than about £130 a
year. Out of that amount the rector had to re-furnish his house,
re-stock his library, find food and clothing for a family of ten or
twelve, and provide the best education for his children that he could.
-----
Footnote 204:
Moore’s _Life of J. Wesley_, vol. i. p. 565.
-----
The new parsonage was a great improvement upon the old thatched building
that was burnt. It is thus described by Dr Adam Clarke, who visited it
one hundred and eleven years after it was built:—“It is a large, plain
mansion, built of brick, with a canted roofed and tiled; a complete
old-fashioned family house, and very well suited for nineteen children.
The attic floor is entirely from end to end of the whole building; the
floor terraced, and evidently designed for a repository of the tithe
corn, and where it would be kept cool and safe. In the churchyard there
is a sycamore tree, which was planted by the hand of old Samuel Wesley,
and which is exactly two fathoms in circumference. It is become hollow
at the root, and is decaying fast. It is well grown, and has shot out
strong and powerful boughs, but some have already dropt off, and, after
a few more years, it will have neither root nor branch.”
This was in 1821. Dr A. Clarke represents the people of Epworth, at that
time, as having “but little polish, but no boorishness in their
manners.” They appeared to be good-natured, simple, sincere, humble, and
singularly modest, and retained “the manners of the better part of the
peasants of two hundred years ago,” so that, of course, in the doctor’s
estimation, they were still, notwithstanding all their improvements, two
hundred years behind their age. The doctor, however, was highly
gratified with his visit; brought away with him a pair of fire-tongs
which had once been the property of Samuel Wesley; and mentions a fact
unparalleled in his travellings, viz., that, on leaving Epworth, he “had
no road for upwards of forty miles, but travelled through fields of
corn, wheat, rye, potatoes, barley, and turnips, often crushing them
under the carriage wheels.” Even as late as 1821, there seems to have
been no better road to Epworth than this.[205]
-----
Footnote 205:
_Life of Dr Clarke_, by a member of his family, vol. ii. p. 402.
-----
In the same year that the Epworth parsonage was burnt, great excitement
was created in the nation by two turbulent sermons preached by Dr Henry
Sacheverell, one at Derby, the other at St Paul’s.
Henry Sacheverell was ten years younger than Samuel Wesley. He obtained
the rudiments of education from a village schoolmaster, at the cost of
an apothecary, on whose death, his widow sent the youth to Magdalene
College, Oxford. Here he distinguished himself by some clever poems in
Latin; was chosen fellow of his college, and became tutor to several
pupils who afterwards attained great eminence. His first preferment in
the Church was to the living of Cannock, in Staffordshire; whence he
removed, in 1705, to St Saviour’s, Southwark. Four years after his
removal hither, he preached the sermons already mentioned. The sermon at
Derby, was preached at the assizes, August 15, 1709, and is entitled,
“The Communication of Sin, a Sermon, by Henry Sacheverell, D.D.;
published at the request of the gentlemen of the grand jury, London,
1709.” The text is, “Neither be partakers of other men’s sins.” One
extract from the sermon must suffice. Speaking of men propagating sin by
pernicious writings, he says:—
“How do these execrable miscreants, Arius and Socinus, though so many
years rotten in their graves, still stink above ground, and live again
in a hellish transmigration of their damnable blasphemies and heresies!
How do those Atheistical monsters, Hobbes and Spinoza, in their accursed
books and proselytes, still deny the God that made them! What a magazine
of sin, what an inexhaustible fund of debauchery and destruction does
any author of heresy, schism, or immorality, set up! Who would have
thought, threescore years ago, that the romantic and silly enthusiasms
of such an illiterate and scandalous wretch as George Fox should, in the
small compass even of our own memory, gain such mighty ground, captivate
so many fools, and damn them with diabolical inspiration and nonsensical
cant? Or, to go higher, who would have thought that two or three
Jesuits, in masquerade, crept into a conventicle, should sow those
schismatical seeds of faction and rebellion, that, in a few years,
should rise to that prodigious degree, as to be able to grasp the crown,
contend with the sceptre and not only threaten, but accomplish the
downfall of both Church and State? And are not the same hands at work
again? Were ever such outrageous blasphemies against God and all
religion vented publicly with impunity as at present in our own Church
and kingdom?”
The sermon at St Paul’s was preached on the 5th of November 1709, and is
entitled, “The Perils of False Brethren, both in Church and State.” It
is dedicated “To the Right Honourable Sir Samuel Garrard, Lord Mayor of
the City of London.” The sermon is long, able, and eloquent; but, at the
same time, rabid and almost frantic. The following are specimens:—
Speaking of the Church of England, he says: “Her holy communion has been
rent and divided by factions and schismatical impostors; her pure
doctrine has been corrupted and defiled; her primitive worship and
discipline profaned and abused; her sacred orders denied and vilified;
her priests and professors calumniated, misrepresented, and ridiculed;
her altars and sacraments prostituted to hypocrites, Deists, Socinians,
and Athiests; and all this done, not only by our professed enemies, but,
which is worse, by our pretended friends and false brethren.”
Having laid down the doctrine of “absolute and unconditional obedience
to kings in all things lawful,” he proceeds to say: “This fundamental
doctrine, notwithstanding its divine sanction, is now, it seems, quite
exploded and ridiculed out of countenance, as an unfashionable,
superannuated, nay, as a dangerous tenet, utterly inconsistent with the
right, liberty, and property of the people, who have the power invested
in them to cancel their allegiance at pleasure, and to call their
sovereign to account for high-treason against his supreme subjects; yea,
to dethrone and murder him for a criminal, as they did the royal martyr,
by a judiciary sentence. God be thanked, these damnable positions, let
them come from Rome or from Geneva, from the pulpit or the press, are
condemned for rebellion and high-treason. Where is the difference
betwixt the power granted the people to judge and dethrone their
sovereigns for any cause they think fit, and the no less usurped power
of the Pope to solve the people from their allegiance, and to dispose of
sceptres and diadems whenever he thinks it his interest to pluck them
from his enemies? If such a deposing power is to be intrusted into the
hands of mortals, less inconvenience will ensue in placing it in one
than in many. Our crown and constitution can never be safe under such
precarious dependencies and despotic imaginations. A prince will be the
breath of his subjects’ nostrils, to be blown in or out at their caprice
and pleasure, and a worse vassal than the meanest of his guards. Such
villainous and seditious principles as these, demand a confutation from
that government they so insolently threaten and arraign, and are only
proper to be answered by that sword they would make our princes bear in
vain, by the so long-called-for censure of an ecclesiastical synod, and
the correction of a provoked and affronted legislature, to whose strict
justice and undeserved mercy I commit both them and their authors.”
Again, speaking of the Dissenters, he designates them “filthy dreamers,
presumptuous and self-willed men, despisers of dominion, who are not
afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, and who wrest the Word of God to
their own destruction.” He adds: “These false brethren in our government
are suffered to combine into bodies and seminaries, where Atheism,
Deism, Tritheism, Socinianism, with all the hellish principles of
fanaticism, regicide, and anarchy, are openly professed and taught, to
corrupt and debauch the youth of the nation. Certainly the toleration
was never intended to indulge and cherish such monsters and vipers in
our bosom, that scatter their pestilence at noon-day, and will rend,
distract, and confound the firmest and best settled constitution in the
world. It is true, that since these sectarists and sanctified hypocrites
have found out a way to swallow not only oaths but sacraments, to
qualify themselves to get into places and preferments, they can put on a
show of loyalty and seem tolerably easy in the government; but let her
Majesty reach out her little finger to touch their loins, and these
sworn adversaries to passive obedience and the royal family shall fret
themselves, and curse their Queen, and their God, and shall look
upwards.”
Speaking of the comprehension scheme of Archbishop Tillotson, he says,
“This latitudinarian, heterogeneous mixture of all persons of what
different faith soever, uniting in Protestancy, would render the Church
of England the most absurd, contradictory, and self-inconsistent body in
the world. This spurious and villainous notion, which will take in Jews,
Quakers, Mohammedans, and anything as well as Christians, our false
brethren have made use of to undermine the very essential constitution
of our Church. Her worst adversaries must be let into her bowels under
the holy umbrage of sons. To admit this religious Trojan horse, big with
arms and ruin into our holy city, the strait gate must be laid quite
open; and the pure spouse of Christ must be prostituted to more
adulterers than the scarlet whore in the Revelations. This was indeed a
ready way to fill the house of God with pagan beasts instead of
Christian sacrifices. Our Church would have been ruined by the blasted
and long-projected scheme of these ecclesiastical Ahithophels; a scheme
so monstrous, that even the sectarists of all sorts laughed at it as
ridiculous and impracticable.”
“Let the Dissenters, those miscreants, begot in rebellion, born in
sedition, and nursed up in faction, enjoy the indulgence the Government
has condescended to give them; but let them also move within their
proper sphere, and not grow eccentric, and, like comets that burst their
orb, threaten the ruin and downfall of our Church and State. They tell
us they have relinquished the principles as well as the sins of their
forefathers; but, if so, why do they not renounce their schism, and come
sincerely into our Church? Why do they still pelt the Church with more
blasphemous libels, and scurrilous lampoons, than were ever published in
Oliver’s usurpation? Have they not lately villainously divided us with
knavish distinctions of High and Low Churchmen? Are not the best
characters they give us those of Papists, Jacobites, and conspirators?”
This firebrand sermon was delivered before the Lord Mayor and
Corporation of London, in St Paul’s Cathedral, on the 5th of November
1709. The magistrates and common-councilmen gave thanks to the
thundering preacher; the discourse was printed, and above 40,000 copies
distributed throughout the kingdom. Parliament met on the 15th of the
same month, and the House of Commons at once passed a resolution to the
effect, that this sermon, and also another, which on the 15th of August
previous Sacheverell had preached at Derby Assizes, “were malicious,
scandalous, and seditious libels, highly reflecting upon her Majesty and
her Government, the late happy Revolution, and the Protestant
succession, as by law established;” and ordered that Dr Henry
Sacheverell should attend at the bar of the House. Accordingly, on
December 14th, Sacheverell went to Westminster, where he was met by a
hundred of the most eminent clergymen then resident in and about the
capital, including the Queen’s own chaplains. The doctor was taken into
custody, and impeached at the bar of the House of Lords of high crimes
and misdemeanours. After being kept in custody for a month, he was on
the 13th of January 1710, admitted to bail. The trial was fixed for
February 27th, and the Commons resolved to be present as a committee of
the whole House, and a place was prepared for them accordingly in
Westminster Hall. The articles of impeachment were four in number, and
were urged by the chief members of her Majesty’s Government; while
Sacheverell had a council of five gentlemen employed in his defence.
When the legal advisers on both sides had said all that they had to say,
the doctor was permitted to speak for himself. The scene was immensely
imposing. The trial lasted for a period of more than three weeks, from
February 27th to the 23d of March. The greatest excitement prevailed
both in town and country. It was given out boldly, and in all places,
that the Dissenters were about to recover their old ascendancy; that a
design was formed by the Whig Government to pull down the Church; that
the prosecution of Sacheverell was only to try their strength, and that
upon their success in it they would proceed to their object openly and
fearlessly. The clergy generally espoused Sacheverell as their champion,
and used their pulpits in his defence. Many places were full of riot,
and little was heard throughout the country except the old war-cry of
the Church in danger. In London there was every day a prodigious mob of
butchers’ boys, chimney-sweepers, scavengers, costermongers, and
prostitutes; and the more respectable class of the citizens began to
apprehend that all this drinking and rioting might end in robbing,
maiming, and murdering. In Westminster Hall, near the throne, was a box,
where the Queen sat, an interested listener, in a private character; one
platform was raised for the managers of the impeachment, and another for
the doctor and his counsel. On one side of the hall, benches were
erected for the Commons of Great Britain; and, on the other,
accommodations were provided for noble ladies and gentlewomen; while, at
the end, were galleries for the people in general. When Sacheverell left
the hall, on the first day of his trial, to return to his comfortable
and well-stocked lodging in the Temple, a countless mob that had stood
shouting, during the proceedings in Palace Yard, followed him with
tremendous huzzas; the streets were thronged; people of both sexes
saluted him from balconies and windows; while the doctor pompously
returned these compliments from the chair in which he was being carried,
and bowed and nodded like a Chinese mandarin. On the second day of the
trial, the mob began to plunder and to burn the Dissenters’
meeting-houses. The first attack was upon Mr Burgess’s chapel. The
pulpit and pews were pulled in pieces; and cushions, Bibles, benches,
curtains, sconces, and everything else combustible, were carried into
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and set on fire, amid shouts of “High Church and
Sacheverell! Sacheverell and High Church!” Five or six other chapels
were similarly destroyed. Bishop Burnet’s house was threatened, and a
man standing at the door had his skull cleft with a spade, because he
refused to shout, “The Church and Sacheverell;”[206] but a detachment of
the Guards was called out and the mob dispersed.
-----
Footnote 206:
Burnet’s _History_, vol. ii. p. 542.
-----
As already stated, when the Commons had gone through their charges, and
the counsel for Sacheverell had spoken in his defence, he was allowed to
speak for himself. It was a noticeable fact, however, that the speech
which Sacheverell recited differed so widely from the style of his
sermons and other productions, that it was evidently the work of
another. The author of Knight’s History of England, thinks it probable
that Sacheverell was assisted in it by the learning of Dr Smalridge and
Dr Atterbury, both of whom stood by his side during nearly the whole of
his lengthened trial; and others have suspected that, because of the
help thus afforded, Sacheverell, by his will, bequeathed Atterbury a
legacy of £500. It so happens, however, that all this speculation is
beside the mark, for John Wesley most emphatically declares that
Sacheverell’s defence was written “by the rector of Epworth,” his
father.[207] If we are asked for farther evidence of this, we have none
to give. John Wesley, without doubt, had the information from his
father, and both he and his father, we trust, are above the suspicion of
being capable of giving utterance to a statement which they knew to be a
lie. There was nothing to induce either Wesley or his father to claim
the paternity of Sacheverell’s defence, if such paternity had not been a
fact; and even if circumstances had existed to render it an honourable
distinction to be recognised as the author of such a production, John
Wesley and his father were among the last men in the world to attempt to
secure honour by dishonourable means. Personally we should rejoice if
the authorship belonged to Smalridge, Atterbury, or any one sooner than
to Samuel Wesley; but, after the explicit declaration of his son, we are
_forced_ to the belief that Sacheverell’s defence was a defence which
Wesley wrote for Sacheverell to recite. We regret this for a twofold
reason; first, because Sacheverell, however able, was a turbulent
priest, not worthy of the help of such a man as the rector of Epworth
was; and, secondly, because it proves that Wesley, who began his
ministerial life as a moderate Churchman, and an admirer of Archbishop
Tillotson, was now a partisan of the High Church clique, and allied with
men who regarded the Dissenters with the bitterest hostility. It is true
that considering the treatment which Wesley had received from his old
friends, the Dissenters, during the last six years, there is no need to
be surprised at this; and yet, at the same time, it is a fact which the
writer cannot but deplore.
-----
Footnote 207:
Wesley’s _History of England_, vol. iv. p. 75.
-----
Sacheverell’s defence lies before us,[208] but it is scarce worth
quoting. He remarks that the charges against him are very serious; and,
for that reason, ought to be sustained by the clearer proofs; whereas
all that had been adduced had been “intendments, unnecessary
implications, strained constructions, broken sentences, and independent
passages.” In reference to the first article of impeachment, that he had
reflected upon the late revolution, and suggested that the means to
bring it about were odious and unjustifiable, he asserts that he did not
apply his doctrine of non-resistance to the Revolution; and then
contends that so far as the doctrine itself is concerned, it is in
perfect accordance with the teachings of the apostles and of the
Christian fathers, with the laws of the kingdom, and with the homilies
and articles of the English Church. In answer to the second article,
that he had defamed the Dissenters, and cast scurrilous reflections upon
those who favoured and defended liberty of conscience, he admits that he
had spoken with some warmth against hypocrites, Socinians, and Deists;
but he also contends that he had declared his approval of the indulgence
granted to the Dissenters by the law of toleration. As to the third
article, that he had said the Church was in danger under her Majesty’s
administration, he denies it altogether; but, at the same time says,
that the Church is in danger from the profaneness and immorality, the
heresies and schisms of the kingdom; for “never were the ministers of
Christ so abased and vilified, and the Divine authority of the
Scriptures so arraigned and ridiculed; never were infidelity and atheism
so impudent and barefaced as they are at present.” In reference to the
fourth article, that he had reproachfully called those, whom the Queen
had promoted to high stations in Church and State, spurious and false
brethren, he contends that he was as loyal as any man among them, and
that his sermons and his whole behaviour proved it. He concluded by
declaring that, “whether he was acquitted or condemned, he should always
pray for the Queen his sovereign, their lordships, his judges, and the
Commons, his accusers; and he trusted that God would deliver them from
all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart and
contempt of His Word; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all
uncharitableness.”
-----
Footnote 208:
It is entitled, “The Speech of Henry Sacheverell, D.D., upon his
impeachment at the bar of the House of Lords, in Westminster Hall,
March 7, 1710. London, 1710.” It was published by Sacheverell himself,
and is a small octavo of twenty-four pages.
-----
The result of this remarkable trial was, that, on March 20th,
sixty-eight members of the House of Lords found Dr Sacheverell guilty of
the high crimes and misdemeanours charged against him by the impeachment
of the House of Commons; and fifty-two found him not guilty. Three days
after, his sentence was pronounced, to the effect that he should not
preach during the three years next ensuing; and that his two printed
sermons referred to in the impeachment, should be burnt before the Royal
Exchange, on March 27th, by the hands of the common hangman, in the
presence of the Lord Mayor of London, and of the Sheriffs of London and
Middlesex.
This mild sentence was looked upon by the friends of Sacheverell rather
as an acquittal than as a condemnation; and, on that and the following
nights, bonfires illuminated the streets of London and Westminster;
there was a deluge of ale and beer, and all who passed were compelled to
drink the health of the glorious Sacheverell. As for the doctor himself,
he was now a greater man than ever. He returned from Westminster Hall in
a grand ecclesiastical triumph. Wherever he went, he was followed by a
prodigious train of butchers’ boys, link boys, and the like, who made
the welkin ring with their enthusiastic shouts. His health was drunk in
bumpers at festive gatherings innumerable; and even handkerchiefs and
fans were embellished with his portrait. In the month of May, he began
his triumphal progress through the kingdom, and was looked upon as
another Hercules of the church militant. Wherever he went, his
emissaries were sent before him with his portrait; pompous
entertainments were made for him; and a mixed multitude of clergymen and
sextons, country singers and fiddlers, a mob of all conditions, male and
female, crowded together to meet and welcome him. At Exeter, the rabble
made bonfires, and broke the windows of a dissenting meeting-house. At
Oxford, Hoadley’s effigy and books were burned. At Sherborne, some of
the mob drank Sacheverell’s health, on their knees, in the Town Hall, in
the church, and on the church steeple; while others paraded the town,
with a drum, cursing the Presbyterians and firing at their houses. At
Pontefract, the crowd battered the dissenting chapel, and thought it a
high honour to have their children christened Sacheverell. At
Gloucester, they kindled bonfires, rang the church bells, and drank
Sacheverell’s health, with damnation to Dissenters. At Cirencester, they
placed the effigy of King William on a diminutive horse, which they made
to throw it, in remembrance of the fate that hastened the king’s death,
and then threw the effigy into a fire. They also had a cock-fight,
calling one of the fowls Burgess, and the other Sacheverell; but after a
lengthened and hard battle, cock Burgess unfortunately killed cock
Sacheverell.[209] At Bridgenorth, Sacheverell was met by four thousand
men on horseback, and as many on foot, wearing white knots, edged with
gold. The hedges, for two miles, were dressed with garlands, and the
church steeples covered with streamers, flags, and colours.[210] This
clerical progress was made after the dissolution of the Whig parliament,
and during the turbulence of a new election, and hence its motives,
successes, and excesses may be imagined. The University of Oxford held a
feast to welcome the champion of the Church. The stately mansions of the
Tory nobility were thrown open at his approach; and, in several towns,
he was received by the mayors and magistrates in their formalities. The
avenues to these towns were lined with spectators, the hedges and trees
were hung with garlands of flowers; flags were displayed on the church
steeples; and the air resounded with cries of “Sacheverell and the
Church.” After a few weeks, however, sobriety began to return; the
doctor’s picture was frequently torn in pieces, and, in many places, he
himself was rudely treated. Sacheverell had done his work, and had, more
than any other cause, helped the Tories back to their seats of office.
In 1713, the Queen presented him to the valuable rectory of St Andrew’s,
Holborn. The first sermon which he preached in the church of that
parish, he sold for £100, and forty thousand copies of it were speedily
bought by eager purchasers. After this, he gradually dwindled into
insignificance, and signalised himself only, during the remainder of his
life, by contemptible squabbles with his parishioners. He died at the
age of fifty-two, in 1724. “He was,” says Bishop Burnet, “a bold,
insolent man, with a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning,
or good sense; but he forced himself into popularity and preferment by
the most petulant railings at Dissenters and Low Churchmen!” Daniel
Defoe says of him, “Bear-garden language is his peculiar talent. He is
known in his books as a pulpit incendiary; the Church’s bloody
standard-bearer; the trumpeter sent out by High Church authority to
preach against union, to proclaim open war between parties, and to hang
out flags of defiance.”
“High Church buffoon, and Oxford’s stated jest, A noisy, saucy,
swearing, drunken priest.”
-----
Footnote 209:
_Complete History of the Affair of Dr Sacheverell._ London, 1711.
Footnote 210:
Wesley’s _History of England_, vol. iv. p. 76.
-----
Such was the man whom Samuel Wesley helped in an emergency. We are sorry
to register such a fact, but truth and honesty compel us. The only
excuse which can be suggested is, that during the last few years, the
rector of Epworth had been a serious sufferer from dissenting hatred,
and that his old dissenting friends were now his bitterest enemies.
The new parliament met on the 25th of November 1710, and the Queen, in
her opening speech, showed that she was in the hands of new advisers.
She no longer condescended to use the word toleration, but, spoke of
_indulgence_ to be allowed “to scrupulous consciences.” This term of
_indulgence_ was the more observed, because it was the pet word of
Sacheverell, who held, that whatever liberty of conscience Dissenters
had, was a matter of indulgence, and not of right. The Whigs were now in
a minority, and the Tories were the ruling power.
Convocation, of course, met on the same day as parliament, and of this
ecclesiastical synod Samuel Wesley was a member; an honour perhaps
awarded him for the service which, at the beginning of the year, he had
rendered to Sacheverell. The clergy of the Lower House chose Dr
Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle, for their prolocutor; and then came down a
royal rescript, very different to that to which they had of late years
been accustomed, a licence empowering convocation to enter upon such
consultations as the present state of the Church required. The subjects
to be discussed were,—1. The late excessive growth of infidelity,
heresy, and profaneness; 2. Excommunications, and abuses of commutation
money; 3. The visitation of prisoners, and the admission of converts
from the Church of Rome; 4. Rural Deans; 5. The glebes and tithes
belonging to benefices; 6. Clandestine marriages. As usual, the two
houses were at constant variance with each other. Most of the winter was
spent in discussing the heresies of Whiston’s “Primitive Christianity
Revived.” This learned, ingenious, but eccentric man had succeeded Sir
Isaac Newton, in 1703, at Cambridge, as Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics; but had recently adopted Arian principles, and published
them in the book already mentioned. For this, he was expelled from
Cambridge, and was censured by convocation. There was an endless amount
of talk; but this was the only business done, when convocation closed on
the 12th of June 1711. The House of Commons, however, took into
consideration the want of churches in London, and the thanks of the
lower house of convocation were presented to them by the prolocutor, who
also submitted a scheme for the new churches. On the 7th of May 1711,
the Commons resolved to grant to her Majesty £350,000 for the building
of fifty new churches, and the purchasing of sites of churches,
churchyards, and ministers’ houses, in and about the cities of London
and Westminster. This magnificent scheme originated in the convocation
of which Samuel Wesley was a member; but, of course, it was carried into
effect by parliament.[211]
-----
Footnote 211:
_Life of Queen Anne_; also, Lathbury’s _History of Convocation_.
-----
On the 7th of December 1711, parliament re-assembled, and convocation as
well. Convocation did nothing, except discuss priestly absolution and
lay baptism;[212] but parliament signalised itself by passing the
notorious “Occasional Conformity Bill,” which had been trying to
struggle into life for the last ten years.
-----
Footnote 212:
At this time, says Bishop Burnet, there appeared an inclination in
many of the clergy to a nearer approach to the Church of Rome. Hicks,
who was now at the head of the Jacobite party, had, in several books,
promoted the notion that there was a proper sacrifice made in the
eucharist. He also openly condemned the supremacy of the crown in
ecclesiastical affairs, and the method in which the Reformation was
carried. One Brett preached a sermon, in several of the pulpits of
London, which he afterwards printed, in which he said no repentance
could serve without priestly absolution, and affirmed that the priest
was vested with the same power of pardoning that our Saviour himself
had. Another conceit was the invalidity of lay baptism, and that, as
dissenting teachers were laymen, they and their congregations ought to
be rebaptized. Dodwell left all who died without the sacraments to the
uncovenanted mercies of God; and maintained that none had a right to
give the sacraments except the apostles, and, after them, bishops and
priests ordained by them. The bishops thought it necessary to put a
stop to such doctrines, and agreed to a declaration against the
irregularity of all baptism by persons not in holy orders; but yet
allowing that, according to the practice of the primitive Church, and
the constant usage of the Church of England, no baptism ought to be
reiterated. Archbishop Sharpe (the friend of Samuel Wesley) refused to
sign the declaration, pretending that it would encourage irregular
baptisms. The Archbishop of Canterbury, with most of the bishops of
his province, submitted the matter to the convocation. It was agreed
to in the Upper House, but the Lower House refused even to consider
it, because it would encourage those who struck at the dignity of the
priesthood. This was all that passed in the convocation of
1712.—(Burnet’s _History of His Own Times_, 1st edit., vol. ii. p.
605.)
-----
Whilst Samuel Wesley was attending these sessions of convocation, his
wife was doing her utmost to supply his lack of service among his
parishioners. The following facts are taken from a letter, dated “Feb.
6, 1711–12,” and addressed to “the Rev. Mr Wesley, in St Margaret’s
Churchyard, Westminster.”[213] After giving a detailed account of the
manner in which she had been led to adopt the practice of reading to and
instructing her family, Mrs Wesley proceeds to state, that the servant
lad had told his parents of these family gatherings, and they desired to
be admitted. They told others, who begged the same permission, until
these domestic congregations amounted to thirty or forty individuals.
Mrs Wesley read to them the best and most awakening sermons she could
find, and discoursed with them freely and affectionately. The
congregation still grew, until now it numbered above two hundred, and on
the Sunday before the letter was written, many had been obliged to go
away through there not being room for them to stand.
-----
Footnote 213:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1781, p. 313.
-----
Mrs Wesley had thus, unintentionally, become a sort of female preacher.
Why did she begin these services? She says, because she thought the end
of the institution of the Sabbath was not fully answered by attending
church unless the intermediate spaces of time were filled up by other
acts of piety and devotion;[214] but we incline to think there was
another reason beside this. Mr Wesley, being so much in London, required
a curate to supply his place at Epworth, and it so happened that his
curate at this period, Mr Inman, was not so efficient as was desirable.
On one occasion, when Wesley returned from London, the parishioners
complained that the curate had “preached nothing to his congregation,
except the duty of paying their debts, and behaving well among their
neighbours.” The complainants added, “We think, sir, there is more in
religion than this.” Mr Wesley replied, “There certainly is; I will hear
him myself.” The curate was sent for, and was told that he must preach
next Lord’s-day, the rector at the same time, saying, “I suppose you can
prepare a sermon upon any text I give you.” “Yes, sir,” replied the
ready curate. “Then,” said Wesley, “prepare a sermon on Heb. xi. 6,
‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’” The time arrived, and
the text being read with great solemnity, the curate began his brief
sermon, by saying—“Friends, faith is a most excellent virtue, and it
produces other virtues also. In particular, it makes a man pay his
debts;” and thus he proceeded for about fifteen minutes, when the rector
clearly saw that paying debts was the alpha and the omega of the
curate’s theology. It is scarce likely that the ministry of such a man
would satisfy the enlightened mind and religious heart of Susannah
Wesley; and it is not to be wondered at that she should try to supply
its defects by reading to her children and to two hundred of her
neighbours, on Sunday evenings, the best sermons she could find in her
husband’s library.
-----
Footnote 214:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1781, p. 313.
-----
The congregations of the rector’s wife were probably larger than those
of the rector’s curate. Inman heard of these gatherings, and wrote to Mr
Wesley, complaining that Mrs Wesley, in his absence, had turned the
parsonage into a conventicle; that the church was likely to be
scandalised by such irregular proceedings, and that they ought not to be
tolerated any longer. Mr Wesley wrote to his wife, suggesting that she
should let some one else read the sermons. She replied that there was
not a man among them that could read a sermon without spoiling a good
part of it, and that none of her children had a voice strong enough to
be heard by so many people. The only thing that disquieted her was
“presenting the prayers of the people to God.” She had been obliged to
do this, but, because of her sex, she doubted its propriety.
The curate still complained, and the rector, writing to his wife,
desired that the meetings should be discontinued. She replied that Inman
and a man called Whiteley, and one or two others, were the only persons
in the parish that had raised complaints; that calling the meeting a
conventicle did not alter the nature of the thing; and that,
notwithstanding its alleged scandal, it had been the means of bringing
more people to the church than anything else had been, for the afternoon
congregation had been increased by it from twenty to above two hundred,
which was a larger congregation than Inman had been accustomed to have
in the morning; some families who seldom went to church now began to go
constantly; and one person, who had not been there for seven years, was
now attending with the rest. Besides all this, the meetings had been the
means of conciliating the minds of the people towards the Wesley family,
and they now lived in the greatest amity imaginable. After stating these
facts, Mrs Wesley adds:—“If, after all this, you think fit to dissolve
this assembly, do not tell me that you _desire_ me to do it, for that
will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your _positive command_ in
such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and
punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I
shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus
Christ.”[215] What the upshot was we have no means of knowing. John and
Charles Wesley were present at these irregular meetings—the first
Methodist meetings ever held—Charles a child four years old, and John a
boy of nine. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
-----
Footnote 215:
Whitehead’s _Life of Wesley_, p. 54.
-----