"Behold, on yonder eminence, the preacher, with admiring,
subscribing crowds about him. 'He is young.' Good! 'How innocent
he looks.' Better! 'He has no human learning.' Best of all! 'He
knows everything without labour, without study.' Prodigious!
See! he spreads his hands, and opens his lips as wide as
possible. Hark! Hark! he talks of a sensible new birth! Then,
belike, he is in labour, and the good women around him are
come to his assistance. He dilates himself,--cries out,--the
hill swells into a mountain,--and _parturiunt montes, nascetur
ridiculus mus_. Well: he is, at last, delivered; he has felt the
new birth; and damns all that have not."
The learned lampooner calls Whitefield "a modern prating youth," "a
visionary _Anticle_, in a gown and cassock;" and proceeds to say:--
"It is quite impossible to be serious with buffoons in religion,
and mountebanks in theology; to dispute with a creature, who
disclaims sense, and is below argument. He holds forth from
the stairs of a wind-mill, and never was exceeded, but by the
Knight of de la Mancha flying on the sails of it. He has formed
a society of females, who are to confess their love affairs one
to another, and to take care there shall be a supply of new
Methodists for future generations. He has collected, without
letters, patents, license, or protection, larger sums than
usually appear upon any gaming table; and, yet, has incurred
no penalty by it. If this fund be employed for the purpose
given out, the Orphan House is like to exceed all the palaces
in Europe. Supposing this humour to go on, I know nothing the
growling clergy have to do, but to leave sense and honesty,
their little pulpits and less incomes; and to bawl profitable
exclamations, with great enlargement, on commons, and get
thousands by it. In short, we must put a stop to this sharping
trade of the Methodists; or we must all, man, woman, and child,
join in the plunder with them."
On August 4, nearly an entire page was used in defending Dr. Trapp,
and abusing Whitefield. In reference to Whitefield's exclamation, "O
that my head were waters," etc., the writer sneeringly remarks:--
"If his eyes were as full of tears as his heart could wish,
what a glorious man he would be to preach a funeral sermon!
And if his head were an ocean, he would certainly drown all
his congregation, even though he were to preach on Kennington
Common."
On August 11, the editor, Mr. Hooker, wrote nearly two pages, in
defence of Dr. Stebbing and Dr. Hammond, on the new birth, and, of
course, in denouncing Whitefield and his friends:--
"Some Methodists," says he, "have made their _boasts_ that
they are _become fools for Christ's sake_, in which there is
something of truth that they do not intend. But, if they think
it commendable to be _fools_ for Christ, I hope they will never
think it tolerable to be _knaves_ for Him too."
The _Weekly Miscellany_ continued, almost without interruption,
these coarse attacks, to the end of 1739; but one added extract must
suffice. On December 29, nearly two pages of the newspaper were
filled with a violent philippic against Whitefield as a Dissenter.
The writer says:--
"Whitefield has been attacked as an enthusiast, and often as
a teacher of false and pestilent doctrine; but not often as a
Dissenter."
Having adduced proofs that Whitefield was _ipso facto_ a Dissenter,
the article proceeds:--
"He runs about the world, preaches, prays, exhorts, expounds,
and does what he lists, where he lists, and how he lists; sets
at nought his diocesan wherever he comes; and does all, not only
independently, but, in defiance of him. This is your _Church
of England_ minister! An independent churchman! A perfect
original! The first of the kind! He has thrown off the liturgy
of the Church of England, and gives the people nothing but
his _extempore_ effusions in its stead. He not only uses, but
magnifies and extols, at a great rate, _extempore_ prayer, to
beget in people a disesteem of all _forms_."
The writer then adverts to Whitefield's patronising the preaching of
Howell Harris, the layman, and says:--
"The Dissenters are fond of him; but not a man among them has
the grace to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel
poor sinners to come in. None of them _ever would_, or _will
now_, supply, in his absence, his place, in Moorfields, or
on Kennington Common. Not they. They would never so much as
sit, like some of ours, in their proper habits, while he was
preaching, some on his right hand and some on his left, to do
him honour before the people. But they would breakfast, dine,
and eat a little supper with him. They would partake of his
entertainments, or entertain him themselves in their own houses,
and treat him most courteously, not only to engage him to speak
handsomely of them in his journals, but to encourage him; to
clap him on the back, and bid him go on in the glorious work
he had undertaken. But let them take care. _Proximus ardet._
Enthusiasm runs like wildfire, and, though it begins in the
Church of God Established, it may not stop there, but may run
among, and consume their own churches."
Among the London newspapers, the _Weekly Miscellany_ was the most
rabid of Whitefield's opponents; but, occasionally, others of them
had slashing articles against the young evangelist. For instance,
the _Craftsman_, of September 8, in a serio-comic article, propounds
"A Scheme of a new Court of Judicature, in which Methodists are to
preside." The members of the court were to be four-and-twenty in
number, "with an archon at the head of them: the first archon to
be the most excellent and industrious Mr. Whitefield, or, in his
absence, the ingenious Mr. Wesley; and the four-and-twenty to be
chosen from among the Methodists on Kennington Common." They were to
be provided with food and clothing; the clothing of each member was
to cost £2 6s. 8-1/2d. per year; the diet 2-3/4d. per day; and the
stipend was to be £2 a year, which would "be sufficient to buy them
books of devotion."
Besides attacks like these in the public papers, Whitefield was
severely censured in private conversation and correspondence. The
Rev. William Law was a man of distinguished piety and talent; and
his writings had been of eminent service to Whitefield and his
friends. Again and again, they sought his counsel; and, speaking
generally, he had always shewn them kindness. But even Mr. Law now
turned against the young evangelist. On August 10, Charles Wesley
waited upon him, and wrote:--
"He blamed Mr. Whitefield's journals, and way of proceeding;
said he had had great hopes that the Methodists would have been
dispersed, by little and little, into livings, and have leavened
the whole lump. Among other things, he said, 'Were I so talked
of as Mr. Whitefield is, I should run away, and hide myself
entirely.' 'You might,' I answered, 'but God would bring you
back like Jonah.'"[246]
[246] C. Wesley's Journal, i., p. 159.
Dr. Warburton, an attorney's son, born at Newark-upon-Trent, was
now rising into fame. He had recently published the first volume
of his great work on "The Divine Legation of Moses," and, twenty
years afterwards, was made bishop of Gloucester. In two letters, to
the Rev. Mr. Birch, one dated "September 16, 1738," and the other,
"September 10, 1739," Warburton says:--
"I have seen Whitefield's Journal, and read it with great
curiosity. The poor man is quite mad. His honesty, as you
say, is very conspicuous. The best way of exposing these idle
fanatics would be to print passages out of George Fox's Journal,
and Ignatius Loyola, and Whitefield's Journals, in parallel
columns.[247] Their conformity in folly is amazing. One thing
was extremely singular in Loyola: he became, from the modestest
fanatic that ever was, the most cold-hearted knave, by the
time his Society was thoroughly established. The same natural
temperament, that set his brains on a heat, worked off the
ferment. The case was so uncommon that his adversaries thought
all his fanaticism pretended. But, in this, they were certainly
mistaken. The surprising part of all was, that his folly and
knavery concurred so perfectly to promote his end. If I be not
mistaken in Whitefield, he bids fair for acting the second part
of Loyola, as he has done the first."[248]
[247] Query: Did Warburton suggest to Bishop Lavington the idea
of writing "The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared"?
Lavington's work began to be published in 1749.
[248] Nichols' "Illustrations of Literature," vol. ii., pp. 96, 110.
Another private letter, by a very different personage, will be read
with interest. The celebrated Countess of Hertford, afterwards
Duchess of Somerset, writing to the Countess of Pomfret, then on the
continent, remarks:--
"I do not know whether you have heard of our new sect, who call
themselves Methodists. There is one Whitefield at the head of
them, a young man under five-and-twenty, who has, for some
months, gone about preaching in the fields and market-places
of the country; and in London, at Mayfair and Moorfields, to
ten or twelve thousand people at a time. He went to Georgia,
and returned to take priest's orders, which he did; and, I
believe, since that time, hardly a day has passed that he
has not preached, and generally twice. At first, he and some
of his brethren seemed only to aim at restoring the practice
of the primitive Christians, as to daily sacraments, stated
fasts, frequent prayers, relieving prisoners, visiting the
sick, and giving alms to the poor; but, upon sound ministers
refusing these men their pulpits, they have betaken themselves
to preaching in the fields; and they have such crowds of
followers, that they have set in a flame all the clergy of the
kingdom, who represent them as hypocrites and enthusiasts. As
to the latter epithet, some passages in Mr. Whitefield's latest
journals seem to countenance the accusation; but, I think,
their manner of living has not afforded any grounds to suspect
them of hypocrisy. The Bishop of London, however, has thought
it necessary to write a pastoral letter, to warn the people of
his diocese against being led away by them; though, at the
same time, he treats them personally with great tenderness and
moderation. I cannot say, Dr. Trapp has done the same, in a
sermon which he has published, entitled, 'The Great Folly and
Danger of being Righteous over-much,' a doctrine which does not
seem absolutely necessary to be preached to the people of the
present age."[249]
[249] "Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon," vol. i., p. 197.
The pamphlets published, for and against Whitefield, were more than
ordinary people had time to read. The following is as complete a
list, for the year 1739, as, perhaps, it is possible to furnish:--