The above refers to a letter which Wesley had addressed to Lady
Huntingdon; but which has never yet been published. Evidently it
was faithful, and also unpalatable. It seems to have strengthened
prejudices against him, instead of removing them. His position also
was not improved by anti-Calvinian publications over which he had no
control. Mr. William Mason, who had been one of Wesley’s classleaders,
but had left him, and was now a magistrate of the county of Surrey,
and resided at Rotherhithe Wall,[109] issued his “Axe laid to the Root
of Antinomian Licentiousness; extracted from the works of Mr. Flavel.”
1770: 8vo, 36 pages. Another writer, signing himself “Academicus,”
gave to the public a small octavo volume of 124 pages, entitled “The
Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism”; in
which Sir Richard Hill is severely, perhaps abusively, flagellated for
his virulent attack on Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury, and the Rev. William
Romaine is charged with preaching a sermon which “shocked every serious
and rational Christian that heard it.” All these incidents had to do
with the lamentable anger and bitterness of the memorable Calvinian
controversy which will soon demand attention.
The sessions of the conference of 1770 being ended, Wesley set out for
Cornwall, where he spent the next three weeks. Returning to Bristol, he
and his brother, at the beginning of October, agreed, at the request
of the society, to administer to them the Lord’s supper every other
Sunday; which arrangement, of course, rendered it necessary, that an
ordained clergyman should reside at Bristol, or in its neighbourhood.
The rest of the year was occupied with his usual journeys to
Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk,
and Kent. Poor Whitefield was dead; and Wesley, if the way was opened,
was quite ready to take his place, by including America within the
bounds of his vast Methodist circuit. Hence the following to Mrs.
Marston, of Worcester.
“_December 14, 1770._
“MY DEAR SISTER,--If I live till spring, and should have a clear,
pressing call, I am as ready to embark for America, as for Ireland.
All places are alike to me: I am attached to none in particular.
Wherever the work of our Lord is to be carried on, _that_ is my place
for _to-day_. And we live only for to-day: it is not our part to take
thought for to-morrow.
“I am, dear Molly, your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[110]
On Saturday, September 29, while on his way to Boston, in New England,
Whitefield, at the importunity of the people, preached at Exeter, in
the open air, a sermon nearly two hours long. At six o’clock next
morning he was dead. A friend, addressing him just before he commenced
his last sermon, said, “Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to
preach.” “True,” replied the dying evangelist; and then turning aside,
he clasped his hands, and, looking up, said: “Lord Jesus, I am weary
_in_ Thy work, but not _of_ Thy work.” Whitefield was buried, where he
died, at Newburyport. Every mark of respect was shown to his remains.
All the bells in the town tolled, and the ships in the harbour fired
mourning guns, and hung their flags half-mast high. In Georgia, all the
black cloth in the stores was bought up, and the church was hung with
mourning; the governor and council met at the statehouse in habiliments
of sorrow, and went in procession to hear a funeral sermon.
Whitefield intended to be interred in Tottenham Court chapel, and had
told the congregation, that he should like the Wesley brothers to be
interred beside him. “We will,” said he, “all lie together. You refuse
them entrance here while living: they can do you no harm when they are
dead.”[111] Whitefield’s wish was not realised; but, at length, Wesley
was admitted to Whitefield’s pulpit.
The Rev. Mr. Joss announced in Tottenham Court chapel on November 11,
that, on the sabbath following, Wesley would preach a sermon there
on Whitefield’s death, as it had long ago been agreed between the
two, that whichever survived the other should preach the deceased’s
funeral discourse.[112] An immense multitude assembled. “It was,” says
Wesley, “an awful season; all were as still as night.” On the same
day, he preached again in Whitefield’s tabernacle in Moorfields.
The hour appointed was half-past five; but the place was filled at
three, and Wesley began at four. His text was the same at both places:
“Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like
his!” Whitefield’s characteristics were described as consisting of
“unparalleled zeal, indefatigable activity, tender heartedness to
the afflicted, and charitableness toward the poor, the most generous
friendship, nice and unblemished modesty, frankness and openness of
conversation, unflinching courage, and steadiness in whatever he
undertook for his Master’s sake.” Wesley then sketched the doctrines
Whitefield preached, and concluded thus.
“These are the fundamental doctrines which he everywhere insisted
on; and may they not be summed up in two words,--the new birth, and
justification by faith? These let us insist upon with all boldness,
at all times, and in all places. Keep close to these good, old,
unfashionable doctrines, how many soever contradict and blaspheme.
Go on, my brethren, in the name of the Lord, and in the power of His
might. Let brother no more lift up sword against brother; rather put
ye on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind,
brotherly kindness, gentleness, longsuffering, forbearing one another
in love. Let the time past suffice for strife, envy, contention;
for biting and devouring one another. O God, with Thee no word is
impossible! O that Thou wouldest cause the mantle of Thy prophet,
whom Thou hast taken up, now to fall on us that remain! Take away
from us all anger and wrath, and bitterness; all clamour and evil
speaking! Let Thy Spirit so rest upon us, that from this hour we may
be kind to each other, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as
God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us!”
Well did such sentiments harmonise with the spirit and the life of
Wesley’s old and faithful friend; and mournful is the fact, that they
were so soon utterly ignored by the party of which Whitefield had
been the chief. No sooner was Wesley’s sermon preached and published,
than it was attacked, because he had omitted to mention the election
and final perseverance of the saints. His doctrines of “the new birth
and justification by faith” were a defective, precarious scheme, and
abortive as to saving purposes; because, according to his tenets, a
man may be justified by faith, and be born again, and yet never enjoy
eternal life, unless he does more for himself, to make his salvation
effectual, than has been done for him by the blood and righteousness of
Christ.[113]
Whitefield bequeathed his orphan house estate in Georgia, with all
its “buildings, lands, and negroes,” “to that elect lady, that mother
in Israel, that mirror of true and undefiled religion, the Right
Honourable Selina, Countess Dowager of Huntingdon.” His two chapels
in London, with his books and furniture in the Tabernacle house, were
left to his “worthy, trusty, tried friends, Messrs. Daniel West and
Robert Keen.” Within the last three years, he had become possessed, by
legacies, of about £1700, including £700 accruing to him at his wife’s
decease; and this amount he bequeathed to a whole host of friends,
the largest share falling to the Countess of Huntingdon; while, in an
addendum to his will, he says: “I also leave a mourning ring to my
honoured and dear friends and disinterested fellow labourers, the Rev.
Messrs. John and Charles Wesley, in token of my indissoluble union with
them, in heart and Christian affection, notwithstanding our differences
in judgment about some particular points of doctrine. Grace be with all
them, of whatever denomination, that love our Lord Jesus, our common
Lord, in sincerity.”[114]
Thus died one of the greatest Christian orators that ever lived,--a
man who, though often heavily afflicted, preached, in four-and-thirty
years, upwards of eighteen thousand sermons,[115] many of them in the
open air, and often to enormous crowds, and in the teeth of brutal
persecution.[116]
Space forbids enlargement; but, perhaps, two unpublished letters,
belonging to this period, may be welcome. The first was addressed to
Matthew Lowes, and the second to Miss Foard, who afterwards became Mrs.
Thornton, of 86, Blackman Street, Southwark.
“LONDON, _October 13, 1770_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Health you shall have, if health be best; if not,
sickness will be a greater blessing. I am glad you have Dr. Wilson
near. A more skilful man, I suppose, is not in England. If you
should continue weak, (as I did from November to March,) good is the
will of the Lord. You are not a superannuated preacher: but you are a
supernumerary. I believe one of your boys is rejoicing in the love of
God.
“I am, with love to sister Lowes, dear Matthew, your affectionate
brother,
“J. WESLEY.”
“_December 29, 1770._
“MY DEAR SISTER,--When we had an opportunity of spending a day or two
together, you convinced me that you fear and love God, and desire
to enjoy all His promises. And I found you less prejudiced, than I
expected, against the doctrine of Christian perfection. I only want
you to experience this: to be ‘all faith, all gentleness, all love.’
Labour to be wise, and yet simple! To steer between the extremes
of neglecting to cultivate your understanding, which is right; and
_leaning_ to it, which is fatally wrong. And be free and open with,
my dear Nancy, your affectionate brother,
“J. WESLEY.”
Little more, in reference to 1770, remains to be related. To a great
extent, mob violence was ended; but Wesley was still the target at
which literary malice shot its shafts. The aid of the Muses was again
invoked, and some unknown poetaster issued an octavo pamphlet of 39
pages, entitled, “The Perfections of God,--a standing Rule to try all
Doctrines and Experience. A Poem humbly offered to the consideration of
Mr. John Wesley and his followers.” This was evidently the production
of one of his Calvinistic friends. Hence the following--
“Shall Wesley sow his hurtful tares,
And scatter round a thousand snares,
Telling how God from wrath may turn,
And love the soul He thought to burn,
And how again His mind may move,
To hate, where He has vowed to love,
How all mankind He fain would save,
Yet longs for what He cannot have,
Industrious thus to sound abroad
A disappointed, changing God?”
Again, in reference to the “Hymn on God’s Everlasting Love,” we have
the following choice _morceau_.
“Blush Wesley, blush, be filled with shame,
Doom thy vile poem to the flame;
What tongue thy horrid crime can tell?
Put saints to sing the song of hell!
Haste hence to Rome, thy proper place;
Why should we share in thy disgrace?
We need no greater proof to see,
Thy blasphemies with hers agree.”
In addition to the above, there was published a sermon of 32 pages,
8vo, entitled “Methodistical Deceit: a Sermon preached in the parish
church of St. Matthew, Bethnal Green, by Haddon Smith, curate of the
said church.”
It is right to say that Mr. Smith’s discourse is levelled against the
Calvinistic Methodists, of whom, however, he unfortunately speaks
as though they were all the Methodists that existed. Remembering
the recent origin of the Methodist movement, and the unparalleled
opposition it had been its lot to encounter, it is somewhat amusing
to find the Bethnal Green curate describing the Methodists as “the
_overbearing_ sect”; perhaps it was a _lapsus linguæ_; or perhaps the
Rev. Mr. Smith began to see, that crushing the system with the iron
heel of persecution only diffused its fragrance wider; and that, after
all, Methodism, instead of dying, was every year more vigorous than
ever. Mr. Smith was severely handled in a pamphlet of 40 pages, with
the title, “Letters to the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith, occasioned by his
_Curious_ Sermon entitled Methodistical Deceit; by Philalethes.”
Wesley’s own publications, in 1770, were as follows.
1. “An Extract from Dr. Young’s Night Thoughts, on Life, Death, and
Immortality.” 12mo, 241 pages. Wesley professed to have left out all
the lines in Young, which he “apprehended to be either childish, or
flat, or turgid, or obscure”; and appended brief explanations of the
words and phrases, which he thought would be scarcely understood by
unlearned readers.
2. “Minutes of several Conversations between the Rev. Messrs. John and
Charles Wesley and others.” 8vo, 60 pages. This was a new and enlarged
edition of the minutes published in 1763, embracing minutes of all the
conferences held from that period to the year 1770.
3. “A Sermon on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield.” 8vo, 32
pages.
4. “Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.” 8vo, 47
pages. This was published in the midst of the terrible national
confusion, produced by the dissolute and unprincipled anarchist,--the
infamous John Wilkes. The pamphlet has been already noticed in a
previous chapter.[117]
5. It was Wesley’s purpose to leave Augustus Toplady in the hands
of Walter Sellon. He did this, in one respect, but not in another.
For instance, he published a small 12mo tract of eight pages, with
the title, “What is an Arminian?” He writes: “To say, ‘this man is
an Arminian,’ has the same effect on many hearers as to say, ‘this
is a mad dog.’ It puts them into a fright at once; they run away
from him with all speed and diligence; and will hardly stop, unless
it be to throw a stone at the dreadful and mischievous animal.” He
then proceeds to show, that the differences between an Arminian and
a Calvinist may all be reduced to a single sentence,--the Calvinist
believes that God has eternally and absolutely decreed to save such
and such persons, and no others; that these cannot resist the saving
grace that He imparts; and that they cannot finally fall from that
grace, which they are not able to resist. An Arminian holds doctrines
just the opposite of these. Wesley concludes his tract by advising both
Arminian and Calvinist preachers never to use, either in public or
private, the word “Calvinist,” or “Arminian,” as a term of reproach,
seeing this was neither better nor worse than calling names,--a
practice as inconsistent with good sense and good manners as it is with
Christianity itself.
6. Besides this, Wesley issued another tract, entitled, “The Doctrine
of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted. By the Rev. Mr. A.----
T----.” 12mo, 12 pages. This was a faithful abridgment of Toplady’s
translation of Zanchius, without note or comment, except a short
advertisement at the beginning, and a paragraph at the end, both of
which we give verbatim.
“Advertisement.--It is granted, that the ensuing tract is, in good
measure, a translation. Nevertheless, considering the unparalleled
modesty and self diffidence of the young translator, and the
tenderness wherewith he treats his opponents, it may well pass for
an original.”
This was stinging; especially when compared with the concluding
paragraph--
“The sum of all is this: One in twenty (suppose) of mankind are
elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved,
do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can.
Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand.
“A---- T----.”
This was the whole of Wesley’s offending. His tract, we again affirm,
was an honest, faithful abridgment of Toplady’s pretended translation;
but the truth is, by divesting the work of Toplady of its cloudy
verbiage, the Calvinistic theory was presented in a form enough to
horrify every man of reason and religion. What was the result? Wesley’s
Abridgment was issued in the month of March, 1770. Poor Toplady seems
to have become insane with anger; and, before the same month expired,
had completed his answer, which was published forthwith, under the
title of “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley: relative to his
pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination.” 8vo, 30 pages.
The most charitable excuse for this angry writer is, that he had, in a
paroxysm of mortified vanity, lost his balance, and was now _non compos
mentis_. Wesley had honestly abridged his work; and had written the two
brief paragraphs already quoted. That was all: and, for this, the irate
young man of thirty, who in former years had written to Wesley in terms
of the most filial respect, now tells him that, “for more than thirty
years past he has been endeavouring to palm on his credulous followers
his pernicious doctrines, with all the sophistry of a jesuit, and the
dictatorial authority of a pope.” Wesley is charged with acting “the
ignoble part of a lurking, sly assassin.” He is exhorted to “renounce
the low, serpentine cunning, which puts him on falsifying what he finds
himself unable to refute; to dismiss those dirty subterfuges (the last
resources of mean, malicious impotence), which degrade the man of
parts into a lying sophister, and sink a divine into the level of an
oyster woman.” Wesley is told, “that it once depended on the toss of a
shilling whether he should be a Calvinist or an Arminian. Tails fell
uppermost, and he resolved to be an universalist.” The elect Toplady
continues: “possessed of more than serpentine elability, _you_ cast
_your_ slough, not once a year, but, almost, once an hour. Hence, your
innumerable _inconsistencies_, and flagrant _self contradictions_;
the _jarring_ of your principles, and the _incoherence_ of your
religious system. Somewhat like the necromantic soup in the tragedy of
‘Macbeth,’ your doctrines may be stirred into a chaotic jumble, but
witchcraft itself would strive in vain to bring them into coalition.”
The gentlemanly polemic then informs Wesley, that he shall not hold
himself obliged to again enter the lists with him, if he “descends to
his customary recourse of false quotations, despicable invective, and
unsupported dogmatisms. An opponent,” continues this model of polite
behaviour, “an opponent, who thinks to add weight to his arguments by
scurrility and abuse, resembles the insane person who rolled himself in
the mud, in order to make himself fine. I would no more enter into a
formal controversy with such a scribbler, than I would contend, for the
wall, with a chimney sweeper.”
Is it surprising that, after this, Calvinism was discussed at the
conference of 1770; and that, just before it commenced its sittings,
Wesley wrote the following unpublished letter to his friend, Mr.
Merryweather, at Yarm?
“YORK, _June 24, 1770_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,--Mr. Augustus Toplady I know well; but I do not
fight with chimney sweepers. He is too dirty a writer for me to
meddle with; I should only foul my fingers. I read his title page,
and troubled myself no farther. I leave him to Mr. Sellon. He cannot
be in better hands.
“As long as you are seeking and expecting to love God with all your
heart, so long your soul will live.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”