3. “Serious Thoughts concerning Godfathers and Godmothers.” 12mo,
four pages. The tract was written at Athlone in Ireland, but was
hardly worth publishing. Of course, Wesley approves of godfathers and
godmothers; but acknowledges that baptism is valid without them.
4. “Predestination calmly Considered.” 12mo, 83 pages. We have already
seen, that three of the preachers, present at the Irish conference,
expressed their belief, that some persons are absolutely elected, but
that thousands are saved who are not elected. It was also rumoured,
that Charles Wesley inclined to Whitefield’s predestinarian views.
Under such circumstances, Wesley’s “Predestination calmly Considered”
was a needed and opportune production. He writes (page 6): “There
are some who assert the decree of election, and not the decree of
reprobation. They assert, that God hath, by a positive, unconditional
decree, chosen some to life and salvation; but not that He hath, by any
such decree, devoted the rest of mankind to destruction. These are they
to whom I would address myself first.” This is one of Wesley’s most
cogent and exhaustive pamphlets, written in a most loving spirit, and
yet utterly demolishing the Calvinistic theory. He shows conclusively,
that no man can consistently hold the doctrine of election without
holding the cognate doctrine of reprobation,—a doctrine wholly opposed
to the plainest teachings of holy Scripture, dishonouring to God,
overthrowing the scriptural doctrines of a future judgment, and of
rewards and punishments, and “naturally leading to the chambers of
death.” It is difficult to conceive how any one can read Wesley’s
treatise, and still remain a Calvinist. None of his Methodistic
friends tried to answer it; but Dr. John Gill, the pastor of a Baptist
church in Southwark, published, in the same year, the two following
pamphlets:—“The Doctrine of the Saints’ Final Perseverance, asserted
and vindicated. In answer to a late pamphlet, called Serious Thoughts
on that subject.” 8vo, 59 pages. And, “The Doctrine of Predestination
stated and set in the Scripture light; in opposition to Mr. Wesley’s
Predestination Calmly Considered. With a reply to the exceptions of
the said writer to the Doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints.”
8vo, 52 pages. In the latter production, Dr. Gill says, that Wesley,
in noticing his former one, had “contented himself with low, mean, and
impertinent exceptions, not attempting to answer one argument, and yet
having the assurance, in the public papers, to call this miserable
piece of his, chiefly written on another subject, ‘A full answer to Dr.
Gill’s pamphlet on Final Perseverance.’” This, on the part of Dr. Gill,
was the wincing whine of a defeated man. It was not worthy of him. Dr.
Gill was now fifty-five years of age, and a man of vast learning and
research. Before his twentieth year, he had read all the Greek and
Latin authors that had fallen in his way, and had so studied Hebrew as
to be able to read the Old Testament in the original with pleasure.
Besides other works, he was the author of “A Body of Divinity,”
in three quarto volumes; and of “An Exposition of the Old and New
Testament,” in nine volumes, folio. The university of Aberdeen had
conferred upon him the degree of a doctor of divinity, “on account of
his great knowledge of the Scriptures, of the oriental languages, and
of Jewish antiquities, of his learned defence of the Scriptures against
deists and infidels, and the reputation gained by his other works”;
but, in terse, powerful, conclusive argument, John Gill was not a match
for John Wesley. He was a man of excellent moral character; but he was
an ultra Calvinist. He was a man of unwearied diligence, of laborious
research, of vast learning; but his immense mass of valuable materials
were comparatively useless, for he had neither talent to digest, nor
skill to arrange them. We think it was Robert Hall who not inaptly
described his voluminous productions as “a continent of mud.” He died
in 1771.
5. Another of Wesley’s publications in 1752 was, “A Second Letter to
the Author of ‘The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared.’”
This was published in the month of January; and, at the same time, was
issued, “A Third Letter to the Author of the Enthusiasm of Methodists,”
etc. By Vincent Perronet, A.M.; price sixpence.”[178]
Lavington published the second part of his lampooning work in
1749;[179] and part third in 1751. Of Part II., Whitefield wrote, in
a letter to Lady Huntingdon, dated August 24, 1749:—“I have seen the
bishop’s second pamphlet, in which he serves the Methodists, as the
Bishop of Constance served John Huss, when he ordered painted devils
to be put round his head, before they burnt him. His preface to me is
most virulent. Everything I wrote, in my answer, is turned into the
vilest ridicule. I cannot see that it calls for any further answer from
me. Mr. Wesley, I think, had best attack him now, as he is largely
concerned in this second part.”[180]
Whitefield was not a match for an episcopal buffoon like Lavington;
and hence he hands him over to his trenchant friend Wesley. The
preface, of more than thirty pages, addressed to Whitefield, was full
of banter; and in Part II., following it, he is treated with the
same coarse rudeness. He and Wesley and the Methodist preachers in
general are accused of assuming “the ostentation of sanctified looks,”
“fantastical oddities,” “affectation of godly and Scripture phrases,”
“and high pretensions to inspiration.” “Their great swelling words of
vanity, and proud boastings, had been carried to a most immoderate and
insufferable degree.” “They were either innocent madmen, or infamous
cheats.” As for Whitefield, “no man ever so bedaubed himself with his
own spittle. His first Account of God’s Dealings with him was such a
boyish, ludicrous, filthy, nasty, and shameless relation of himself,
as quite defiles paper, and is shocking to decency and modesty. It is
a perfect jakes of uncleanness.” Wesley had “so fanaticised his own
followers, and given them so many strong doses of the enthusiastic
tincture, as to turn their brains and deprive them of their senses.”
“The mountebank’s infallible prescriptions must be swallowed, whatever
be the consequence, though they die for it.” The Methodists are charged
with “the black art of calumny, with excessive pride and vanity,
with scepticisms and disbeliefs of God and Christ, with disorderly
practices, and inveterate broils among themselves, and with a coolness
for good works, and an uncommon warmth for some that are very bad.”
“In their several Answers and Defences, a strain of jesuitical
sophistry, artifice and craft, evasion, reserve, equivocation, and
prevarication, is of constant use.”
Lavington’s Part III., a volume in itself, is addressed “to the
Reverend Mr. Wesley”; who is made the almost exclusive object of its
virulent attack. He is told, that he is “an arrant joker, a perfect
droll.” “Go on,” says the ribald bishop, “and build chapels. One
may be dedicated to the god Proteus, famous for being a juggling
wonder-monger, and turning himself into all shapes; another to the
god called Catius, because he made men sly and cunning as cats. The
people with whom you have to do, you know, will adore you; for the
same reason that the Egyptians did their bull Apis; because renowned
for miracles, and every hour changing its colour.” He adds: “your
Letter to the author of Enthusiasm is a medley of chicanery, sophistry,
prevarication, evasion, pertness, conceitedness, scurrility, sauciness,
and effrontery. Paper and time should not be wasted on such stuff.” And
this was all the answer his lordship furnished.
We are afraid to make our pages, what Lavington has made his book, “a
perfect jakes of uncleanness,” by further quotations. Suffice it to
say, that the whole of this scurrility was anonymous.
No wonder that Wesley, in his answer, speaks of his calumniator as
“one that turns the most serious, the most awful, the most venerable
things into mere farce, and matter of low buffoonery”; one who treats
sacred topics with the “spirit of a merry-andrew.” He convicts him of
the most flagrant falsehood, and says, “I charge you with gross, wilful
prevarication, from the beginning of your book to the end”; and firmly,
but respectfully, sustains the charge. He writes:—
“I have now considered all the arguments you have brought to prove,
that the Methodists are carrying on the work of popery. And I am
persuaded, every candid man, who rightly weighs what has been said,
with any degree of attention, will clearly see, not only, that no one
of those arguments is of any real force at all, but that you do not
believe them yourself; you do not believe the conclusion which you
pretend to prove; only you keep close to your laudable resolution of
throwing as much dirt as possible.”
* * * * *
“These things being so, what must all unprejudiced men think of you
and your performance? You have advanced a charge, not against one
or two persons only, but indiscriminately against a whole body of
people of his majesty’s subjects, Englishmen, Protestants, members,
I suppose, of your own church; a charge containing abundance of
articles, and most of them of the highest and blackest nature.
You have prosecuted this with unparalleled bitterness of spirit,
and acrimony of language; using sometimes the most coarse, rude,
scurrilous terms; sometimes the keenest sarcasms you could devise.
The point you have steadily pursued, in thus prosecuting this charge,
is, first, to expose the whole people to the hatred and scorn of all
mankind; and next, to stir up the civil powers against them. And when
this charge comes to be fairly weighed, there is not a single article
of it true! Most of the passages you have cited, you have palpably
maimed, corrupted, and strained to a sense never thought of by the
writer; they prove nothing less than the points in question; and
many of them are flat against you, and overthrow the very point they
are brought to support. Is not this the most shocking violation of
the Christian rule, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’; the
most open affront to all justice, and even common humanity; the most
glaring insult upon the common sense and reason of mankind, which has
lately appeared in the world?”
* * * * *
“You regard neither mercy, justice, nor truth. To vilify and blacken
is your one point. I pray God it may not be laid to your charge! May
He show you mercy, though you show none!
“I am, sir,
“Your friend and well wisher,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
What was the result? In the month of March, or April,[181] Lavington
published a tract, with the title, “The Bishop of Exeter’s Answer to
Mr. Wesley’s late Letter to his Lordship.” 8vo, 15 pages; in which he
feebly struggles to get out of a flagrant falsehood, of which Wesley
had convicted him; and, true to his old vituperative style of writing,
concludes thus:—
“The remainder of your epistle, mere rant and declamation, shall
give me no trouble. Having cleared up a matter of fact, which may be
thought necessary for my own justification, I find myself under no
obligation or disposition, to enter into matters of dispute, wherein
our opinions would widely differ. I am too sensible of your way of
answering, your temper, and of what spirit you are of, to think of any
further correspondence: and if you expect, that I should let myself
down to a level with you, you will find yourself mistaken. I pray God
to give you a good will, and a right judgment in all things;
“And am, sir,
“Your obedient, humble servant,
“G. EXON.”
This was pitiful poltroonery, in perfect character with a cowardly
calumniator, who had poured forth the most unfounded scandals, without
daring to show his face or to sign his name. Wesley briefly replied, in
a letter dated “Newcastle upon Tyne, May 8, 1752”; and so the matter
ended.
Amid such hurricanes was Methodism cradled; and in the face of such
opponents Wesley had to pursue his great, gospel mission. Who, after
the specimens of Lavington’s scandalizing pen, is prepared to expect
that the tablet, erected to his memory in Exeter cathedral, should
represent him as one who “never ceased to improve his talents, nor to
employ them to the noblest purposes”? The conclusion of this marvellous
epitaph is as follows:—
“Unaffected sanctity dignified his instructions,
And indulgent candour sweetened his government.
At length, having eminently discharged his duties,
Of a Man, a Christian, and a Prelate,
Prepared, by habitual meditation,
To resign life without regret,
To meet death without terror,
He expired with the praises of God upon his lips,
In his 79th year, September 13, 1762.”[182]
1753.
[Sidenote: 1753 Age 50]
As usual, Wesley began the new year by preaching, in the Foundery, at
four o’clock in the morning, when a large congregation met to praise
the God of providence and grace with “joyful hearts and lips.” On the
same day, his old friend Howel Harris wrote him a long letter, from
which the following is an extract:—
“_January 1, 1753._
“DEAR BROTHER JOHN WESLEY,— ... Shall I speak freely to you, as I
am going to that dear Man, who has indeed honoured you, and whom I
believe you wish to honour, for you live on His bloody sweat and
passion? I wish your ministry and that of the Moravians were united.
It would be for the public good. I have fought a good fight, and
have, through millions of infirmities, kept the faith. You and your
brother Charles have ever been dear to me; but I have often feared,
that your wisdom and popularity would be injurious to you, and turn
you from the true simplicity of the gospel. I send this, as my dying
and loving request, for the Lord’s sake, for your own sake, and for
the sake of thousands that attend your ministry, that you would direct
their eye to the Saviour, and suffer them not to idolize you. Let
nothing fall from your lip or pen, but what turns the soul from self
to the Saviour. To deny ourselves is a difficult lesson, and there are
but few that learn it. I have written some things, in the time of my
confinement, which I have ordered the bearer to show you, and which
you will perhaps correct and publish, if you have time, and think
they would be of service to the cause of Christ. Hearty salutation to
your brother Charles, and all who love Jesus Christ in sincerity. I
have been laid aside from public service for some months. I am weary
of nothing here but the body of sin in my flesh. I rejoice in you,
and the large field that is before you. Though I know not how to give
over, I must conclude.
“HOWEL HARRIS.”[183]
Whitefield spent the year in a glorious itinerancy throughout the
kingdom. On the 1st of March, the first brick of his new Tabernacle
was laid, on the site of his old wooden one, he having collected £1100
towards defraying the expense of its erection. He published several
sermons, and also a small collection of hymns for public worship. “I
and the Messrs. Wesley,” he writes, “are very friendly.” The Wesleys,
during the erection of his Tabernacle, allowed him the use of their
London chapels,—an act of courteous kindness which he gratefully
acknowledges. In a three months’ summer tour, he travelled about twelve
hundred miles, and preached a hundred and eighty times. In Grimshaw’s
church, at Haworth, thirty-five bottles of wine were used at a single
sacrament. The year throughout was a year of triumph and of joy,—with
one exception, which we are bound in honesty to mention.
Moravianism was increasingly a bone of contention. Two years before,
Zinzendorf had purchased, of Sir Hans Sloane, an old family mansion
with adjoining grounds, situated on the banks of the Thames at Chelsea.
The mansion was turned into a congregation house; a chapel was fitted
up; a burial ground was laid out; and gardens, and a terrace, facing
the Thames, were formed. The money expended was more than £11,000. In
April, 1753, the whole establishment of the _Unitas Fratrum_ removed
into the newly acquired premises; and Lindsey House, Chelsea, was
henceforth “the disciple house,”—the head quarters of the English
Moravians. All bishops and elders were subordinate to Zinzendorf, who,
under the name of “papa,” was exclusively the ruler of the church.
Meantime, an enormous debt had been incurred. Parliamentary
negotiations, sending brethren and sisters to the American colonies,
maintaining the preachers of country congregations, sustaining boarding
schools, and meeting the large expenses of Lindsey House,—created
pecuniary liabilities which the _Unitas Fratrum_ found it difficult to
meet. During the year 1749, and the first half of the year 1750, the
managers of the “diaconies” had advanced £13,000, and clamoured for
repayment. Zinzendorf tried to raise a loan of £30,000 for the English
Moravians, from the nobility of Upper Lusatia; but his effort failed.
A few of the London Brethren lent, from their own resources, nearly
£15,000, which merely met present wants. Zinzendorf and others were
in danger of arrest for debt. A crop of lawsuits sprung up. Thomas
Hankey was a creditor to the amount of nearly £19,000; and the Moravian
liabilities, ecclesiastical and trading, were altogether more than
£130,000. Affairs appeared to be involved in inextricable confusion.
Bankruptcy was imminent; disgrace was great. Peter Bohler, at the time,
was the minister in London, and did his utmost to calm the troubled
waters. Scandals of all kinds were rife; and even Bohler himself was
not exempt from the general censure,—a fact which led him, in March,
1753, to refuse to join with the Brethren in the holy communion, and
which probably had something to do with his leaving London for America
in the month of June ensuing.[184]
In the midst of all this, a terrible onslaught was made upon the
Moravians, and upon Zinzendorf in particular, by Henry Rimius, “Aulic
Counsellor to his late majesty the King of Prussia,” in an octavo
pamphlet of 177 pages, dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and entitled, “A Candid Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the
Herrnhuthers, commonly called Moravians, or _Unitas Fratrum_.” In one
place, he charges Zinzendorf with flagrant falsehood. He states, that
in his book, “Natural Reflections,” the count asserts that “he had
been examined by the Theological Faculty at Copenhagen.” Upon inquiry,
this was found to be an absolute untruth, and had been positively
contradicted by a public act of the said faculty, signed with their
corporate seal.
Wesley read Rimius’s narrative as soon as it was published, and
wrote: “It informed me of nothing new. I still think several of the
inconsiderable members of that community are upright; but I fear their
governors wax worse and worse, having their conscience seared as with a
hot iron.”
Whitefield, in a letter dated March 21, 1753, observed:—“What is
happening to the Moravians is no more than I have long expected, and
spoken of to many friends. Their scheme is so antichristian in almost
every respect, that I am amazed the eyes of the English Brethren have
not long since been opened.”
Whitefield tried to open them. He published a pamphlet, entitled, “An
Expostulatory Letter, addressed to Nicholas Lewis, Count Zinzendorf,
and Lord Advocate of the _Unitas Fratrum_.” The letter, dated April
24, 1753, in whole or in part, was reprinted in the magazines and
newspapers of that period, and produced a great sensation.
Zinzendorf and his friends are charged with “misguiding many honest
hearted Christians; with distressing, if not ruining, numerous
families; and with introducing a whole farrago of superstitions, not
to say idolatrous fopperies, into the English nation.” The _Unitas
Fratrum_ are accused of “walking round the graves of their deceased
friends on Easter day, attended with hautboys, trumpets, french horns,
and violins.” Zinzendorf had suffered incense to be “burnt for him,
in order to perfume the room before he made his entrance among the
brethren”; and had allowed a picture to be exhibited in a lovefeast,
“representing him handing a gentleman and lady up to the side of Jesus
Christ.” It was alleged, that the married women were “ordered to wear
blue knots; the single women, pink; those that were just marriageable,
pink and white; widows that were past childbearing, white; and those
that were not so, blue and white.” Hannah Nitschmann, the general
eldress of the Fetter Lane congregation, wore “the episcopal knot,”
and might be seen sitting at the head of a table, surrounded with
eldresses and deaconesses, covered with artificial flowers, and bearing
a small altar on which stood a cross composed of glittering stones,
and environed with wax tapers. On Hannah’s birthday, the floor of one
of the rooms in the house of the single brethren was covered with sand
and moss, amid which a star was made of coloured pebbles. Upon the
star was placed a gilded dove, spouting water from its mouth. The room
was curiously decked with moss and shells; and here Zinzendorf, Hannah
Nitschmann, Peter Bohler, and other labourers sat, in high dignity,
beneath an alcove made of pasteboard. Upon a table was an altar covered
with shells, and, on each side of the altar, a bloody heart emitting
flames. The place was illuminated with wax candles; and musicians were
fixed in an adjacent room, while Zinzendorf and his company performed
their devotions, and regaled themselves with sweetmeats, coffee, tea,
and wine.
Zinzendorf is said to be over head and ears in debt; and many of the
English Brethren, by signing bonds for more than they had means to
pay, had exposed themselves to bankruptcy and prison. Peter Bohler, to
comfort one of the creditors, William Bell, had sent for him to his
house in Neville’s Alley, Fetter Lane; where an artificial mountain
had been erected in the hall, which, upon the singing of a particular
verse, was made to fall flat down, and then behind it appeared a
representation of Mr. Bell and the blessed Saviour embracing each
other, while the clouds above were raining money most gloriously. Mr.
Freeman and Mr. Grace had found bills drawn in their names, unknown to
them, to the amount of £48,000; and Mr. Rhodes had been prevailed upon
to sell his estate, of above £400 per annum, to meet the necessities of
the _Unitas Fratrum_; and, to avoid further payments, for which he had
made himself responsible by signing bonds, had fled to France, leaving
behind him a destitute mother, who since had died.[185]
Such is the substance of Whitefield’s letter. What were its effects?
Wesley writes:—
“July, 1753.—I found the town much alarmed with Mr. Rimius’s
narrative, and Mr. Whitefield’s letter to Count Zinzendorf. It seems,
indeed, that God is hastening to bring to light those hidden works of
darkness. Mr. Whitefield showed me the letters he had lately received
from the count, P. Bohler, and James Hutton. I was amazed. Either
furious anger or settled contempt breathed in every one of them.
Were they ashamed after all the abominations they had committed? No;
they were not ashamed: they turned the tables upon Mr. Whitefield.
The count blustered, like himself, and roundly averred, he could say
something if he would. James Hutton said flat, ‘You have more than
diabolical impudence; I believe the devil himself has not so much.’”
Wesley has not recorded the sentiments of his old friend Peter Bohler;
but Whitefield states, that Bohler availed himself of the pulpit to
declare, that his letter “was all a lie.”[186] It so happens, however,
that, since then, the letters of the count, of Bohler, and of Hutton
have been published. Zinzendorf says: “_As yet_, I owe not a farthing
of the £40,000 you are pleased to tell me of;” and concludes thus: “As
your heart is not prepared to love me, nor your understanding to listen
to my reasons” (which he declines to give) “I wish you well, sir, and
am your loving friend, LOUIS.”
Peter Bohler, in his letter of May 4, begins: “Sir, I pity you very
much, that you suffer yourself to be so much imposed upon, and to
print your impositions so inconsiderately. You have now attempted a
second time to ruin my character.” He then denies, that he was the
_inventor_ of the _artificial mount_, but does not affirm that it was
not employed. He concludes as follows: “Dear Mr. Whitefield, when the
secret intentions of man, together with all his unjust deeds, will be
judged, how glad would you be then, not to have treated our society in
general, and, in particular, that venerable person against whom your
letter is chiefly levelled, and poor _I_, in so injurious, yea, I may
say, impudent and wicked a manner. PETER BOHLER.”
Hutton’s letter eulogizes the count in the highest terms. “When
he awakes in the morning, he is all sweetness, calmness, tender
harmoniousness with those about him; and, all the day long, he is
busied in doing and contriving the kindest offices for mankind.” He is
“usefully employed constantly eighteen hours in twenty-four, and very
frequently more; and is a man of no expense at all upon his person,
so that any one receiving £50 a year to find him in all necessaries,
to his satisfaction, would certainly be no loser by the bargain.”
And yet, “many bulls of Bashan round about, as brute beasts without
understanding, roared madly against him; and, by daubings and grotesque
paintings, described him as a Mahommed, a Cæsar, an impostor, a Don
Quixote, a devil, the beast, the man of sin, the whore, the antichrist.”
It is right to add, that Thomas Rhodes, whose case Whitefield had
quoted, says, in a letter dated October 21, 1733: “what Mr. Whitefield
has written concerning the United Brethren and me, is, the greatest
part, entire falsities, and the remainder are truths set in a false
light.” He admits, however, the sale of his estate.
Far from pleasant is the task of raking into dunghills such as this;
but history cannot afford to forget unpleasant facts. Whitefield’s
letter, perhaps, was obtrusive, and officious, and, to some extent,
incorrect; but there can be no doubt, that its leading allegations were
founded upon truth.
Happily for himself, Wesley was not an actor in this humbling fracas;
and yet, before the year was ended, he was involved within its
meshes. In October, he spent four days at Bedford, where a Moravian
congregation had been founded in 1744, and where, in 1747, “the chief
labourer” startled some of the Brethren by announcing: “My brethren,
we have received new orders. In London, Yorkshire, and all other
places, no person is to go out of the town without the leave of the
chief labourer. So it must be here. Observe, no one must go out of
town, no not a mile, without leave from me.” In 1750, they built a
chapel; squabbles followed; and Wesley, apparently by request, went,
at the time above stated, to visit them. He writes: “I met the little
society, just escaped with the skin of their teeth. From the account
which each of these gave, it appeared clear to a demonstration—(1) That
their elders usurped a more absolute authority over the conscience,
than the Bishop of Rome himself does. (2) That, to gain and secure
this, they used a continued train of guile, fraud, and falsehood of
every kind. (3) That they scrape their votaries to the bone as to their
worldly substance, leaving little to any, to some nothing, or less than
nothing. (4) That still they are so infatuated as to believe, that
theirs is the only true church upon earth.”
But leaving the Moravians, let us track Wesley’s footsteps during the
year 1753.
The first two months were spent in London. He visited “the Marshalsea
prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness.” “O shame to man,” he
writes, “that there should be such a picture of hell upon earth! And
shame to those who bear the name of Christ, that there should need any
prison at all in Christendom.”
He visited many of the sick and poor, and writes: “Who could see such
scenes unmoved? There are none such in a pagan country. If any of the
Indians in Georgia were sick, those that were near them gave them
whatever they wanted. Oh who will convert the English into honest
heathen? I found some in their cells underground; others in their
garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger; but I found not one
of them unemployed, who was able to crawl about the room. So wickedly,
devilishly false is that common objection, ‘They are poor, only because
they are idle.’ If you saw these things with your own eyes, could you
lay out money in ornaments and superfluities?”
Just at this juncture, Wesley began to turn his attention to a subject,
which afterwards became one of the greatest discoveries of the age.
A year previous to this, Benjamin Franklin had established the
important fact of the identity of lightning and the electric fluid.
From time to time, he had sent accounts of his experiments to the Royal
Society of England; but the communications were not admitted into the
printed transactions of that learned body. They were given, however,
to Mr. Cave, the editor of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, who had sense
enough to see their superlative importance, and who published them in
a pamphlet, with a preface written by Dr. Fothergill. By additions
subsequently made, the pamphlet grew into a quarto volume; was
translated into French, German, and Latin; and attracted the attention
of all the philosophers in Europe. The result was, that even the Royal
Society began to reconsider the very experiments which they had treated
with ridicule; and admitted Franklin, in 1753, into their honourable
corporation, bestowing upon him the Copley medal, and all without
solicitation, and without the payment of the customary fees.
With his characteristic keenness, Wesley laid hold of Franklin’s facts
as soon as they were published. They were new and startling; but he
saw, that they were most momentous, and evidently entertained the hope,
that they would be turned to practical account, in a way which would
excite the amazement and gratitude of the human race. Hear what he
says:—
“1753, February 17.—From Dr. Franklin’s letters, I learned,—1. That
electrical fire is a species of fire, infinitely finer than any other
yet known. 2. That it is diffused, and in nearly equal proportions,
through almost all substances. 3. That, as long as it is thus
diffused, it has no discernible effect. 4. That, if any quantity of
it be collected together, whether by art or nature, it then becomes
visible in the form of fire, and inexpressibly powerful. 5. That it
is essentially different from the light of the sun; for it pervades a
thousand bodies which light cannot penetrate, and yet cannot penetrate
glass, which light pervades so freely. 6. That lightning is no other
than electrical fire, collected by one or more clouds. 7. That all
the effects of lightning may be performed by the artificial electric
fire. 8. That anything pointed, as a spire or tree, attracts the
lightning, just as a needle does the electrical fire. 9. That the
electrical fire, discharged on a rat or fowl, will kill it instantly;
but discharged on one dipped in water, it will slide off, and do it no
hurt at all. In like manner, the lightning, which will kill a man in
a moment, will not hurt him, if he be thoroughly wet. What an amazing
scene is here opened, for after ages to improve upon!”
Wesley’s concluding sentence is remarkable; but even he had no idea
that, in little more than a hundred years, electric fire would become
the means of sending, almost instantaneously, its wondrous messages
from England to India, and from shore to shore of the great Atlantic
Ocean. Wesley, however, was one of the first to take an interest in
the science of electricity. Six years before this, in 1747, he wrote:
“I went to see what are called the electrical experiments. How must
these also confound those poor half thinkers, who will believe nothing
but what they can comprehend! Who can comprehend how fire lives in
water, and passes through it more freely than through the air? How
flame issues out of my finger,—real flame, such as sets fire to spirits
of wine? How these, and many more as strange phenomena, arise from
the turning round of a glass globe? It is all mystery; if haply, by
any means, God may hide pride from man!” In 1756, he began to turn
the discovery to practical account. Having procured an apparatus, he
commenced electrifying persons for various disorders, and soon found
his patients so numerous, that an hour every day had to be devoted to
trying “the virtue of this surprising medicine.” Moorfields, Southwark,
St. Paul’s, and the Seven Dials were the places of rendezvous; and
here thousands resorted to avail themselves of Wesley’s remedy. He
writes: “Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have received unspeakable good;
and I have not known one man, woman, or child, who has received any
hurt thereby; so that, when I hear any talk of the danger of being
electrified (especially if they are medical men who talk so), I cannot
but impute it to great want either of sense or honesty.” “We know it
is a thousand medicines in one; in particular, that it is the most
efficacious medicine in nervous disorders of every kind, which has ever
yet been discovered.”
On February 26, Wesley left London for Bristol, reading on the road Mr.
Prince’s “Christian History,” concerning which he makes the following
remarks:—
“What an amazing difference is there in the manner wherein God
has carried on His work in England and in America! There, above a
hundred of the established clergy, men of age and experience, and
of the greatest note for sense and learning in those parts, are
zealously engaged in the work. Here, almost the whole body of the
aged, experienced, learned clergy, are zealously engaged against
it; and few, but a handful of raw young men, engaged in it, without
name, learning, or eminent sense. And yet, by that large number of
honourable men, the work seldom flourished above six months at a time,
and then followed a lamentable and general decay, before the next
revival of it; whereas, that which God hath wrought, by these despised
instruments, has continually increased for fifteen years together;
and, at whatever time it has declined in any one place, has more
eminently flourished in others.”
In the same month, Wesley wrote concerning these “raw young men,” as
follows:—
“LONDON, _February 6, 1753_.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—It is a constant rule with us, that no preacher
should preach above twice a day, unless on Sunday or some
extraordinary time; and then he may preach three times. We know nature
cannot long bear the preaching oftener than this, and, therefore, to
do it is a degree of self murder. Those of the preachers, who would
not follow this advice, have all repented when it was too late.
“I likewise advise all our preachers not to preach above an hour at
a time, prayer and all; and not to speak louder than the number of
hearers require.
“You will show this to all our preachers, and any that desire it may
take a copy of it.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[187]
Such was Wesley’s advice; his example, however, was often widely
different.
On March 19, Wesley and his wife set out from Bristol for the north of
England.
At Evesham, he preached in the town hall, where most of the
congregation were still and attentive, excepting some at the lower end,
who, he says, “were walking to and fro, laughing and talking, as if
they had been in Westminster Abbey.”
At Birmingham, he talked with Sarah B——, one of six wild enthusiasts,
who had disturbed the society, and, by their antinomian blasphemy,
shown themselves fit for Bedlam.
At Nantwich, he was “saluted with curses and hard names;” and soon
afterwards, the mob pulled down the chapel.[188]
At Davyhulme, he found, what he had never heard of in England, a clan
of infidel peasants. He writes: “a neighbouring alehouse keeper drinks,
and laughs, and argues into deism all the ploughmen and dairymen he can
light on. But no mob rises against him; and reason good: Satan is not
divided against himself.”
In the Manchester society, he found seventeen dragoons, who had been
in the same regiment with John Haime in Flanders; but they utterly
despised both John and his Master till they came to Manchester,
where they were “now a pattern of seriousness, zeal, and all holy
conversation.”
At Chipping, when he was about to go into the pulpit of his friend, the
Rev. Mr. Milner, a man thrust himself before him, and said, “You shall
not go into the pulpit;” and by main strength pushed him back. Eight
or ten noisy men joined the belligerent, and Wesley thought it best to
desire Mr. Milner to read the prayers himself.
At Kendal, he preached in the chapel used by Benjamin Ingham’s society;
but was disgusted at the people coming in and sitting down, without
any pretence to any previous prayer. They let him sing the first hymn
solely by himself; but God spake to them in His word, and in the
singing of the hymn after the sermon most of them united; while the
greatest part of them followed him to his inn, and conversed with him
till he went to bed.
He now made his way to Scotland. Dumfries had two of the most elegant
churches he had ever seen. Glasgow he took to be as large as Newcastle.
The students of the university wore scarlet gowns, reaching only to
their knees, very dirty, very ragged, and of very coarse materials.
Here he was the guest of the Rev. John Gillies, the minister of the
College kirk, at whose invitation he had come. Mr. Gillies was now
preparing his Historical Collections, which, in the year following,
he published, in two large octavo volumes. Wesley spent nearly a
week with this devout and distinguished man. He assisted him in his
“Collections,” preached in his kirk, and seems to have been the means
of introducing a novelty in the public worship of the Scots—the
singing of hymns as well as doggerel versions of the Book of Psalms.
At all events, on the first day of his visit, he observes: “After the
sermon, Mr. Gillies concluded with the blessing. He then gave out, one
after another, four hymns, which about a dozen young men sung. He had
before desired those who were so minded to go away; but scarce any
stirred till all was ended.” This, however, was a serious innovation,
and soon after Wesley left, Mr. Gillies wrote to him as follows: “The
singing of hymns here meets with greater opposition than I expected.
Serious people are much divided. Those of better understanding and
education are silent; but many others are so prejudiced, that they
speak openly against it, and look upon me as doing a very sinful thing.
I beg your advice, whether to answer them only by continuing in the
practice of the thing, or whether I should also publish a sheet of
arguments from reason, and Scripture, and the example of the godly.
Your experience of dealing with people’s prejudice, makes your advice
of the greater importance. I bless the Lord for the benefit and comfort
of your acquaintance; for your important assistance in my Historical
Collections; and for your edifying conversation and sermons in
Glasgow.”[189]
The friendship thus commenced with Mr. Gillies was continued for many
years. Both Wesley and Grimshaw rendered great assistance to Gillies
in his valuable book on revivals, and were consulted as to the time of
its being published. Mr. Gillies was an eminently devout and pious man
and minister, but was living without the evidence of his adoption into
the family of God. Hence the following to Wesley, under the date of
September 5, 1753.
“O when shall I get that Divine _elenchos_ you mention, in my own
soul! The other day I fasted and prayed all day in the fields; but a
body of death still cleaves to me. I fear I have not yet the gift of
the Holy Ghost. I know not what to do. I sometimes think I should be
happy to be in some wilderness in America; to forget and be forgotten;
to have none but God to converse with; digging for my daily bread.
But is not this desire of solitude a vain thought, unless I could fly
from my own vile and wretched self? O that the Lord would show me what
it is that separates my soul from Him, that it might be destroyed,
and, that I might know, He is my God in Christ! This, this is all I
want. Dear Mr. Wesley, continue to pray for your most unworthy, but
affectionate brother and servant,
“JOHN GILLIES.”[190]
Such was the religious experience of the author of the “Historical
Collections of the Success of the Gospel,” at the very time when that
important book was being published.
On leaving Glasgow, Wesley proceeded direct to Newcastle, preaching
on the way at Berwick and at Alnwick. He reached the latter town on
April 25, the day on which those who had finished their apprenticeship,
during the previous year, were made free of the corporation. This was
done by the young fellows having to walk through a bog, purposely
preserved for the occasion, and which took many of them up to the
breast, and even to the neck in passing. Sixteen or seventeen, during
Wesley’s visit, thus waded their way to Alnwick dignity through Alnwick
dirt. The Alnwick society had been split asunder by presbyterians,
of whom good Jeannie Keith was one. Wesley writes: “a few violent
presbyterians had, at length, separated themselves from us. It was well
they saved me the trouble; for I can have no connection with those who
will be contentious. These I reject, not for their opinion, but for
their sin; for their unchristian temper and unchristian practice; for
being haters of reproof, haters of peace, haters of their brethren, and
consequently of God.”
While at Newcastle, Wesley presided at the first general quarterly
meeting of Methodist stewards that was held in the north of England.
He also preached in a chapel recently erected at Gateshead Fell,
the second chapel built for the Methodists in the neighbourhood of
Newcastle.
Wesley left Newcastle on the 7th of May, and, after preaching at
Durham, Stockton, and Robin Hood’s Bay, came, two days afterwards, to
York, where he met with a rough salute, and preached in a room “hot as
an oven.”
On May 22, he met his conference at Leeds, there being present, besides
himself, two clergymen, Grimshaw and Milner; twenty-five itinerant, and
sixteen local preachers.
It was determined that, in future, the conferences should be held
at London, Bristol, and Leeds, by turns. As a testimony against the
corruptions of the Moravians, it was suggested, that it might be proper
to reprint Wesley’s “Letter to the Church at Herrnhuth,” with some
additions, and a dedication to the count. It was resolved to behave
towards Mr. Ingham with all tenderness and love, and to unite with
him when he returned to the old Methodist doctrine. The predestinarian
preachers having done much hurt to the societies, it was agreed—“(1)
That none of them should preach any more in our societies. (2) That
a loving and respectful letter should be written to Mr. Whitefield,
desiring him to advise his preachers, not to reflect (as they had
done continually, and that both with great bitterness and rudeness)
either upon the doctrines, discipline, or person of Mr. Wesley, among
his own societies; to abstain himself (at least when he was among Mr.
Wesley’s people) from speaking against either his doctrines, rules, or
preachers; and not to declare war anew, as he had done by a needless
digression in his late sermon.”
In accordance with this resolution, Wesley addressed to Whitefield the
following letter, which, up to the present, has been unpublished:—
“_May, 1753._
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Between forty and fifty of our preachers lately met
at Leeds, all of whom, I trust, esteem you in love for your work’s
sake. I was desired by them to mention a few particulars to you, in
order to a still firmer union between us.
“Several of them had been grieved at your mentioning, among our people
(in private conversation, if not in public preaching), some of those
opinions which we do not believe to be true;—such as ‘a man may be
justified and not know it;’ that, ‘there is no possibility of falling
away from grace;’ and that, ‘there is no perfection in this life.’
They conceived, that this was not doing as you would be done to, and
that it tended to create not peace but confusion.
“They were likewise concerned at your sometimes speaking lightly of
the discipline received among us, of societies, classes, bands, and
of our rules in general, of some of them in particular. This they
apprehended to be neither kind nor just, nor consistent with the
profession which you at other times make.
“Above all, they had been troubled at the manner wherein your
preachers (so I call those who preach at the Tabernacle) had very
frequently spoken of my brother and me, partly in the most scoffing
and contemptuous manner, relating a hundred shocking stories as
unquestionable facts, and propagating them with diligence, and with an
air of triumph, wherever they came.
“These things I was desired by all our brethren to mention. Two or
three of them, afterwards, desired me, in private, to mention further,
that when you were in the north your conversation was not so useful as
was expected; that it generally turned not upon the things of God, but
on trifles and things indifferent,—that your whole carriage was not so
serious as they could have desired, being often mixed with needless
laughter,—and that those who scrupled any levity of behaviour, and
endeavoured always to speak and act as seeing God, you rather weakened
than strengthened, intimating that they were in bondage, or weak in
faith.
“I am persuaded you will receive these short lines in the same love
wherein I write them. That you may prosper more and more, both in your
soul and in your labours, is the hearty desire of, my dear brother,
“Your affectionate fellow labourer,
“JOHN WESLEY.”
This is a fine specimen of brotherly fidelity. Whitefield was
misrepresented. Wesley has endorsed his copy of this manuscript letter
with the words, “He denies all;” and this is partially confirmed by the
following extract from a letter written some time before, and addressed
to Mr. M——.
“LONDON, _March 10, 1753_.
“MY DEAR MR. M——,—I have preached at Spitalfields chapel twice. Both
the Mr. Wesleys are agreed. Let brotherly love continue! I do not
like writing against anybody, but I think that wisdom, which dwells
with prudence, should direct you not to fill Mr. Wesley’s people (who
expect you will serve them) with needless jealousies. I hope to see
the time, when you will talk less of persons and things, and more
of Him who is the common head of His whole mystical body. This, and
this alone, can make and keep you steady in yourself, and extensively
useful to others. I am glad you know when persons are justified. It
is a lesson I have not yet learnt. There are so many stony ground
hearers, that receive the word with joy, that I have determined to
suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits.
“I am, etc.,
“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[191]
At the same conference of 1753, it was asked, “Does every one know the
exact time when he was justified?” Answer: “It is possible he may not
know what to call it, when he experiences this; especially if he has
not been accustomed to hear the scriptural doctrine concerning it. And
the change then wrought in some may not be so sudden, or so observable,
as it is in others. But, generally, wherever the gospel is preached in
a clear and scriptural manner, more than ninety-nine in a hundred do
know the exact time when they are justified.”
It was agreed, that they had not preached concerning both inward
and outward holiness so strongly and closely as they ought. Many
of the Methodists having lately married with unbelievers, it was
resolved, that those who did this in future should be expelled from
the society; and, that it should be a general rule, that no Methodist
should marry without consulting the most serious of his brethren. It
was ascertained, that sabbath breaking, dram drinking, evil speaking,
unprofitable conversation, lightness, and contracting debts without
sufficient care to discharge them, extensively prevailed; and it was
determined, that none, who hereafter were guilty of such things, would
be permitted to remain members of the society. Some of the married
preachers were suffering great hardships, through no provision being
made for the sustenance of their wives; and it was agreed that, in
future, preachers ought to be careful in marrying “hand over head”;
that they ought first to consult their brethren; and that, if they
neglected this, they must not take it amiss if left to provide for
themselves and their wives in the best way they could; and that, if
they did consult with their brethren first, and still married wives
without anything, they must be content to return to their temporal
business, and again become local preachers. The circuits were twelve in
number, namely—London, Bristol, Devonshire, Cornwall, Staffordshire,
Cheshire, Leeds, Haworth, Lincolnshire, Newcastle, Wales, and Ireland;
and the preachers appointed to supply them, including the two Wesleys,
were thirty-nine.[192]
The conference being ended, Wesley proceeded to Birstal, Haworth,
Keighley, Heptonstall, and Todmorden; preaching, in three days, ten
or eleven sermons, and meeting the societies, till his voice began
to fail, though at Birstal it had been sufficiently powerful, and so
exerted, that those who sat in John Nelson’s windows, at a distance of
a hundred yards, heard every word he uttered. Writing to his friend,
Mr. Ebenezer Blackwell, on May 28, he says: “The harvest has not been
so plenteous for many years as it is now, in all the north of England;
but the labourers are few. I wish you could persuade our friend”
[probably his brother] “to share the labour with me. One of us should,
in anywise, visit both the north and Ireland every year. But I cannot
do both; the time will not suffice, otherwise I would not spare myself.
I hope my life, rather than my tongue, says, I desire only to spend and
be spent in the work.”[193]
On his way to London, Wesley paid his first visit to the town of
Leicester. He writes: “June 10, Whit-Sunday:—After dinner, a gentleman
who came from Leicester, eight miles off,” [Markfield] “invited me
thither. About eight I preached there, in a place near the walls,
called the Butt-close. The people came running together from all parts,
high and low, rich and poor; and their behaviour surprised me; they
were so serious and attentive, not one offering any interruption.”
Soon after this, a society was gathered, and was placed under the care
of John Brandon, a dragoon, who subsequently became one of Wesley’s
itinerant preachers; and an old thatched building, in Milstone Lane,
which had been successively used as a tithe barn, a theatre, a riding
school, and a coal depot, was now turned into a Methodist chapel.
Wesley reached London, after a four months’ absence, on the 12th of
June. A month later, he started for the Isle of Wight, where one of his
preachers had been already labouring.[194] Calling at Portsmouth, he
writes: “I was surprised to find so little fruit here, after so much
preaching. That accursed itch of disputing had well-nigh destroyed all
the seed which had been sown. And this ‘vain jangling’ they called
‘contending for the faith.’ I doubt the whole faith of these poor
wretches is but an opinion.”
The society here mentioned was not Wesley’s, but one belonging to
the preachers of the Countess of Huntingdon. Immediately after this
visit, however, a small class was formed by Wesley’s itinerants, one of
the members of which was John Mason, an orphan child now approaching
manhood, and who, in 1764, became an itinerant preacher, and died in
peace in 1810.
Leaving Portsmouth, Wesley, after a three hours’ voyage, landed at
Cowes, in the Isle of Wight; which he says “as far exceeds the Isle of
Anglesey, both in pleasantness and fruitfulness, as that exceeds the
rocks of Scilly.” He rode straight to Newport, where he “found a little
society in tolerable order.” He preached in the market-place to a large
but noisy congregation. He walked to Carisbrook castle, and tells of
the deep well, from which water was then drawn by an ass sixty years
old.
Newport was the only place in the island at which Wesley preached.
On July 12, he started thence for Cornwall. On reaching Bristol, he
performed a service worth mentioning. At the end of May, hundreds of
colliers, on account of the dearness of corn, had risen in riot; had
smashed the windows of the council house; and forcibly boarded a vessel
laden with grain for exportation. They had pelted the constables and
city guards with stones, and committed other outrages, when a troop
of the Scots Greys arrived, who killed four of the rioters, and took
thirty prisoners.[195] At Wesley’s coming, they were still in gaol; and
he writes: “July 17.—At their earnest desire, I preached to the poor
colliers confined in Newgate on account of the late riot. They would
not hear the gospel while they were at liberty. God grant they may
profit by it now!”
He spent three weeks in Cornwall; met the stewards; examined the
societies; and told the Methodists of St. Ives, that they must cease
smuggling, or he would not visit them again. Here he was seized with
illness,—a flux, a continual headache, violent and frequent vomitings,
and cramp in his feet and legs. By this he was made a prisoner for a
week, when he recommenced preaching, and, on August 21, got back to
Bristol.
Kingswood school, as usual, required attention. He writes: “Surely the
importance of this design is apparent, even from the difficulties that
attend it. I have spent more money, and time, and care, on this, than
almost any design I ever had; and still it exercises all the patience I
have. But it is worth all the labour.”
On September 3, he “began visiting the little societies in
Somersetshire and Wiltshire;” and, at Paulton, had an encounter with
Stephen Plummer, a quondam Methodist, but now an insane Quaker.
Wesley preached, and, as soon as he had done, Stephen began an
outpouring. Wesley listened for half an hour; but, finding that his
old acquaintance was no nearer the end of his discourse, he rose up to
leave. Stephen’s “sister then begged him to suspend his oration; on
which he flew into a violent rage, and roared louder and louder, till
an honest man took him in his arms, and gently removed him.” Wesley
adds: “What a wise providence was it, that this poor young man turned
Quaker some years before he ran mad! So the honour of turning his
brain now rests upon them, which otherwise must have fallen upon the
Methodists.”
Taking the Isle of Wight on his way, Wesley arrived in London, on
October 9.
Almost for the first time, an estrangement now sprang up between Wesley
and his brother. Their friendship, hitherto, had been of the most
tender and confidential kind; but, for some reason, Charles began to be
reserved, and, to some extent, restive. He was a married man, and had
a happy home; and children were being born, whose claims were scarcely
compatible with the domestic absences occasioned by his itinerant life.
Added to this, Wesley’s wife was perpetually brewing mischief. Towards
Charles and his “dear Sally,” she entertained and cherished feelings of
strong aversion, which she was seldom backward to express. All this may
help to explain the following extracts from two letters, from Wesley to
his brother, and dated respectively October 20, and October 31.
“I came back from Bedford last night. I know not whether it was your
will or no (I believe not), but I am sure it was God’s will for
you, to call there. How do you judge whether a thing be God’s will
or no? I hope not by inward impressions. Let us walk warily. I have
much constitutional enthusiasm; and you have much more. I give you a
dilemma. Take one side or the other. Either act readily in connection
with me, or never pretend it. Rather disclaim it; and openly avow you
do and will not. By acting in connection with me, I mean, take counsel
with me once or twice a year as to the places where you will labour.
Hear my advice before you fix whether you take it or no. At present
you are so far from this, that I do not even know when and where you
intend to go. So far are you from following any advice of mine; nay,
even from asking it. And yet I may say, without vanity, that I am
a better judge of this matter than either Lady Huntingdon, Sally,
Jones, or any other: nay than your own heart, that is, will. You told
William Briggs, that you never declined going to any place because my
wife was there. I am glad of it. If so, I have hope we may sometime
spend a little time together. Why do you omit giving the sacrament in
Kingswood? What is reading prayers at Bristol, in comparison of this?
I am sure, in making this vehement alteration, you never consulted me.
“My love to my sister. Adieu!”[196]
His brother was not the only one, among his friends, that gave Wesley
trouble. Hence the following extracts from two other letters.
“You give five reasons why the Rev. Mr. P—— will come no more
among us:—1. ‘Because we despise the ministers of the Church of
England.’ This I flatly deny; I am answering letters this very post,
which bitterly blame me for just the contrary. 2. ‘Because so much
backbiting is suffered amongst our people.’ It is not _suffered_: all
possible means are used, both to prevent and remove it. 3. ‘Because I,
who have written so much against hoarding up money, have put out £700
to interest.’ I never put sixpence out to interest since I was born;
nor had I ever £100 together, my own, since I came into the world. 4.
‘Because our lay preachers have told many stories of my brother and
me.’ If they did, I am sorry for them: when I hear the particulars,
I can answer, and perhaps make those ashamed who believed them. 5.
‘Because we did not help a friend in distress.’ We did help him as far
as we were able. You conclude with praying, that ‘God would remove
pride and malice from amongst us.’ Of pride I have too much; of malice
I have none: however, the prayer is good, and I thank you for it.”