“This licensing the preachers, and preaching houses, is a matter
that I never expected to have seen or heard of among the Methodists.
If I had, I dare say I had never entered into connection with them.
I am in connection, and desire to continue so: but how can I do
it consistently with my relation to the Church of England? What
encouragement was given to the preachers at the last conference to
license themselves, God and you best know; but, since then, many
of the preachers in these parts have got licensed at the quarter
sessions. Several of the preaching houses and other houses also
are licensed. The Methodists are no longer members of the Church
of England. They are as real a body of Dissenters from her as the
presbyterians, baptists, quakers, or any body of independents.
“I little thought, that your brother approved or connived at the
preachers’ doings at Norwich. If it be so, ‘to your tents, O Israel!’
it is time for me to shift for myself; to disown all connection with
the Methodists; to stay at home, and take care of my parish; or to
preach abroad in such places as are unlicensed, and to such people as
are in connection with us. I hereby, therefore, assure you, that I
disclaim all further and future connection with the Methodists. I will
quietly recede, without noise or tumult.
“As to licensing of preachers and places, I know no expedient to
prevent it. The thing is gone too far. It is become inveterate. It has
been gradually growing to this ever since erecting preaching houses
was first encouraged in the land; and if you can stem the torrent,
it will be only during your lives. As soon as you are dead, all the
preachers will then do as many have already done. Dissenters the
Methodists will all shortly be: it cannot, I am fully satisfied, be
prevented.
“Nor is this spirit merely in the preachers. It is in the people also.
There are so many inconveniences attend the people, that in most
places they all plead strenuously for a settled ministry. They cannot,
they say, in conscience, receive the sacraments as administered
in our Church. They cannot attend preaching at eight, twelve, and
four o’clock, on the Lord’s days, and go to church. They reason
these things with the preachers, and urge upon them ordination and
residence. They can object little against it; therefore they license.
I believe the Methodists (preachers and members) have so much to
say for their separation from our Church, as will not easily, in a
conference or otherwise, be obviated.”[415]
There can be no doubt, that Charles Wesley and Grimshaw were
technically right. The act of toleration, under which Methodist
preachers, and Methodist meeting-houses, were licensed, was an act
passed in the first year of the reign of William and Mary, and was
intended, not for churchmen, but “for exempting their majesties’
protestant subjects _dissenting from the Church of England_, from the
penalties of certain laws.” Before the licences could be granted,
the oaths must be taken, and the persons taking them must declare
themselves Dissenters.
What induced the Methodists and the Methodist preachers to take such
a step as this? Was it because the persecuting spirit of magistrates
and others began to put in force, at Rolvenden and other places, the
old “conventicle act,” and the “five mile act,” passed in the reign
of Charles II.? Or, was it because the Methodists and their preachers
began to be impatient of their present anomalous position, and wished
to avow themselves to be what they really were,—Dissenters from the
Church of England? Or rather, was not the step they took, and which so
alarmed Charles Wesley and his clerical friend Grimshaw, induced by
both the reasons just mentioned? We think it was; indeed, there can be
little doubt of it.
No wonder that Charles Wesley thought the crisis had arrived! From the
beginning, the Methodists, if members of the Church of England at all,
had been _irregulars_. Many of them, for various reasons, had long
refused to go to church and sacrament; and now, by availing themselves
of an act of parliament, they openly, in courts of law, avowed
themselves to be Dissenters.
Charles, the high churchman, was wroth to the uttermost; John,
the zealous evangelist, was calmly pursuing his great mission in
Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. The one was preaching, the
other plotting: both equally sincere, and well intentioned; but one
acting much more wisely than the other.
Charles Wesley’s private correspondence with the preachers was scarcely
fair to his absent brother, and cannot be commended as honourable. John
was the real, almost the only, leader of the Methodists; and to tamper
with his preachers, by offering them episcopal ordination and family
support, was not brotherly behaviour; neither was the offer one which
was likely to be realised. True, he wrote as if he was authorised to
say, that those itinerants who wished might certainly obtain orders
in the Church of England. He was a friend of Lady Huntingdon’s; and,
perhaps, her ladyship’s encouragement was his assumed authority;
but who believes that Charles Wesley could have obtained, for any
considerable number of the Methodist itinerants, ordination by bishops?
His scheme was visionary, and ended in nothing. Joseph Cownley wrote to
him as follows.
“There are several of my brethren, who have no thoughts of fleeing
to the gown or cloak for succour, unless they could do it, and be
Methodist preachers still. I can easily believe, that many, if not
most, of those who shall survive you, will separate from the Church,
except, as my friend Hopper says, you get them fastened where they are
by prevailing on one or more of the bishops to ordain them. But then
what bishop, either in England or Ireland, will ever do this? will
ordain a Methodist preacher, to be a Methodist preacher? For my part,
as poor and worthless a wretch as I am, I could not submit to it on
the terms on which most of my brethren have hitherto got it.”
Cownley then adds a significant paragraph, showing that Charles
Wesley’s influence among the Methodists was waning. “Give me leave now
to press you to do what I think is your bounden duty: I mean, to visit
the north this summer. We have excused you to the poor people, till
we can do it no longer. If you refuse to come now, we can say neither
more nor less about it, than, that you cannot, because you will not.
If you could not preach at all, it would do them good only to see your
face.”[416]
An extract from another letter, by Charles Wesley to his wife, may be
added.
“SPITALFIELDS CHAPEL, _April 13, 1760_.
“Poor Mr. I’anson is in great trouble for our people. A persecuting
justice has oppressed and spoiled them by the conventicle act. We have
appealed. I am fully persuaded God has suffered this evil, to reprove
our hypocrisy, and our mistrust of His protection.
“I met all the leaders, and read them my brother’s and Mr. Grimshaw’s
letters. The latter put them in a flame. All cried out against the
licensed preachers; many demanded, that they should be silenced
immediately; many, that they should give up their licences; some
protested against ever hearing them again. Silas Told and Isaac
Waldron, as often as they opened their mouths, were put to silence
by the people’s just complaints and unanswerable arguments. The lay
preachers pleaded my brother’s authority. I took occasion from thence
to moderate the others, to defend the preachers, and desired the
leaders to have patience till we had had our conference; promising
them to let them know all that should pass at it. They could trust me.
I added, that I would not betray the cause of the Church, or deceive
them; that I was resolved no one of them all should be ensnared into
a meeting-house. If they chose to turn Dissenters, they should do it
with their eyes open. My chief concern upon earth, I said, was the
prosperity of the Church of England; my next, that of the Methodists;
my third, that of the preachers: that, if their interests should ever
come in competition, I would give up the preachers for the good of
the Methodists, and the Methodists for the good of the whole body of
the Church of England; that nothing could ever force me to leave the
Methodists, but their leaving the Church. You cannot conceive what a
spirit rose in all that heard me. They all cried out, that they would
answer for ninety-nine out of a hundred in London, that they would
live and die in the Church. My business was to pacify and keep them
within bounds. I appointed another meeting on this day fortnight, and
Friday seven-night as a fast for the Church.”[417]
This wonderful leaders’ meeting, strangely enough, was held on a
Sunday. Unfortunately, no report of the discussions of the ensuing
conference now exists; but this is certain, that the agitation of the
Methodists was not smothered. In the month of December, the following
puzzling queries were proposed to Charles Wesley, in _Lloyd’s Evening
Post_.
“1. Are you not a sworn member and minister of the Church of England?
“2. Are you not bound, as such, to discountenance and prevent, as far
as lies in you, every schism and division in the Church, or separation
from it?
“3. Do not you countenance and support this by administering the
sacrament at Kingswood, near Bristol, and other places in London,
not licensed by the bishop, in time of Divine service at the parish
churches?
“4. Is not the attending such meetings at such time an actual
separation from the Church of England, according to the doctrine laid
down in a small tract lately published by you?
“5. Are not such assemblies contrary to the laws of the land, when the
places and the persons officiating are not licensed by the bishop of
the diocese where such meetings are held, or at the quarter sessions
of the peace?
“6. Is it honest to call yourself a member and minister of the Church
of England, when it appears from your own confession you are not?
“7. Are you not bound to submit to every ordinance of man for the
Lord’s sake?
“8. Should you not, therefore, submit to the authority of the Church
of England, or qualify yourself as the law enjoins?
“9. Is not your late incapacity to preach, and the distractions among
you, a judicial stroke, for your gross disingenuity, and sin against
God?
“I am yours, etc.,
“LOVE TRUTH.”
This was turning the tables upon the vehement churchman; and with
this we, for the present, leave the question, whether, in 1760, the
Methodists were Dissenters or were members of the Church of England.
Wesley was at this period too much occupied with other matters, to have
time to devote to literary pursuits; and yet the year 1760 was not,
even in this respect, altogether barren.
For instance, he published a 12mo pamphlet of 72 pages, entitled,
“The Desideratum: or Electricity made plain and useful. By a Lover of
Mankind, and of Common Sense.” In his preface, he states, that he has
endeavoured to “comprise in his tract the sum of all that had hitherto
been published on this curious and important subject.” Electricity he
considered “the noblest medicine yet known.”
The only other publication which he issued, in 1760, was a 12mo volume
of more than three hundred pages, with the title, “Sermons on Several
Occasions. By John Wesley, M. A.” The title was imperfect, for in the
same volume, and continuously paged, there are the following additional
pieces: namely, “Advice to the Methodists, with regard to Dress,” 20
pages; “The Duties of Husbands and Wives,” 70 pages; “Thoughts on
Christian Perfection,” 30 pages; and “Christian Instructions, Extracted
from a late French Author,” 54 pages.
The sermons are seven in number. The first, on Original Sin; the
second, on the New Birth; the third, on the Wilderness State; the
fourth, on Heaviness through Temptations; the fifth, on Self Denial;
the sixth, on the Cure of Evil Speaking; and the seventh, on the Use of
Money.
The last mentioned sermon is pregnant with not a few of Wesley’s most
strongly expressed sentiments. Concerning himself, he tells us that,
from “a peculiar constitution of soul,” he is “convinced, by many
experiments, that he could not study, to any degree of perfection,
either mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra, without being a deist, if
not an atheist; though others may study them all their lives without
sustaining any inconvenience.”
On the payment of taxes, he remarks: “It is, at least, as sinful to
defraud the king of his right, as to rob our fellow subjects; the king
has full as much right to his customs as we have to our houses and
apparel.”
“Drams, or spirituous liquors, are liquid fire,” and all who
manufacture or sell them, except as medicine, “are poisoners general.
They murder his majesty’s subjects by wholesale. They drive them to
hell like sheep. The curse of God is in their gardens, their walks,
their groves. Blood, blood is there: the foundation, the floor, the
walls, the roof of their dwellings, are stained with blood.”
In the same sermon, he powerfully elaborates his three well known
rules,—Gain all you can; Save all you can; Give all you can.
In his “Advice to the Methodists with regard to Dress,” he says:
“I would not advise you to imitate the quakers, in those little
particularities of dress, which can answer no possible end, but to
distinguish them from all other people. To be singular, merely for
singularity’s sake, is not the part of a Christian. But I advise you to
imitate them, first, in the neatness, and secondly in the plainness,
of their apparel.” He continues: “Wear no gold, no pearls or precious
stones; use no curling of hair; buy no velvets, no silks, no fine
linen; no superfluities, no _mere ornaments_, though ever so much in
fashion. Wear nothing which is of a glaring colour, or which is, in
any kind, gay, glistering, showy; nothing made in the very height
of fashion; nothing apt to attract the eyes of bystanders. I do not
advise women to wear rings, earrings, necklaces, lace, or ruffles.
Neither do I advise men to wear coloured waistcoats, shining stockings,
glittering or costly buckles or buttons, either on their coats or in
their sleeves, any more than gay, fashionable, or expensive perukes.
It is true these are little, very little things; therefore, they are
not worth defending; therefore, give them up, let them drop, throw them
away, without another word.” What will the fashionable followers of
Wesley say to this? And yet Wesley enforces his advices, and answers
objections, in a manner which, we suspect, the devotees of fashion will
find it difficult to set aside.
“The Duties of Husbands and Wives” was a republication, in an abridged
form, of Whateley’s “Directions for Married Persons,” published, in
1753, in Vol. XXII. of the “Christian Library.”
The “Thoughts on Christian Perfection” have been already noticed;
and “Christian Instructions” contains nothing which deserves further
mention.
A quarter of a century had elapsed since Wesley set sail for America.
With what results? To say nothing of the success of the labours of
Whitefield and his coadjutors, Methodism had been introduced into
almost every county of England and Ireland; ninety itinerant preachers
were acting under Wesley’s direction; also a much larger number of
local preachers, leaders, and stewards; chapels had been built in
London, Bristol, Kingswood, Newcastle on Tyne, Redruth, St. Just,
St. Ives, Whitehaven, Gateshead, Sunderland, Teesdale, Colchester,
Portsmouth, Whitchurch, Bacup, Bolton, Flixton, Liverpool, Epworth,
Louth, Norwich, Kinley, Misterton, Coleford, Tipton, Wednesbury,
Lakenheath, Salisbury, Bradford, Halifax, Hutton Rudby, Haworth, Leeds,
Osmotherley, Stainland, Sheffield, York, Cardiff, Bandon, Cork, Dublin,
Edinderry, Tullamore, Court Mattrass, Pallas, Castlebar, Waterford, and
other places;[418] and to these sacred edifices must be added scores,
probably hundreds, of private houses, schools, barns, and rooms, which
were regularly used as preaching places. In addition to all this, the
Wesley brothers, John and Charles, had published about a dozen volumes
and about thirty tracts and pamphlets of hymns and poetry; while Wesley
himself had issued nine numbers of his Journal, about one hundred and
thirty separate sermons, tracts, and pamphlets, and nearly seventy
volumes of books, including his “Notes on the New Testament,” his
Sermons, and his “Christian Library.”
Can this be equalled, all things considered, in the same space of time,
in the life of any one, in this or in any other age and nation of the
world? We doubt it. Wesley began his career as a penniless priest; he
was without patrons and without friends; magistrates threatened him;
the clergy expelled him from their churches, and wrote numberless and
furious pasquinades against him; newspapers and magazines reviled him;
ballad singers, in foulest language, derided him; mobs assaulted, and,
more than once, well-nigh murdered him; and not a few of his companions
in toil forsook him and became his antagonists; and yet, despite all
this, such were some of the results of the first five-and-twenty years
of his unequalled public ministry.