“I constitute _you_, Christopher Hopper by name, Lord President of
the north. Enter upon your province, Northumberland, Cumberland,
Westmoreland, Durham, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, without delay.
Pray despatch letters to Jacob Rowell, Jo. Heslop, Richard Boardman,
and your other deputies without loss of time; and quicken them to put
forth all their strength, and make one push for all. But hold! John
Fenwick writes to me, ‘I will give £25!’ Do not abate him the five! No
drawing back! I think the time is come for rolling away this reproach
from us. Your thought concerning the preachers is a noble one. If
fifty of them set such an example, giving a little out of their
little, such an instance would have an effect upon many. Let one stir
up another. Spare no pains. Write east, west, north, and south. You
have a ready mind, and a ready pen; and it cannot be used in a better
cause.”[712]
Again, in a letter to Mr. Merryweather, of Yarm, dated “London,
December 28, 1767.”
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—I thank Mr. Waldy and you for your ready and
generous assistance. It seems, the time is come; but John Fenwick
writes from Newcastle, ‘We are all here of opinion that what is done
should be done at once; and we think the debt may be paid off in one
year, only let us set about it in faith. I will give £25; Mr. Davison,
£25; Jo. Morrison, £25; Miss Dales, £50.’ Very well; this will not
interfere. Some may give at once, some quarterly, some yearly. You
will encourage your neighbours all you can.
“I am, etc.,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[713]
Such were Wesley’s efforts to obtain subscriptions for the first chapel
relief fund that Methodism ever raised. This was a great connexional
effort to collect £12,000, to defray all the connexional chapel debts.
What was the result? This may be gathered from another circular, which
Wesley issued two years afterwards.
“_November 20, 1769._
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Two years ago, many of our brethren, who considered
the number of the people called Methodists, and the circumstances
which a great part of them were in, believed we should pay off the
debt at once. I myself was fully persuaded, that between twenty and
thirty thousand people were well able to do this; but I was not at all
persuaded they were willing. However, I said little upon that head;
being unwilling to weaken the hands of those who were of another mind.
“It was a good step which was made the first year. Upwards of £5000
were contributed; by which means the most pressing debts were paid;
and many of our brethren were firmly persuaded we should make an end
of the whole the second year. I well knew the Methodists could do
this, but I saw no reason to think they would. And when the collection
was brought in, amounting to above £2000, it was full as much as I
expected.
“But what can be done this third year? £5000 remain unpaid. Are the
Methodists able to clear this in one year? Yes, as able as they are
to clear £50. But are they willing? That I cannot tell. I am sure a
few of them are, even of those who have a large measure of worldly
goods; yea, and those who are lately increased in substance, who have
twice, perhaps ten or twenty times, as much as when they saw me first.
Are you one of them? Whether you are or not, whether your substance
is less or more, are you willing to give what assistance you can?
to do what you can without hurting your family? ‘But if I do so, I
cannot lay out so much, in such and such things, as I intended.’ That
is true; but will this hurt you? What, if instead of enlarging, you
should, for the present, contract, your expenses? spend less, that
you may be able to give more? Would there be any harm in this? ‘But
neither can I lay up so much.’ This, likewise, is most true; but is
it ill husbandry to ‘lay up treasure in heaven’? Is that lost which
is given to God? ‘But I thought we should have paid the debt in one
year, and so need no further collections.’ I never thought so; I knew
it might be paid in one year, but never expected it would. There is
more likelihood of its being paid this year. It will, if our brethren
exert themselves: do you, for one; let nothing be wanting on your
part. Yet do not imagine, ‘We shall need no further collections.’
Indeed, we shall, though we owed not one shilling. Do not you remember
the original design of the yearly subscription? Paying our debts is
but one branch of the design. It answers several other valuable ends,
equally necessary. It enables us to carry the gospel through the
three kingdoms; and, as long as we pursue that glorious design, this
subscription will be necessary; though, it is true, when once this
burden is removed, a far smaller contribution will suffice. However,
‘let the morrow take thought for the things of itself’; to-day do what
you can, for the love of God, of your brethren, of the cause of God,
and of your affectionate brother,
“JOHN WESLEY.”[714]
This appeal was responded to, by a further reduction of debt to the
amount of £1700; but new debts were constantly being created, and, for
years afterwards, chapel debts were one of Wesley’s sorrows.
The conference of 1767 being concluded, Wesley started, on August
24, for the west of England, preaching at Wycombe, Witney, and other
places. He made a brief tour in Wales, and visited most of the
societies in the county of Somerset. On September 26, hearing that his
old friend, Mrs. Blackwell, was dying, he hurried to London, and found
her better. Two days later, he went back to Bristol, where, he says, “I
permitted all of Mr. Whitefield’s society that pleased, to be present
at the lovefeast. I hope we shall ‘not know war any more,’ unless with
the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
Having again wended his way, _viâ_ Southampton and Portsmouth, to
London, he set out, on October 20, to Colchester, and “spent three days
very agreeably, among a quiet and loving people.”
Returning again to London, he started, on October 26, on what he calls
his “little tour through Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire,” which
occupied the next five days.
On November 1, he set out to visit the societies in Kent and Sussex,
and, at the end of the week, returned to London, where he buried the
remains of his clerical coadjutor, Benjamin Colley. Here, he says, he
received the following letter.
“SIR,—I was yesterday led to hear what God would say to me by your
mouth. You exhorted us ‘to strive to enter in at the strait gate.’ I
am willing so to do; but I find, one chief part of my striving must be
to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to instruct the ignorant, to
visit the sick, and such as are in prison, bound in misery and iron.
“But if you purge out all who scorn such practices, or at least are
not fond of them, how many will remain in your society? I fear, scarce
enough to carry your body to the grave. Alas, how many, even among
those who are called believers, have plenty of all the necessaries of
life, and yet complain of poverty! How many have houses and lands,
or bags of money, and yet cannot find in their hearts to spare now
and then to God’s poor a little piece of gold! How many have linen in
plenty, with three or four suits of clothes, and can see the poor go
naked! Pray sir, tell these, you cannot believe they are Christians,
unless they imitate Christ in doing good to all men, and hate
covetousness, which is idolatry.”
Wesley adds: “I do tell them so, and I tell them it will be more
tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them.
I tell them, the Methodists, that do not fulfil all righteousness, will
have the hottest place in the lake of fire.”
On November 30, Wesley started for Norwich, where he says: “Our
friends, the mob, seem to have taken their leave; and so have triflers;
all that remain seem deeply serious.”
On December 7, he writes: “I went on to Yarmouth, and found confusion
worse confounded. Not only Benjamin Worship’s society was come to
nothing, but ours seemed to be swiftly following. They had almost all
left the Church again, being full of prejudice against the clergy and
against one another.” On December 12, he came back to London, where he
continued the remainder of the year, with the exception of a visit to
Sheerness. He writes, December 16: “The governor of the fort having
given me the use of the chapel, I began reading prayers, and afterwards
preached to a large and serious congregation. The next evening it was
considerably increased, so that the chapel was hot as an oven. In the
afternoon of the day after, the governor sent me word, I must preach
in the chapel no more; but, a room being offered, we had a comfortable
hour. Examining the society, consisting of four or five and thirty
members, I had the comfort to find many of them knew in whom they had
believed; and all of them seemed desirous to adorn the doctrine of
God their Saviour. Such a town as many of these live in is scarce to
be found again in England. In the dock, adjoining to the fort, there
are six old men-of-war. These are divided into small tenements, forty,
fifty, or sixty in a ship, with little chimneys and windows; and each
of these contains a family.”
The Whitefield section of the Methodists seem to have had a society in
Sheerness previous to this. Cornelius Winter, now a young man of about
five-and-twenty, and acting as a sort of itinerant local preacher,
in the county of Kent, tells us that, in 1766, Wesley’s “people made
an innovation upon the Calvinistic cause at Sheerness,” upon which
he walked over from Sittingbourne, on a severe winter’s night, and
preached from the words: “And Gideon said unto him, O my Lord, if the
Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all His
miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring
us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered
us into the hands of the Midianites.” No doubt, the young preacher
intended his text to be a stunning one, and to put an end to Wesley’s
“Midianites” poaching on Calvinian preserves. He states that his sermon
“had an amazing effect”; that he “became a frequent and acceptable
visitor”; and that an “eminent old saint, by the name of Wadsworth,
was so pleased with his services, that, when he died, he left him
half-a-crown and his Bible,” the first legacy that Cornelius ever
had.[715] Young Winter thought he had extinguished Wesley’s Methodism
in Sheerness; but, like most young men, he proved himself to be liable
to fall into mistakes.
It is a curious fact, that, in 1767, as in the year previous, Methodism
was attacked chiefly by the muses. One of the principal poetic
effusions was, “Methodism Triumphant; or, the decisive Battle between
the Old Serpent and the Modern Saint,” 4to, 139 pages. In Nichols’
“Literary Anecdotes,” it is stated, that this skittish, satirical
production was written by Dr. Nathaniel Lancaster, rector of Stanford
Rivers,—“a man of strong natural parts, great erudition, refined taste,
and master of a nervous and elegant style. He was a native of Cheshire,
lived a recluse, and died deeply in debt, June 20, 1775.”[716]
Of course, Wesley is Dr. Lancaster’s “modern saint”; and the poem,
which is not without literary merit, professes to sketch “the state of
religion previous to Wesley’s mission; his transcendent character and
miraculous powers,” and his subsequent history, till he is brought into
“single combat with the old serpent. Satan accepts Wesley’s challenge;
leaves his dominions; and repairs to Moorfields, in Britannia.”
Then follows a description of the conflict; Wesley is blown up with
gunpowder; a seraph heals him; the battle is renewed; with his “massive
journals,” Wesley shatters the devil’s horns, batters his skull,
squashes his igneous brains, and then, seizing a falchion sent from the
armoury of heaven, lops off his cloven feet, and finally pulls off his
tail, and suspends it over a fane,—
... “a trophy of victorious faith,
And surest proof, that Methodism springs,
With all her tenets, from a heavenly source.”
The whole poem is full of clever, but profane, banter of this
description.
Another quarto poetical publication, of forty-seven pages, and, in
style and spirit, bearing so strong a resemblance to the former one as
almost to affiliate itself, was entitled, “The Troublers of Israel;
in which the principles of those who turn the world upside down are
displayed. With a preface to the Rev. Dr. D——; to which is prefixed, a
short introductory description of modern enthusiasts.
Besides the above, there was a shilling pamphlet published, with the
title, “A Dialogue between the Rev. Mr. John Wesley and a member of the
Church of England, concerning Predestination.” The author is a most
zealous Calvinist, and attacks Wesley’s views with great violence;
perhaps thinking that, though man might have reason to complain, God
would commend and honour his heavy handed flagellation.
Wesley’s publications, in 1767, were the following.
1. “A Word to a Smuggler,” with this sentence printed on the title
page,—“This tract is not to be sold, but given away:” 8vo, eight pages.
Smuggling was, at this period, one of England’s crying evils; and, from
the first, Wesley resolutely set his face against it. “A smuggler,”
said he, “is a thief of the first order, a highwayman or pickpocket of
the worst sort. Let not any of those prate about reason or religion. It
is an amazing instance of human folly, that every government in Europe
does not drive these vermin away into lands not inhabited.”[717] “Every
smuggler is a thief general, who picks the pockets both of the king and
all his fellow subjects. He wrongs them all; and, above all, the honest
traders, many of whom he deprives of their maintenance.”
So general was the evil in Wesley’s day, that not a few, even of the
members of his own societies, were tainted with it. At St. Ives,
in 1753, he ascertained that nearly the whole society “bought or
sold uncustomed goods.” At Sunderland, in 1757, he had to tell the
Methodists that, unless they would “part with all sin, particularly,
robbing the king,” he should be obliged to part with them. “Carefully
disperse the ‘Word to a Smuggler,’” said Wesley at the conference of
1767; “expel all who will not leave off smuggling; and silence every
local preacher that defends it.”
2. “An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from May 6, 1760,
to October 28, 1762.” 12mo, 141 pages.