Chapter VIII: Part III (7)

From these important documents we learn, that there was a general decay of the societies in Ireland, partly occasioned by the teaching of antinomian and Calvinian doctrines; partly by the want of discipline; and partly by the misbehaviour of preachers. All the itinerants present (ten in number) declared, that they did not believe in the doctrine of absolute predestination; but three of them added: “We believe there are some persons absolutely elected; but we believe, likewise, that Christ died for all; that God willeth not the death of any man; and that thousands are saved that are not absolutely elected. We believe, further, that those who are thus elected cannot finally fall; but we believe other believers may fall, and that those who were once justified may perish everlastingly.”

Let Wesley’s letter to his brother be read in the light of this extract from the Limerick minutes, and the one will help to explain the other. We have here an instance of Wesley tolerating a difference in doctrine among his preachers, so long as fundamental truths were not impugned. This might be wise or it might not; but the fact itself is a fact worth noticing.

It was resolved, however, that, in future, no man should be received as a fellow labourer unless he thoroughly agreed to both Methodist doctrine and discipline; and that, if any preacher revolted from this agreement, letters should be sent to all the societies, disowning him.

It was, also, decided, that if a man was not able to preach twice a day, he should be only a local preacher; that, of the two, it was better to give up the evening preaching in a place than the morning; that the congregations must constantly kneel in prayer, and stand both in singing and while the text was read, and be serious and silent while the service lasted, and when coming and going away. Persons not having band tickets were not to be permitted to be present at the public meeting of the bands, for this would make the tickets cheap, and would discourage those who had them. Preachers were to be allowed £8, at least, and if possible £10 a year for clothing; and £10 a year were to be allowed for the support of each preacher’s wife. The preachers were to preach frequently and strongly on fasting; and were to practise it every Friday, health permitting. Next to luxury, they were to avoid idleness, and were to spend one hour every day in private prayer.

Six preachers were admitted, one of whom was Philip Guier, concerning whom we must say a word.

It is well known, that a number of Palatines, driven from Germany, had settled in the neighbourhood of Ballingran; and that, though they were in the first instance a sober, well conducted, and moral people, they had, through having no minister of their own, and no German worship, degenerated into an irreligious, drunken, swearing community. Amidst this general degeneracy, Philip Guier breasted the wave, and, like Milton’s Abdiel, proved faithful among the faithless. He was the master of the German school at Ballingran; and it was in his school, that Philip Embury (subsequently the founder of Methodism in the United States, now a young man thirty-two years of age), had been taught to read and write. By means of Guier, also, the devoted Thomas Walsh, of the same age as Embury, had been enlightened, and prepared to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. Philip Guier was made the leader of the infant society at Limerick, and now, in 1752, was appointed to act as a local preacher among the Palatines. He still kept his school, but devoted his spare hours to preaching. The people loved the man, and sent him, if not money, yet flour, oatmeal, bacon, and potatoes, so that Philip, if not rich, was not in want. It is a remarkable fact, that, after the lapse of a hundred years, the name of Philip Guier is as fresh in Ballingran as it ever was; for there, even papists as well as protestants are accustomed to salute the Methodist minister as he jogs along on his circuit horse, and to say, “There goes Philip Guier, who drove the devil out of Ballingran!”[176] Under the date of May 7, 1778, Wesley writes: “Two months ago, good Philip Guier fell asleep, one of the Palatines that came over and settled in Ireland, between sixty and seventy years ago. He was a father both to this” [Newmarket] “and the other German societies, loving and cherishing them as his own children. He retained all his faculties to the last, and after two days’ illness went to God.”

After the conference at Limerick, Wesley proceeded to Cork, where he examined the society, and found about three hundred, who were striving to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man. At Kinsale, he preached in a large, deep hollow, capable of containing two or three thousand people, the soldiers of the fort, with their swords, cutting him a place to stand upon. At Waterford, Thomas Walsh preached in Irish, and Wesley in English, the rabble cursing, shouting, and hallooing most furiously.

At length, after spending twelve weeks in Ireland, during which there were not two dry days together, Wesley set sail for England; and, on October 14, arrived safe at Bristol. Three weeks later, he came to London, and here he continued the remainder of the year, preparing books for the “Christian Library,” on which he had already lost more than £200.

During this interval, Whitefield wrote as follows to Charles Wesley, showing that distrust was creeping in among them:—

“LONDON, _December 22, 1752_.

“MY DEAR FRIEND,—I have read and pondered your kind letter. The connection between you and your brother has been so close and continued, and your attachment to him so necessary to keep up his interest, that I would not willingly, for the world, do or say anything that may separate such friends. I cannot help thinking, that he is still jealous of me and my proceedings; but, I thank God, I am quite easy about it. I have seen an end of all perfection. God knows how I love and honour you, and your brother, and how often I have preferred your interest to my own. This I shall continue to do. More might be said, were we face to face.

“Yours, etc.,

“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”[177]

It is far from pleasant to end the year with a note of discord; but we shall unfortunately have to hear more of this in future years.

In concluding the chapter with the usual list of Wesley’s publications during the current year, there must be noticed:—

1. The continuation of his “Christian Library.” Twelve volumes had been given to the public already; seven more were issued in 1752, containing extracts from the writings of Thomas Manton, Isaac Ambrose, Jeremy Taylor, Ralph Cudworth, Nathaniel Culverwell, John Owen, and others.

2. “Some Account of the Life and Death of Matthew Lee.” 12mo, 24 pages.

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.”