^ LIBRARY ^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOf'N a, , SAN DIEGO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY "^' UNIVERSITY Qt- UnurUKNIA. SAN DIEGQ LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA liiiiiliiii ^ 3 1822 01172 2618 • Si v./ Copyright, 1895, by Hunt & Eaton, New York. j^^f-i. CL/e^^tj THE HISTORY |tligi0us PBlitmtnt at t\t €\ii\kt\\t\ Ctntats, METHODISM, CONSIDEKEI) IN ITS DlFi'^EKENT DENOMINATIONAL FORMS, AND ITS RELATIONS TO BRITISH AND AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM. By ABEL STEVENS, LL.D. VOI.IJMK I. Jrom i^t ©rigiu of ||IctI;)obism io i\^e |lmtlj of Ml^iteficlb New York: EATON & MAINS Gncinnati : JENNINGS & GRAHAM PREFACE. As a great religious development of the last century affecting largely our common Protestantism, and, unques^ tionably, destined to affect it still more profoundly, Meth odism does not belong exclusively to the denominations which have appropriated its name. I have therefore at- tempted to write its history in a liberal spirit, and to consider it, not as a sectarian, but as a general religious movement, ostensibly within the Church of England, at least during the lives of the chief Methodist founders, but reaching beyond it to most of the Protestantism of England and America. I have endeavored steadily to keep this point of view till the movement was reduced into sectarian organizations. I am not aware that this plan has been followed by any of the numerous writers on Methodism, Calvinistio or Arminian. It is not only historically just, but it affords special advantage to the variety and interest of the nar- rative : for whereas the Calvinistio writers, on the one side, have had as their chief characters, Whitefield, the Countess of Huntingdon, Howell Harris, Rowlands, Jones, Berridge, Venn, Romaine, Madan ; and the Arminian authors, on the o*Jier, the Wesleys, Grimshaw, Fletcher, Nelson, Coke, Benson, Clarke, I claim them all as " workers together with God •" and the marvelous " itinerancy" of Whitefield runs parallel with the equally marvelous travels and labors of Wesley. Marking distinctly the contrasts of the Calvinistio and Arminian sections of Methodism, 1 have nevertheless been able to show that much more harmony existed between 6 PREFACE. them, through most of their history, than has usually been supposed ; that in fact the essential unity of the movement was maintained, with but incidental and salutary variations, down to the death of Whitefield. In this respect, at least, I trust my pages will teach a lesson of Christian charity and catholicity which shall be grateful to all good men who may read them ; and as it is more the office of history to narrate than polemically to discuss opinions, I have endeav ored not to impair the much needed lesson in my accounts of parties. It has been as impossible as inexpedient to dissemble my own theological opinions, but it is hoped that they will not be found unnecessarily obtruded. As the Wesleyan section of the movement was the most extensive, and took finally an organized and permanent form, it neces- sarily takes the lead in the earlier part of the narrative, and almost exclusively occupies the latter part of it. 1 have endeavored, however, to give the fullest attention, required by the plan of the work, to other Methodist bodies. The present volume brings the narrative down to the death of Whitefield, a period after which Calvinistic Meth- odism, though it continues to receive due notice, loses its prominence, and the history of the movement becomes distinctively Wesleyan. The second volume comprehends the interval between the deaths of Whitefield and Wesley ; the third continues the narrative down to the date of the centennial celebration of Methodism, 1839. The history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, only alluded to in these volumes so far as is necessary to the integrity of the narrative, will be given in a separate work. I have endeavored to do justice to the Lay Preachers of Wesley, many of whom, though overshadowed by the lead- ers of Methodism, were its noblest heroes. Southey is the only writer who has said much respecting them; but he refers to them, in almost every instance, for the purpose of citing proofs of his charges of fanaticism and insanity though he cannot disguise his admiration of their extraor PREFACE. 7 dinary characters, and they afford the chief romance of hii volumes. The Ecclesiastical Economy, the Doctrines, Psalmody, Literature, etc., of Methodism are noticed as the narrative proceeds^ their historical development being distinctly traced ; but they will be found more fully discussed in the last book of the second volume. I have authenticated my most important facts by marginal references; in order, however, not to encumber the work unnecessarily with notes, I have, in most in- stances, given my authority in the beginning of each chap- ter, without repeating it except when some intervening reference has made it necessary. The number of publica- tions relating to early Methodism would be incredible to ordinary readers. Whether from a curious or a hostile motive, a "Catalogue of Works that have been published in Refutation of Methodism from its Origin in 1729 to 1846, compiled by II. C. Decanver," was printed in Philadelphia by John Pennington in 1846. It is not complete, but com- prises the titles of no less than three hundred and eighty four publications. The compiler was a Protestant Episco- palian; "Decanver" is his nomme de plume; he has given his real name in the original manuscript, which, with the printed catalogue and one hundred and forty-three of the most curious of these works, he has deposited in the Library of the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York city. Whatever may have been his design, he has done a valuable service to Methodism, and enriched the library of the seminary with the best collec- tion of such documents in the United States, perhaps the best in the world. If we add to these the works in favor of Methodism, and others bearing directly or indirectly on its history, the list can hardly be short of fifteen hundred. Of course 1 have not examined all these; but I know of none necessary to my purpose which has not been con suited. As I have proposed to write a complete history of Metb- 8 PBEFAOK. odism, that is to say, exhaustive of all facts essential to its history, details of its statistics and Conference proceedings are given from year to year, except such as could be re- fiMred, for better classification, to the sixth book, which contains not so much general remarks or dissertation as important historical facts reserved from the course of the narrative for more summary treatment. I have labored to niaivi' the work a standard for reference in respect to all important dates, proceedings of Methodist ecclesiastical bodies, decisions of theological questions, numerical returns, and other similar details, and trust that it will be found, in these respects, a convenient library book for Methodist clergymen and historical students. None of the common portraits of Wesley are satisfactory. They lack character — at least the character which we at. tribute to him, from his writings and deeds. A paiutino has recently been discovered in England which present* him as he really was — the strong but amiable man. Tht portrait given in this volume is of like character. It it copied from an old engraving in the above-named library. My task will terminate at the centenary celebration of Methodism in 1839 — a period prior to the disputes which have geographically divided American Methodism, and which are yet too recent for a satisfactory judgment fiom history. CONTENTS- BOOK I. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. 8TANDP01NT OF METHODISM IN THE HISTORY OF OHBISTIANlTr. Vage Christianity is Spiritual Life 15 The Cliurch its Organic Form . . 16 Standpoint of Methodism 16 Corruption of the Churcli 16 The Reformation incomplete.... 19 Literary and Moral Aspects of England prior to Methodism. . 21 Condition of the English Church 27 Popular Demoralization 27 Characteristics of Methodism. . . 80 CHAPTER n. THE WESLEY FAMILY. Providential Preparations 83 Susanna Wesley the Foundress of Methodism 84 Her Father, Dr. Annesley 85 Her Marriage — Beauty — Char- acter 86 Bartholomew Westley 89 John Westley 40 Samuel Wesley — Remarkable II- lustrations of his Character. . . 43 Life in the Epworth Rectory 51 John Wesley's Escape from Fire 59 CHAPTER in. JOHK AND OHAKLE8 WESLEY. John Wesley 61 Extraordinary "Noisca" at Ep- worth fi2 The WcHloys at Scliool 64 The Duke of Wullingtou 05 fan Tlio Wesleys at Oxford «6 Religious Inquiries 66 Kcmpis — Taylor — Law 67 " Witness of the Spirit" 68 " Reprobation "— " Perfection " . 69 The^' Holy Club" 72 " Methodists " 72 George Wliitefleld 74 Dispersion of the Epworth Fam- ily 77 The Moravians 78 The Wesleys in Georgia 80 Return of the Wesleys 82 CHAPTER IV. OEORGE WHrrSFIELD. Whitefleld's Mental Conflicts. . . 86 His Conversion 87 Effects of his Preaching 88 His Eloquence 90 Ho embarks for Qoorgia 92 Returns to England... 92 CHAPTER V. WESLEY AND THE MORAVIAMa. Wesley Arrives in England. ... 9 J His Religious Disauiet 93 Obligations of Mctnodism to the Martyrs of Constance 94 Ziscjv and his Peasant Heroes, . 96 Ilurrnliut — Zinzendorf 97 Peter Bohlcr lOO Conversion of the Wesleys 101 Wesley at Maricnborn 106 Tlieol WHITEFUBU) ITIN- KKATING. Pag* Wesley returns from Gorraany 109 Charles Wesley 109 London "Societies" ilO The Wesleys preaching Ill Expelled from the Piilpits 118 Arrival of Whitefield 113 He preaches in the Open Air. . . 114 Wesley follows his Example.... 116 Scenes at Kingswood 117 Methodism in Wales 118 Griffith Joucs — Howell Harris. 118 Whitefield iu Moorfields 121 Extraordinaiy licsults of his Preaching 122 Wesley and Beau Nash 123 The first Methodist Chapel. . . . 124 The WcsIots in Moorfield.s 125 Pliysical Effects of Religious Excitement 126 Separation from the Moravians. 129 The Foundry opened 181 Epoch of Methodism 181 CHAPTER n. THB WE8I,ET8 ITINEKATINQ IN EN- SLAKD — WHITEFIELD imnCBATINe Dt AMERICA. Susanna Wesley 184 Commencement of the Lay Min- istry 186 David Taylor— Mobs 186 Charles Wesley mobbed in Wales 140 Whitefield in America 141 Philadelphia — Princeton Col- lege — Boston 141 His triumphant i'assage through the Colonics 148 CHAPTER HL BEPARATION OF WHITEFIELD FBOU WESLEY. The Calvinistio Controversy . . , Character of Wesley's Mmd. . , 146 146 Arminianism as defluou at Dort 148 Intellectual Character of W hite- fiold.. 149 Historical Importance of their Disagreement 151 John Cennick 152 Wesley's Sermon on "Free Grace" 153 Attempts at Reconciliation 155 MeihoOism still a Unit 156 CHAPTER rV. OALVINISTIO METHODISM. Whitoflold's Tabernacle opened 157 He employs Lay Preachers 157 Reconciled with Wesley 157 Goes to Scotland 158 Marvelous Scones atCambusIang 160 Methodism in Scotland 161 Whitefield again in Moorfields. 162 His greatest^' Field-day " 162 Countess of Huntingdon 165 Whitefield preaching in her Mansion 167 Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, Wal- pole, Hume 167 Lady Huntingdon's Usefulness 168 Her College at Trevecca 169 Its first Student 169 Calvinistic Methodist Societiea . 170 CHAPTER V. TBAVELB AND LAB0B8 OF THE WEB- LETS FROM 1741 TO 1744, Susanna Wesley 178 Thomas Maxfleld 174 Wesley itinerating 175 Introduction of Class Meetings . 176 Sketch of John Nelson 176 Wesley at Newcastle 181 Preaches on his Father's Tomb 183 The General Rules 185 Their Catholicity 187 Physical Phenomena of Relig- ious Excitement at NewcasUe 187 Wesley examines them 187 Pronounces them DemoniacaL . 187 Charles Wesley 189 CONTENTS. 11 Page 1b mobbed at Walsal, Shoffiold, and St. Ives 189 Wesley and Nelson in Cornwall 193 Terrible Mobs 194 Progress of Methodism 198 CHAPTER VI. EVENTS OT 1744 — THE FIBST WES- LEYAN OONTEBENOE. Reports against Wesley 199 Mobs In Staffordshire 200 Chas. Wesley among the Rioters 200 John Wesley in Cornwall 208 Nelson's Power over Mobs 205 He is impressed as a Soldier. . . 207 The Proto-martyr of Methodism 210 The first Conference 211 Its proceedings 212 Lady Huntingdon 214 Mimstcrial Education approved 214 Wesley's " Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion" 216 BOOK III. PROGRESS OF METHODISM FROM THE COITFERENOE OF 1744 TO THE CONFERENCE OF 1750. CHAPTER I. FROM THB OONFKRENCH OF 1744 TO THE OONFEBENOE OF 1745. (Charles Wesley in Cornwall. . . 219 Triumphs of Methodism 220 Wesley's last Appeal to 0.\ford 221 Winter Itinerancy 223 Preachers impressed and im- T)risoned 224 Wesley arrested — Mobbed .... 225 Nelson itinerating 227 Methodism in the Anny 2'29 Evans, Haimo, Bond, Staniforth 229 The Battle of Fonteuoy 225 Scones on the Battle-field 235 CHAPTER II. FKOM THE CONFERENCE OF 1745 TO THE CONFERENCE OF 1750. The Scotch Rebellion 242 Wesley abroad amid the public Alarm 243 Second part of his "Appeal ". . . 244 Extensive Results of Methodism 244 Its doctrinal Liberalit)' 244 The Wcslcys itinerating 24fi Thompson of St. Gennifl 247 Nelson's Perils from the Mob. . 219 Vincent Perronet 2r)7 Grimshaw's extraonlinaiy His- tory 258 He is mobbed with Webley at Koii^'hlce 2(51 Biol at Devizes 204 2 The "Wcslcys in Middle Life. . . 286 Charles Wesley's Marriage 269 John Wesley uud Grace Murray 270 CHAPTER III. INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM INTO IRELAND. Religious Problem of Irish His- tory 271 Wesley comprehends it 271 Bishop Berkeley 272 Wesley arrives in Dublin 278 His Views of Irish Character. . . 274 Charles Wesley in Ireland 274 Mobs and Murders in Dubhn. . 276 " Swaddlers " 275 Power of Methodist Music 277 Riots at Cork 281 Charles Wesley indicted as a Vagabond 282 Success of Methodism 283 Singular Conversions 284 John Smith at Glenarm 285 A Militnrj' Veteran defending the Methodists 286 John M'P.urncy mobbed 286 Ho is martyred 287 Hard Fare of the Preachers 287 Robert Swindells 287 Sketch of Thomas Walsh 288 His Learning 288 His Labors 293 lie is mobbed and imprisoned. 298 Illustrations of his UsefuluesB. 296 12 CONTENTS. v'HAPTER IV. LASOUB OJ THK OALVINI8TI0 METH- ODISTS FROM 1744 TO 1750. „ p«g- Whitefiold's third American visit 208 "Testimonies" agdnst him.. . 299 Tlio Cape lireton Expedition.. . 299 His Reception in Pluladolphia.. 800 Singular Interest in Virginia. . . 300 He goes to Bermuda 302 He well Harris in Wales 303 Iiady Huntingdon in Wales. ... 304 John Newton and Wliiteliold. . 305 Whitefleld in England and Scot- land 305 Remarkable Conversions 305 Bishop Lavington's Attacks. . . 306 Charles Wesley and Whitefleld preacliing amid the Alarms of Earthquakes in London. . . 308 CHAPTER V. DEVELOPMENT OF METHODIST OPIN- IONS AND ECONOMY m THE OON- FBBEN0E8 FROM 1744 TO 1750. The Conference of 1745 810 Theological Discussions 310 Witness of the Spirit 311 Sanctiflcation 311 Terrible Preaching 811 Church Government. 812 Wesley's High-Church Views. . 314 He designed not to form a Sect 314 Session of 1746 515 Laymen present 815 Progress of Opinion 81J Necessity of the Lay Ministry declared 316 Its Divine Right acknowledged 817 Ordination anticipated 317 Exhorters recognized 818 Importance of Local Preachers. 818 First List of Circuits 318 Session of 1747 819 Free Discussion 819 Relation of Faitli to Assurance. 320 Cautions respecting Sanctiflca- tion 821 What is a Church ? 822 Divine Right of Episcopacy de- nied 322 Session of 1748 828 Fonnation of Societies renewed 324 Session of 1749 325 Scheme of Union 825 " Assistants "— " Helpers " 825 Quarterly Meetings 826 Book Circulation 826 Extraordinary Results of the first Decade of Methodism. . . 826 BOOK IV. PROGRESS OF METHODISM FROM 1750 TO THE DEATH OF WHITEFIELD IN 1770. CHAPTER 1. METHODISM IN IRELAND. Wesley again in Ireland 829 Death of John Jane 330 Progress of Methodism 830 Remarkable German Colony. . . 332 It gives Birth to American Methodism 333 Methodism in the Army 333 Dimcan Wright, a Military Preacnor. 334 A Military Execution 835 A Converted Surgeon 836 Thomas Walsh 837 HisLabors 587 His extraordinary Kety 888 His Sickness 840 His Mental Trouble in Death. . 841 Fletcher of Madeley 349 CHAPTER II. METHODISM IN ENGLAND AND SCOT LAND FROM 1750 TO 1760. Success in Cornwall 343 Wesley in Scotland 845 His sUght Success there 346 State of the English Societies. . 347 Nathaniel Gilbert and Method- ism in the West Indies 851 CONTENTS. 18 P»ge TI16 flret African Methodist 851 Happy Deatlis of Methodists. . . 851 Wheatloy's Defection 352 Bcnnet's Secession 852 Proselytisin 353 Grace Murray 358 Wesley and the Calvinista 354 He administers the Lord's Sup- per to their Leaders at Lady Huntingdon's House 854 Tlie Trials of Thomas Lee 355 Christopher Hopper 860 His Labors and Trials 862 Cownley Mobbed 363 The Parson and the Quaker. . . 363 Charles Wesley ceases to itin- erate 364 Death of Meriton 365 Fletcher joins the Methodists. . 865 Kevicw of Success 367 Wesley's desire for Rest 868 His unfortimate Marriage 869 His Sickness and Epitaph 371 His Notes on the New Testa- ment 372 James Hervey 372 Wesley's Address to the Clergy 373 His views of Ministerial QuaUii- oations 373 CHAPTER in. OALvOnSTIO AND MORAVIAN METHOD- ISM FROM 1750 TO 1760. Whitefield " ranging " 875 His Good-Humor— His Health 876 His Relations with Wesley 878 Whitefield again in America. . . 379 His Visit to Ireland 880 Is mobbed at Dublin 881 Eminent Methodist Churchmen 882 Sketch of Berridge 882 Great Excitement at Everton . . . 383 Komurkable Conversion 888 Sketch of Romaine 885 Madan's singular Conversion. . 887 Venn 888 Moravian Methodism 889 Saudoinaniiinism 891 Ingham's Success and Failure. 892 Death of Lady Ingham 893 Ingbam's Death and Character. 393 CHAPTER IV. DBVXLOPMENT OF M£THODI8T OPIN- IONS AND ECONOMY IN THE OON- FEBKN0K8 FROM 1750 TO 1760. Failure of Records 894 Salary of Preachers 895 P«go Prominent Preachers secede. . 895 Tendency to Dissent 896 The Perronets 896 Charles Wesley's High-Church Prejudices 896 Critical Importance of the Ses- sion of 1/55 397 Question of Separation from the Church 397 Concession of the Preachers.. . 398 Was Dissent expedient ? 899 Wesley's Twelve Reasons against it 899 Wesley as a Reformer 400 His Opinion of John Knox 400 Wesley not an Anarchist 400 Historical Importance of his Conservatism 401 His Opinions at this Time 401 Subsequent Sessions 401 Conference Examination of Characters introduced 401 CHAPTER V. METHODISM FROM 1760 TO 1770. Great Revivals 402 Sanctitication 408 Writers upon it 405 George Bell's Delusions 407 Ma-xheld's Separation from Wesley 407 The End of the World 408 George Story 408 Fate of Bell and Ma.xfield 409 Wesley's largo Congregations. . 410 Christopher Hopper 410 Cudworth's Letters of Hervey.. 411 Sketch of Thomas Taylor 411 His Adventures at Glasgow.. . . 418 Wright among the Highlanders 418 Dissent among Wesley's Socie- ties 418 Death of Grimshaw 419 Death of John Manners 420 Death of the oldest Lay Preacher 420 Wesley and Warburton 421 Fletcher's Trials at Madeley . . . 422 His great Piety and Success 424 Condition of Methodism in 1770 426 Its Introduction into America.. 427 Barbara Heck — Philip Embury 427 Wesley's regard for Military Men 427 Recommends Methodists to learn the MiUtary Exercise. . . 428 Offers to raise Troops for the Government 428 Captain Webb 428 u CONTENTS. CHAPTER Vi. DBVELOPMKNT OF METHOniST 5P1N- lONfl AND EOONOMV iN TUK JON- FKRKN0K8 FROM 17C0 TO 1770. V»ge MiuutcB of Conferences 429 The Greek Bishop, Erasmus. . . 430 Union of Evuugclical Clergy. . . 431 They decline Wesley's Terms. 432 First Census of Metnodism. . . . 433 First Temperance Societies. . . . 433 Debt of the Connection 434 Wesley's View of his Authority 434 I'reaeners required to study . . . 435 Conference of 1767 435 Calvinists and Laymen present 435 Circulation of Books 436 Term of Circuit Appointments. . 437 Secular Business of Freachers. . 437 John Nelson — William Shent. 437 Field Preaching — Early Kising 439 Sauctiflcation 439 Preachers sent to America 440 Provisions for Preachers' Wives 441 Perpetuation of the Lay Minis- try 441 Conference of 1770 442 Statistics 442 Preachers Families 443 Muiute on Calvinism 44S Its Hiatorical Importance . . . 444 CHAPTER Vn. OALVimSTIO METHODISM FBOM 1760 TO 1770. The Calvinistic Societies 445 Lady Huntingdon in Yorkshire 446 Attends Wesley's Conference.. 446 Venn, Grinishaw, Fletcher .... 447 Sketcli of Cai>tain Scott 448 Adventures of Captain Joss . . . 450 Scenes at Chcltenliam 458 Lord Dartmouth — Dartmouth College 454 Alliance of the Arminian and Calvuiistic Leaders 456 Trevecca College 456 Expulsion of Oxford Students. . 457 Extraordinary Scenes at Tre- vecca 458 Whitelield'a declining Health. . 459 He again visits America 460 Returns to England 461 Personal Habits 461 Last Interviews with Wesley . . 468 Last Vovage to America 464 His Orptian House 464 Happy religious Frame 464 Excursion up the Hudson 465 Last Sermon and Death 466 His Eloquence and Character. . 468 Kesults of liis Labors 475 Calvinisdo Methodiate 47S HISTORY OF METHODISM BOOK I. INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM IN" THE HISTORY OK CHRISTIANITY. (Jliristianity is Spirituiil Life — The Church an Organic Fonn olthit* Lifa — Tho Philosophical Standpoint of the History of MethodiBm — Process of Corruption in the Early Church — Tho Keforuiation incomplete — Condltiou of tlio English Church prior to Methodism — Literary and Moral Aspects of England — I'opular Degradation — Characteristics of Methodism. Had a studious heathen sought to ascertain the nature of the Christian religion, immediately after the completion of its canonical records, and solely from those records, he would have been surprised by its contrast with nearly all prior re- ligious systems, in its suggestion rather than prescription of ecclesiastical arrangements, its general abstinence from ritual forms, and its total abstinence from dogmatic definitions. He would have discovered what modern Protestantism, emanci pated from traditional influence, has found, that the purificiv tion of the individual man, pursued in his individual freedom, and on the responsibility of his individual conscience, is the characteristic design of Christianity — rites and creeds, as aids to faith, being left discretionary, however necessary. Christianity is spiritual life. " Tlie words that I speak unto vou." said its Founder, " they are spirit, and they are 16 HISTORY OF METHODISM. life;"' and he declared the distinctive character of the new dispensation, wlion at the well of Sychar he said : " Believe me, the hour conieth, when ye shall neither in this mojintain, nor yet at JcrnsalcTn, worship the Father. Tlie hour Cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall \^(jrship the Father in spirit and m truth ; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit : and they that wor- ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." * A development of Judaism, which was characterized above all other religions of antiquity by ritual forms and penal morals, Christianity, nevertheless, quickly distinguished itself by the simplicity of its ceremonies and the mild purity of its ethics, subordinating both to the interior moral life which it taught as " the regeneration," ' the " life of God " in the soul of man.* A true Christian Church is a collective or organic form of this spiritual life; its external institutions, whether in doc- trinal symbols, or modes of worship or government, are valuable only so far as they can be means to this end. And therefore any new practical measures which may be rendered expedient, by the ever-varying conditions of human history, for the effectiveness of the Church in the moral regeneration of individual men, are admissible, being in harmony with the original purpose and simplicity of the Gospel, however they may contravene ecclesiastical precedents or traditions. Such is the standpoint which Methodism takes in the his- lory of' the Church ; and such the only standpoint from which its own history can be interpreted. Throughout the extraordinary series of events which we are about to narrate from its annals, we shall find continually this recurrence to the first principles of Christianity. This is the philosc>phy of its history. Ecclesiastical history records how Christianity came to lose its original spiritual simplicity, and to grow into a gi- gantic system of ecclesiasticism and ritualism, which was more symbolic than Judaism itself, and under the shadow » John vi, 68. » John iv, 21, 23, 24. » Matt. xix. 28. « Eph. iv, 18. STANDPOINT vF METHuDiSAl. 17 of which personal spiritual life, and even the popular morals, withered, and seemed really, if not avowedly, superseded by Church rites. The apostles, while yet observing some of the Judaic ritea for the sake of expediency, wrote against them, nevertheless, as void under the new dispensation.' In planting Christianity they adopted such forms as were found most convenient to their hands in the religious cus- toms of their countrymen ; but it is remarkable that scarcely one feature of their ecclesiastical system, if such it can be called, was borrowed from the divinely prescribed forms of the Levitical institute. For generations the primitive Christians had no temples, but worshiped, with familiar simplicity, in private houses, or in the synagogues of converted Jews which were scattered over the Roman empire. The synagogue, unmentioned, not to say unenjoined, in the writings of Moses, afforded them also most of those simple rites and offices which afterward became dignified into essential and even sao- ramental importance. When the distribution of the charities of the Church became too laborious for the apos ties, they copied from the synagogue the office of Deacon. The older servants of the Church, having oversight of its Deacons and general interests, were called Elders, (Presby- tcrs,) a title borrowed from the head of the Jewish "tribe" and the members of the Sanhedrim. The designation of these men to their offices was made by imposiLiuii of hands, a decency, but not a sacrament, derived also from the J ews, who used it in the mauguration of their mimicipal and pro\'incial officers, but never in the consecration of their priests, Uut how soon these simple ofliecs l)ecame essential orders, awful with divine authority, and mysterious with divine virtue ! flow, for more than fifteen hundred years, have controver- sies respecting their distinctions and prerogatives agitated Christendom! How has the simple form of the imposition of hands become the divine rite of Ordination, a sacramental Compnre Acts xv, 7-31 ; xvi. 3 ; xxi, 20 20 ; Col. ii, 20 23. Vn 18 HISTORY OF METHODISM. mystery, with its fabulous but disastrous consequence of the Apostolic Succession, leading to the exclusion of nfiany of the purest bodies of Christian men from the charities of the Church, and to the general perversion of Christianity bjr priestly and prelatical pretensions ! The offices of Deacon and Elder became fundamental and unchangeable; the El der, presiding in the assembly of his peers as the ruler o( the synagogue presided in the college of Elders,* became Bishop ; the Bishop became Archbishop, the Archbishop be came Pope or Patriarch. A series of corruptions as enor- mous as multitudinous ensued ; and the increase of the two Sacraments to seven ; the confessional and penance ; the mo- nastic life, asceticism, celibacy, and virginity; the idolatry ol the host, and the worship of saints ; extreme unction, purga- tory, infallibility, and dogmatic symbols ; the supererogative merit of works, canonization, persecution, and the inqui- sition — these, with the priestly assumption of secular author ity, the loss of ancient civilization, and the general degrada- tion of the masses, make up most of the subsequent history of the Church down to the period in which the Reformation uttered its appeal back to the apostolic age.' During all these ages of corruption, however, the spir- itual Church existed, represented in the persons of devout men, who walked with God amid the night of error, suffer- ers from the evils of their times, unable to explain or to break away from them, but seeking, in their monastic cells, or in the walks of ordinary life, that purification and peace which are received only by faith ; and tne ecclesiastical his- torian finds grateful relief, as he gropes through the Dark Ages, in being able continually to point to these scattered lights which, like the lamps in Roman tombs, gleamed fiiintly but perennially amid the moral death of the visible • As primus inter pares.— Y'ltiinga, De Vet. Syn., lib. iii cat), 16. ' On the origin and changes of Church government, I have . " -"^ Bishop Stillingfleet, Irenicum ; Lord King, Primitive Church ; Nean le. History of the Christian Religion, etc. ; Archbishop Whateley, KmgdoiM of Christ ; and especially Vitringa, De Synagoga Yetem. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM. 19 Church. Obscure communities also, as the Cathari of the Novatians, the Pauliciaus, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, maintained the ancient faith in comparative purity, fi'om the beginning of the fourth century down to the Ref(»rniation. In the year 1510 an Augustinian monk walked, wllh des olate heart, the streets of Rome, and turning away fiom the' pomp of her churches and the corruptions of the Vatican, sought relief to his awakened soul by ascending, on his. knees, with peasants and beggars, the staircase of Pilate, which was supposed to have been trodden by Christ at his trial, and is now inclosed near the Lateran palace. While pausing on the successive steps to weep and pray, a voice from heaven seemed to cry within him, " Tlie just shall live by faith." It was the voice of apostolic Chris- tianity, and the announcement of the Reformation. He lied from the superstitious scene. Seven years later, the same monk nailed on the gate of the church at Wittenberg the Theses which introduced Protestantism. Tliey were as trumpet blasts echoing from the Hebrides to the Calabrias, and summoning Europe to a moral resurrection. But though the doctrine of " Justification by Faith " was thus the dogmatic germ of the Reformation, that great rev- olution took chiefly an ecclesiastical direction, and became more an attempt to overthrow the organic system of popery, by the reassertion of certain apostolic doctrines, than an evangelical revival of the spiritual life of the Church ; hence its early loss of moral power. All Western Europe felt its first motions ; but hardly forty years had passed when it reached its furthest conquests, and began its retreats. During m 5st of the eighteenth century it could have prop- agated its doctrines, with but little restraint, in the greater part of Europe, but it had not internal energy enough to do so. Dealing ostensibly with the historical pretensions of the Church, it introduced at last the "Historical Criticism" which, notwithstanding its inestimable advantages to Biblical exegesis, degenerated, under the English deisticjil writings 20 HISTORY OF METHOOISM. that entered Germany about ihe cpDch of Methodifern, into Rationalism, and subverted both the spiritual life and the doctrinal orthodoxy of the continental Pi-otestant churches, and, to a great extent, substituted infidflity for the dis- placed popery. Besides this tendency, I lie Lutheran Re- formation retained many papal errors, in its doctrines of ihe sacraments, and of the priestly offices. ;nid erred, above all, in leaving the Church subject to the istate. It did not sufficiently restore the spirituality and simplicity of the apos- tolic Church, and om" own age witnesses the spectacle of a High-Church reaction in Germany, in which some of her most distinguished Christian scholars attempt to correct the excesses of Rationalism by an appeal, not so much to the apostolic Church as to the ante-Nicene traditions. A Pusey- ism as thorough as that which flourishes under the papal attributes of the Anglican Establishment, prevails in the strongholds of the German Reformation.^ In like manner was the English Reformation incomplete. Not only did it retain many papal errors in doctrine, espe- cially respecting the sacraments, the priestly offices, the hierarchal constitution of the Church, and its relation to the state, but by these very errors it flxiled to restore adequately the primitive idea of Christianity, as " the kingdom of God within you." Hence its frequent lapses toward popery. Hardly had it been established under Henry VIII., and nourished under the brief reign of Edward VI., than it fell away under Mary, and its noblest champions, Cranmer, Lat- imer, Hooper, and Ridley, perished at the stake. Elizabeth restored it, but Charles I. again favored its papal tendencies. His queen was a papist. Archbishop Laud placed pic- tures in the churches, and embroiled the kingdom with con- troversies respecting copes, genuflexions, and the position of the " altar." Tlie Court of High Commission displaced devout clergymen for not observing petty ceremonies. • The evangelic'J world has been scandalized to find bo eminent aa opponent of Rationalism as Hengstenberg, leading the High-Church reac- tion. With him are associated such men as Stahl, Leo, and Gerlaok. STANDl'OINT OF METHODISM. 21 After the great Rebellion, Charles II. did what he could to favor the Papists, and died one himself.® His brother, James II,, devoted his whole reign to the restoration of Popery. The Revolution, with the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne, alone put an end to these Papal efforts of the acknowledged " head " of the British Church, and even then many of its most influential incumb- ents refused to recognize the title of the new Protestant king ; the Archbishop of Canterbury, with several bishops and fourteen hundred clergymen, sacrificed their offices rather than take the oath of allegiance to him. So far was the divine right of prelacy still kindred with the divine right of royalty. During all these Papal struggles primitive ideas of Chris- tianity and the Church were more or less active among the people. Even before the reign of Elizabeth much popular discontent prevailed with the but partial purification of the Church from Papal errors. Iler Act of Uniformity threw multitudes out of its pale, and Puritanism began its work of reformation and honest rebellion. But Puritanism, with all its virtues, had profound and inexorable vices. It early created a High Churchism of its own, and claimed a higher Scriptural authority f(n- Presbyterianism than the English Reformers, or its great Episcopal antagonists, Sewell, Whitgift, Hooker, and others, asserted for prelacy itself.'** The vigor of its Commonwealth has illustrated the name of England in the history of the world; but its reaction under the Restoration spread over the country greater demoralization than had preceded it under the Papal reigns. The court became a royal brothel. The play-house became the temple of England. The drama of the day could not now be exhibited, nor even privately read M'ithout blushes. Many of the most learned and de- voted clergymen, whose writings are imperishable in our religious literature, weie either silenced or displaced. The • Macnuliiy's History of EiiolaiKl, vol. i, cliiip. 4- '• Seo Art. on Hooker, North Hrifmli Review, 1857. 22 HISTORY OF METHODISM. ministrations of the Church grew formal and ineffective The Puritan Churches themselves at last fell into general decay, while the masses of the people sunk into in.redible vice and brutality. A living English writer, himself a Churchman, has declared that England had lapsed into virtual heathenism, when Wesley appeared." The literature of the eighteenth century, particularly of its earlier part, is an important index to the moral charac- ter of that period. It presents a brilliant catalogue of names, among which are Addison, Steele, Berkeley, Swift, Pope, Congreve, Gray, Parnell, Young, Thomson, Rowe, Goldsmith, and Johnson, besides a splendid array in the more profound departments of knowledge. We may easily conceive what must have been the moral aspects of English society, when the loose wit of Congreve was the attraction of the British theater, and, as Dryden declared, " the only prop of the declining stage ;" or what the respect of the people for the Church when, among the clergy, could be foimd men like Swift and Sterne to regale the gross taste of the age with ribald burlesque and licentious humor. And what were the popular fictions of the day"? Richardson gave way before Smollett and Field- ing. The latter obtained a renowTi which renders them still familiar; while Richardson, whom Johnson deemed "as superior to them in talents as in virtue," is barely remembered. The works of these and similar authors were the parlor-table books of the age ; while on the same table lay also the erotic poets of antiquity, translated by the wits of the period, with Dryden at their head, dedicated to the first ladies of the court, and teeming with the pruriency which pervades the polite writings of that and the preceding age. Dryden died at the begiiming of the century, and his writings, as full of vice as of genius, were in general vogue. The infidel works of Hobbes, Tindal, Collins, Shaflesbury, and Chubb were in full circulation, and were re-enforced by the appearance of the three greatest giants in the cause of '' Isaac Taylor ; Wesley and Metliodism. STAKDI'OINT OF METHODISM. 23 skeptical error which modern times have produced — Boling- broke, Hume, and Gibbon. The first was influential by his political eminence, and by the adornments which the har- monious verse of Pope gave to his opinions ; the second by all the arts of insinuation, and by a style which, says Sir J. Mackintosh, " was more lively, more easy, more in- gratiating, and, if the word may be so applied, more amus- ing than that of any other metaphysical writer ;" and the ?ast by weaving his infidel sentiments into one of the great- sst works of the human intellect, a production as corrupt in its religious tendency as it is magnificent in its execution. The intelligent reader need not be reminded that the same class of writers had triumphed, and w ere at this time in full prevalence across the channel. The Encyclopedists had attempted the design of eradicating from the circle of the sciences every trace of Christian truth ; and the polite writers of France, headed by Voltaire and Rousseau, had decked the corrupt doctrines of the day with the attractions of eloquence and poetry, humor and satire, until they swept over the nation like a sirocco, withering not only the senti- ments of religion, but the instincts of humanity, and sub- verting at last, in common ruin, the altar, the throne, and the moral protections of domestic life. Notwithstanding the inveterate antipathies which existed between the two nations, the contagion of French opinions, both in religion and politics, infected England seriously during most of the eighteenth century. The continental infidelity had in fact sprung from the English deism, and naturally reacted upon it. It is worthy of remark, that one of the most interesting departments of the English literature of the last century owes its birth to the alarm which the better-disposed literary men of the age took at the general declension of manners and morals, and their attempt to check it. The British Essar/isis are teclmically distinguished in our literature. They form a department which hiis become classicjil. Thoy have been reprinted more extensively tlmn any other booki 24 HISTORY OF METHODISM. in our language, except the Scriptures and a few of our most popular fictions. Some of the brightest names in the cata- logue of English writers owe much of their fame to these works; among them may be mentioned Steele, Addison, Berkeley, and Johnson. They were conducted as ephemeral sheets, and issued twice or thrice a week, with brief articles which discuss the follies aud vices of the times, 'Fheir character was generally humorous or sarcastic ; occasion- ally they contain a sober rebuke of the irreligion of the day. The first in the list is the Tattler, projected by Steele, and to which Addison was a frequent contributor. It is almost exclusively confined to the superficial defects oi society, and is the best picture extant of the domestic, moral, and literary condition of the early part of that century. The Spectator, conducted jointly by Addison and Steele, followed the Tattler, and is still one of the most popular works of our language. Next appeared the Guardian, projected by Steele, and aided by Addison, Pope, and Berkeley. A long list of miscellaneous wiiter? of the same class followed, who have not been placed, b} public opinion, in the rank of the classical essayists. Dr. Johnson, in his Rambler, restored the periodical essay to its first dignity, and gave it a still higher moral tone. Though these wTiters aimed, at first, more at the cor- rection of the follies than the sins of the times, they grew serious as they grew important. It is curious to observe their increasmg severity as they obtained authority by time and popularity. Steele, from a long and various study of the world, painted, with minute accuracy, its absurdities Addison, with a style the most pure, and a humor mild and elegant, attempted to correct the literary taste of the day, and to shed the radiance of genius on the despised virtues of Christianity ; he rescued Milton from the neglect which the sublime religious character of his great epic had in curred for him from the degenerate age. Pope satirized^ in some admirable critiques, the literary follies of the times. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM. 25 Berkeley attacked, with his clear logic and finished style, the skeptical opinions which were then prevalent; most of his articles are on " Free-thinking. " Johnson, " the great moralist," stood up a giant to battle, with both hands, against all error and irreligion, whether in high places or low places. These writings exerted an influence upon the tastes and morals of the age ; but it was comparatively superficial. Gay, who was contemporary with Addison and Steele, says it was incredible what effect they had on the town ; how many thousand follies they had either quite banished or greatly checked; how much countenance they had given to virtue and religion. Hannah More has devoted a chapter in her Education of a Princess to this in- teresting portion of our literature. She speaks in the strongest terms of Addison's influence, and confirms our statements respecting the moral condition of the age : " At a period when religion," she says, " was held in more than usual contempt, from its having been recently abused to the worst purposes, and when the higher walks of life exhibited that dissoluteness which the profligate reign of the second Charles made so deplorably fashionable, Addison seems to have been raised up by Providence for the double purpose of improving the public taste and correcting the public morals. As the powers of imagination had, in the preced- ing age, been peculiarly abused to the purposes of vice, it wan Addison's great object to show that vice and impvu-ity ha\e no necessary connection with genius. lie not onl) evinced this by his reasonings, but he so exemplified it b_\ his own compositions as to become, in a short time, mom generally useful, by becoming more popular, than an) writer who had yet appeared. This well-earned celebrity he endeavored to turn to the best of all purposes ; and his success was such as to prove that genius is never so advant;ir geously employed as in the service of virtue; no influence so well directed aa in rendering piety fiishionable." But while those writers are cdninienrlable for the ela 26 HISTORY OF mp:t}iodism. vated purpose which they proposed, a purpose noble as ? was novel among ^hat are called polite authors, their in- fluence was comparatively ineffective ; it was infinitely short of what was necessary ; it was moral, but not religious. It was on the side of Christianity, but had nothing to do M'ith those great evangelical truths which are the vital elements of Christianity, and in which inheres its renovating energy It is the diffusion of these truths among the popular mass that alone can effect any general moral elevation of men. It was reserved for the agency of Methodism to revive and spread them, with a transforming efficacy, through the British empire and much of the civilized world. Reference has been made to these authors, therefore, only as instances of the conviction felt by the better-disposed literary leaders of the day, that some new check was necessary to stop the overwhelming progress of corruption. The pictures of vice which they painted, and the manner in which they attempted the necessary reform, show that society was not only deplorably wicked, but that adequate means of its recovery were not understood by those who lamented its evils. Natural religion was the favorite study of the clergy, and of the learned generally, and included most of their theol- ogy. Collins and Tindal had denounced Christianity as priestcraft ; Whiston pronounced the miracles to be Jewish impositions ; Woolston declared them to be allegories ; and the next year after the recognized date of Methodism, Edelmann '^ and Reimarus introduced the English deism into Germany, and thus founded the Rationalism which, as developed by her " Historical " or " Negative Criticism," has nearly extinguished her religious life. The decayed state of the English Church, in which Methodism was about to have its birth, was, in fine, the cause, direct or indirect, of most of the infidelity of the age, both at home and abroad '» Edelmann's " Moses init Aufgedeckteni Angesicht," was published in 1740. Art. Criticvnn, Ilerzog's Eucyclopudia translated by Bomber- (jer. Philadeli-hia, 1858. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM. 27 Ar/anism and Socinianisin, taught by such men as Clarke Priostley, and Whiston, had become fashionable among the best English thinkers. Some of the brightest names of the times can be quoted as exceptions to these remarks ; but such was the general condition of religion in England. Tho higher classes laughed at piety, and prided themselves on being above what they called its fanaticism ; the lower classes were grossly ignorant, and abandoned to vice, while the Church, enervated by a universal decline, was unable longer to give countenance to the downfallen cause of truth. This general decline had reached its extremity when Wesley and his coadjutors appeared. " It was," to use his own words, "just at the time when we wanted little of filling up the measure of our iniquities, that two or three clergy- men of the Church of England began vehemently to call sinners to repentance."'' His own testimony to the irreligion of the times is emphatic. " What," he asks, " is the present characteristic of the English nation? It is ungodliness. Ungodliness is our universal, our constant, our peculiar character." From the Restoration do^vn to the origin of Methodism, Churchmen and Nonconformists bear concurrent, and in some instances startling testimony respecting the decayed condition of religion and morals. The pathetic lamentation of Bishop Burnet, on the state of the Cliurch, has often been quoted : " I am now," he says, " in the seventieth year of my age ; and as I cannot speak long in the world in an^ sort, so I cannot hope for a more solemn occasion than this of speaking with all due freedom, both to the present and to the succeeding ages. Therefore I lay hold on it, to give a free vent to those sad thoughts that lie on my mind both day and night, and are the subject of many secret mourn- ings." He proceeds to say : " I cannot look on without the deepest concern, when I see the imminent ruin hanging over this Church, and, by consequence, over the whole Reform* tion. The outward state of things is black enough, God ^•AppoiJ to Men of Ke.'ison and Ktligidii, Pnrt HI Works, vol. » 28 HISTORY OF METHODISM. knows ; but that which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward state into which we are unhappily fallen." Re- ferring to the condition of the clergy, he says : " Our ember- weeks are the burden and grief of my life. The much greater part of those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a degi-ee not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers. Those who have read some few books, yet never seem to have read the Scriptures. Many camiot give a tolerable account even of the Catechism itself, how short and plain soever. This does often tear my heart. The case is not much better in many who, having got into orders, come for institution, and cannot make it appear that they have read the Scriptures, or any one good book, since they were ordained ; so that the small measure of knowledge upon which they got into holy orders not being improved, is in a way to be quite lost ; and then they tliink it a great hardship if they are told they must know the Scriptures and the body of divinity better before they can be trusted with the care of souls." '^ Watts declares that there was " a general decay of vital religion in the hearts and lives of men ;" that " this declen sion of piety and virtue " was common among Dissenters and Churchmen ; that it was " a general matter of mournful observation among all who lay the cause of God to heart ;" and he called upon " every one to use all possible efforts for the recovery of dying religion in the worlds ** Anothei writer asserts that " the Spirit of God has so far departed from the nation, that hereby almost all vital religion is lost out of the world." '^ Another says : " The present modish turn of religion looks as if we had no need of a Mediator, but that all our concerns with God were managed with hio as an absolute God. The religion of nature makes up the darling topics of f»ur age ; and the religion of Jesus is valued only for the sake of that, and only so far as it carries on the '* Pastoral Care. •* Preface to his Humble Attempt, eta •♦ Uarrioii's Sermons jn the Holy Spirit. STANDPOINT OF METHODISM. 29 light of nature, and is a bare improvement of that kind of light. All that is restrictively Christian, or that is peculiar Lo Chi'ist (everything concerning him that has not its aj^par- ent foundation in natural light, or that goes beyond its pnn- ciples) is waived, and banished, and despised." " Archbishop Seeker says : " In this we camiot be mistalien, tnat an open and professed disregard is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the present age." " Such," he declares, " are the dissoluteness and contempt of principle in the higher part of the world, and the profligacy, intemperance, and fearlessness of com- mittmg crimes, in the lower, as must, if this torrent of im- piety stop not, become absolutely fatal." He further as- serts that " Christianity is ridiculed and railed at M^ith very little reserve, and the teachers of it without any at all ;" *^ and this testimony was made but one year before- that which is commemorated as the epoch of Methodism. About thi same time Butler published his great work on the Analogy between Religion and the Constitution and Course of Na- ture, as a check to the infidelity of the age. In his preface he gives a deplorable description of the religious world. He concurs with the preceding authorities in representing it as in the very extremity of decline. " It has come," he says, '' to be taken for granted that Christianity is no longer a sub- ject of mquiry ; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly it is treated as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all persons of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject for mirth and ridicule." Southey says : " The clergy had lost that authority which may always command at least the appearance of respect; and they had lost that respect also by which the place of authority may sometimes so much metre worthily be sup- plied. In the great majority of the clergy zeal was wanting. The excellent Leighton spoke of the Church as a fair carcass without a spirit. Burnet observes that, in his time, our " Dr. Quiso'a Sennons at Coward's Lecture. '» Ei^lit Charges. 80 HISTORY OF METHODISM. clergy h;id less uuthorit)', and were und^r more con tempi than those of any other Church ui all Europe*, for they were much the most remiss in their labors, and the leatt severe in their lives. It was not that their lives were scan dalous ; he entirely acquitted them of any such imputatioB ; but they were not exemplary, as it became them to be ; and iu the sincerity of a pious and reflecting mind, he pro- nounced that they would never regain the influence they had iost till they lived better and labored more."*' A scarcely less prejudiced wi-iter on Methodism admits that when Wesley appeared the Anglican Church was " an ecclesiastical system under which the people of England had lapsed into heathenism, or a state hardly to be distinguished from it ;" and that Methodism " preserved from extinction and reanimated the languishing Nonconformity of the last century, which, just at the time of the Methodistic revival, was rapidly in course to be found nowhere but in books." ^o Such was the moral condition of England when Meth- odism came forth from the gates of Oxford, not to revive the ecclesiastical questions over which Churchmen and Puri- tans had fought and exhausted each other, nor even to appeal to the Reformation, with its incomplete corrections of popery, but to recall the masses to their Bibles, which say so little about those questions, but which declare that " the kingdom of God Cometh not with observation ;" that it " is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Acknowledging the importance of sound doctrine, it nevertheless dealt mostly in the theology which relates to the spiritual life — Faith, Justification, Regeneration, Sancti- fication, and the Witness of the Spirit ; these were its great ideas, and never, since the apostolic age, were they brought out more cleai-ly. Wesley formed no creed for the English Methodists, and though some of his own writings are recog- nized in his chapel deeds, and by the civil courts, as the standard of Methodist doctrine, yet from their number and the great variety of subjects treated in them, a rigoroua '• life of Wesley, ch.9. *• Taylor's Wesley and Methodism, pp. 56, 6ft STANDPOINT OP METHODISM. 81 interpretation of them is impossible. In providing an organization for Methodism in the New World, where it was destined to have its chief range, he so abridged the A.rticles of the Church of England as to exclude the most formidable of modern theological controversies, and make it possible for Calvinists, alike with Arminians, to enter ita sommunion; he prescribed no mode of baptism, but viitu ally recognized all modes ; and it has been doubted, incau- tiously perhaps, whether even a Restorationist or Universa- list, if exemplary in life, could be adjudged u heretic by ita creed. Methodism reversed, in fme, the usual policy of relig- ious sects, who seek to sustain their spiritual life by their orthodoxy ; it has sustained its orthodoxy by devoting its chief care to its spiritual life, and for more than a century has had no serious outbreaks of heresy, notwithstanding the masses of untrained minds, gathered within its pale, and the general lack of preparatory education among its clergy. No other modern religious body affords a parallel to it in thia respect. Admitting the absolute necessity of Church economics, it would not admit that they are in any particular form fundamental, but that the kind and degree of moral life pos- sessed by any body of men, claiming to be a Church, consti- tuted the proof or refutation of that claim. It admitted the Scriptural example, but not the Scriptural obligation of two orders in the ministiy. It adopted but one in its English Conference, while it provided both for America. It admitted the Scriptural example of ordination by the im- position of hands, but waived it in England for the sake of peace with the national Church, and ordained its ministry simply with prayer and exhortation, until within a few } ears, when it was adopted, not as necessary, but as expedient It pretended to no episcopal form of organization iu En- gland, but provided one Ibr America — a presbyterian epis copacy — Wesley, a presbyter, ordaining a bishop, and thus oractically denying High Churchism. It founded a lay mill 32 HlSrORY OF METHODISM. istry of Traveling rreachers, Local J^reuchers, and ExhoiL ers. It adopted tliQ Band-meeting, the Class nuctiiig, tht ancient Agape or Love-feast, it was, in fine, a system ci vitiil docti'ines and practical expedients — a bieaking a ray fr> TO the dead- vk' eights which had encumbered the marcli t>f the Reformation — a revival Church in its spirit, a mis- sionary Church in its organization. Such is the standpoint of Methodism in the history of the Church ; and, thus considered, its historians do not, per haps, claim too much when, with the suggestive writer who has attempted to give us its rationale, they insist that " the Methodism of the last century, even when considered apart from its consequences, must always be thought worthy of the most serious regard ; that, in fact, that great religious mavement has, immediately or remotely, so given an im- pulse to Christian feeling and profession, on all sides, that it has come to present itself as the starting-point of our modern religious history ; that the field-preaching of Wes- ley and Whitefield, in 1739, was t?ie event whence the religious epoch, now current, must date its commencement , that back to the^ events of that time must we look, neces- sarily, as often as we seek to trace to its source what is most characteristic of the present time ; and that yet this is not all, for the Methodism of the past age points forward to the next-coming development of the powers of the Gospel" 21 ** Ie«ao Taylor's Wesley and Methodiam, Pre&ue THE WESLEY FAMILY. 33 CHAPTER n. THE WESLEY FAMILY. Promdentia] Preparations — The Ep worth Rectory — Susanna Wesleji The Foundress of Methodism — Her Father, Dr. Annesley — Her inde- pendence of Opinion — Her Marriage — Her Beauty — Her Intellectual Character — Her Keligious Character — Her Husband, Samuel Wesley — His Ancestors — Bartholomew Westley and John Westley — Their Sufterings for Gcnscience sake — The Rector of Epworth — His Good- humor — Remarkable Anecdotes — Life at the Rectory — Characteristics of the Children — The Household Education — Mrs. Wesley conducts Religious Worship in the Rectory — Domestic Sorrows — Destruction of the Rectory by Fire — John Wesley's providential Escape. Man's extremity, says Augustine, is God's opportunity. While Seeker was deploring the demoralization of England, as threatening to " become absolutely fatal," and the aged Burnet saw " imminent ruin hanging over the Church," and " over the whole Reformation ;" while Watts was writing that "religion was dying in the world," and Butler that " it had come to be taken for granted that Christianity was no longer a subject of inquiry, but at length was discovered to be fictitious ;" when, in fine, the Anglican Church had become "an ecclesiastical sys<-em, under which the people of England had lapsed into heathenism," and " Nonconform- ity was rapidly in course to be found nowhere but in books," ' and, meanwhile, across the Channel, rationalistic infidelity was invading the strongholds of the Reformation, and the French pliilosophers were spreading moral contagion through Europe, G(xl was preparing the means, apparently disfon nected, but providentially coincident, which were to r^sus citate the " dying " faith, and introduce the era of modem evangelism in the Protestant world. A young man, bred ' Isaac Tavlor'fl Wesley and Methodism. Vol. I.— 3 •{4 HISTOUY OF METHODISM. In an inn at Bristol, and struggling for his education, as a sjcrvitor at Oxford, was seeking, in agony of spirit, for a purer faith than he could find around him, and, as he tells us, "lying prostrate on the ground, for whole days, in silent or vocal prayer." In a few years his eloquence, never, perhaps, surpassed in the pulpit, was to startle and illuminate all England, and the American Coknies froiii Maine to Georgia.^ From the mountains of Wales a youth of fortune entered, later, the same university as a gentleman commoner ;^ he was to become the foreign administrator of Methodism, its first bishop in America, the founder of its missions in both Lidies, and of that whole missionary scheme which, in our day, enrolls a larger number of con verts from heathenism than all other Protestant missions combined. From the mountains of Switzerland came into England, meanwhile, a young man who was to become the champion of the Arminian theology of the new movement, and the intimate counselor of its leader, and whose saintly life was to leave with it a greater blessing than the works of his pen.* But its chief agents were in obscure preparation in the village of Epworth, a rural community of Lmcolnshire, with a population, at the time, of about two thousand souls, occupied in the cultivation and manufacture of hemp and flax. In the household of the Epworth Rectory can be traced its real origin, amid one of those pictures of English rural life which have so often given a charm to our literature, and which form, perhaps, the best example of the domestic virtues of religion that Christian civilization ha^ afforded. An " elect lady " there trained the founder and legislator of Methodism, and to no inconsiderable degree by impressing on him the traits of her owti extraordinary character; and, under the same nurture, grew up by hia side its psalmist, whose lyrics were to be heard, in less tiian a century, wherever the English language was spok ' CKJliee's Life of Whitefleld. » Drew's Life of Coke * JensoE'B Life of Fletcher. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 86 en, and to be " more devoutly committed to memory,'" and "oflener repeated upon a death-bed," than any other poems,* The mother of the Wesleys was the mother of Method- ism, says a writer who has given us the philosophy of its history,^ and she properly belongs to the foreground of cur narrative. She was "nobly related," being the daughter of Dr. Samuel Amiesley, who was the son of a brother of the Earl of Anglesea.'' She inherited from her father those energetic traits of character which she transmitted to her most distinguished child. Dr. Anncsley was one of the leading Nonconformist divines of his day. Like his grandson, he was noted at Ox- ford for his piety and diligence. He served the national Church as chaplain at sea, and as parish priest at Cliff, in Kent, and at St. Jolni the Api)Stle's and St. Giles's, two of the largest congregations in London. Under the Act of Uniform- ity, the inherent energy of the family showed itself with him, as afterward with his daughter and grandson, in a calm but determined independence. He refused to " conform," and endured a series of severe persecutions, which were attended by many of those " remarkable interpositions " that dis- tinguish the later history of the family. One of his per- secutors fell dead while preparing a warrant for his apprehension. He became a leader of the Puritans during the troubles of the times, preaching almost daily, providing pastors for destitute congregations, and relief for his ejected and impoverished brethren. " how many places," ex- claims one of his contemporaries, " had sat in darkness, how many ministers had been starved, if Dr. Armesley had lied thirty years since." ^ After a ministry of more than half a century, and of sore trials, under which ho never once » Southoy's Life of Wesley, chapter 21. • Taylor: Wesley and Methodism, p. 28. ' Adam Clarke's Wesley Family, p. 289. • Dr. Daniel Williams, in Annesley's Funera. Sermcn, pnbliahod bf Wesley, in the Arniiuian Magazine, vol xv. S6 HISTORY OF METHODISM, faltered, he died in 1696, exclaiming, "I shall be satisfied with thy likeness : ' satisfied, satisfied." De Fop, who sat under his preaching, has drawn his character as perfect, in an elegy. The Nonconformists considered him a second St. Paul.* Richard Baxter pronounced hi in totally devoted to God.*" He was endeared to all who knew hinc intimately, and his noble relative, the Countess of Anglesea, desired, on her death-bed, to be buried in his grave.'' He had a manly countenance and dignified per son; a rich estate, which he devoted to charity; robust health, which was capable of any fatigue ; and " a large soul," says Clarke, " flaming with zeal." " He was an Israelite, indeed," exclaims Calamy, " sanctified from the womb."*2 Cromwell esteemed him, and appointed him to an office at St. Paul's. He accorded to his daughter the independence of opinion which he claimed for himself, and while yet under his roof, and not thirteen years old, she showed her hereditary spirit by examining the whole controversy between Churchmen and Dissenters, and by renouncing, in favor of the Estab- lished Church, the opinions to which her father had devoted a life of labor and suffering. The foot is characteristic; and judging from the evidence of her later history, she possessed, even at this early age, an unusual fitness for such an inves- tigation. Devout, thoughtful, amiable, and beautiful, she was the fiivorite child of her father, and the change of her opinions produced no interruption of the affectionate ties which had bound them together. She was married to Rev. Samuel Wesley about 1689_ when nineteen or twenty years of age. She had been thoroughly educated, and was acquainted with the Greek Dunton's " Life and Errors," p. 95. This noted publisher, who ranks by the side of Dodsley in the English typography of the last centoiy, was Annesley's son-in-law. >• Adam Clarke's Wesley Family, p. 298. " Dunton, p. 280. '• Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 5. Anthony ^ Wood's sketch of him (Athenee Oxoniensis, vol. iv,) is CNndeutly a Jacobite caricature. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 37 Latin, and French languages. She showed a discrimina. tive judgment of books and men, and, without any unique trait of genius, presents, perhaps, one of the completest oharacters, moral and intellectual, to be found in the history of her sex. She has left us no proof of poetical talent, and the genius of her children in this respect seems to hav^e been inherited from their father, whose passionate love of the art, and unwearied attempts at rhythm, if not poetry, may also account for the hereditary talent of the family in music. A portrait of Susanna Wesley, taken at a later date than her marriage, but evidently while she was still young, affords us a picture of the refined and even elegant lady of the times. The features are slight, but almost classical in their regularity. They are "-horoughly Wesleyan, aiibrding proof that John Wesley inherited from his mother not only his best moral and intellectual traits, but those also of his physiognomy. Her dress and coiffure are in the simplest style of her day, and the entire pictui-e is marked by chaste gracefulness. It lacks not, also, an air of that high-bred aristocracy from which she was descended. '^ Adam Clarke, whose uxorious fondness shows him to have been no inapt judge, says she was not only graceful, but beautiful. Sir Peter Lely, the painter of the "beauties" of his age, has left a portrait of one of her sisters, who was pronounced a woman of rare charms ; " One,' says Clarke, "who well knew them both, said, beautiful as Miss Anneslcy appears, she was far from being as beautiful as Mrs. Wes- ley." The learned commentator lingers with heartiest a6 miration before her image. Ho assures us that he could not repress his tears while contemplating her Christian and womanly virtues, and her more than manly struggles with adversity. "Such a woman," he says, "take her for all iii all, 1 have not heard of, I have not read of, nor witii lie: '» CLirko, (Wesloy Family,) with liis usual loarueil detail, trucos tJie Anglesea family buok beyond tho Conquest. Ho pays: "1 And that Mrs. Wesley signed some of her letters with the Annesley armH." 38 HISTORY OF METHOIMSM. equal have I been acquainted. Such a one Solomon has described in the last chapter of his Proverbs ; and to her 1 can apply the summed up chaiacter of his accomplished housewife. Many daughters have done virtuou-ily, but Susanna Wesley has excelled them all." In his comment on Solomon's sketch of the Jewish matron, he again refers to tne lady of Epworth rectory as the best exemplification ne knew of the Scriptural portrait. An exact balance of ficulties was the chief characteristio of her intellect. With this she combined a profound piety. Her early interest in the Nonconformist controversy shows that from her childhood, religion, even in some of its intri- cate questions, had engaged her thoughts. Her healthful common sense is manifest in all her allusions to the sub- ject. Her womanly but practical mind never fell into mysticism ; and when her sons were wavering under its influence at Oxford, her letters continually recalled them to wholesome and Scriptural sentiments. " I take Kempis," she wrote to John, when he was poring over the pages of the " Imitation," " I take Kempis to have been an honest, weak man, who had more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many direct and plain texts of Scrip- ture." And again she wrote : " Let every one enjoy the present hour. Age and successive troubles are sufficient to convince any man that it is a much wiser and safer way to deprecate great afflictions than to pray for them, and that our Lord knew what was in man when he directed us to pray : ' Lead us not into temptation.' I think heretic Clarke," in his exposition on the Lord's Prayer, is more in the right than Castaniza concerninjj temptations." With unusual sobriety on religious subjects, she united a cheerful confidence in her own religious hopes. She conse- crated an hour every morning and evening to entire sO' elusion for meditation and prayer ; her reflections at these «♦ Dr. Samuel Clarke. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 89 times were often recorded, and jjresent the happiest blend- ing of good sense and religious fervor. " If," she exclaims, in one of her evenmg meditations ; " if comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, w^hich is esteemed great, fair, or good ; if earnestly and constantly to desire Tliee — thy fovor, thy acceptance, thyself — rather than any or all things thou hast created, be to love Thee — 1 do love Thee." i« Her independent habit of thinking led her early to So cinian opinions, but they were abandoned after matured Investigations. Her letters are marked not only by just but often by profound thought. She projected several literary works, and a fragment which remains, on the " Apostles' Creed," would not have been discreditable to the theological literature of her day. She had begun a work on Natural and Revealed Religion, comprising her reasons for renounc- ing Dissent, and a discourse on the Eucharist, but both were destroyed by a fire which consumed the rectory.'^ Ilcr husband, the Rev. Samuel Wesley, was born at Whitechurch in 1662, and was her senior by seven years." His character was contrasted in important re- spects with her own ; but he shared fully her conscientious independence of opinion on religious questions. With him as with her, this seems to have been an hereditary trait, and was transmitted by them both to their children. The characteristics of the founder of Methodism were indeed continually revealing themselves in the ancestral history of the family. Samuel Wesley's grandfather, Bartholomew ■• Moore's Life of Wesley, L 3. Clnrko is very justly baandalized at the epitaph which Charles Wesley wrote for her tomb, aiid which represeLta her aa in " a legal night" till her seventieth year — a period at wliich she attained, as wo shall hereafter see, a clearer sense of her acceptauce with God, while receiving the Lord's Supper from one of her sons-in-law. •• Letter to her sou, Rev. S. Wesley. Wliiteiiead's Life of Wesley, 1, 4. " Clarke contradicts himself at pp. 81 and R'20of Wesley Family respect- ing his age. Methodist wrilurs speak with uncertainty of the year of M rn. Wesley's birth. Clarke (p. 819) gives it as IfifiO or 1070. Her epitaph, in Bunhill Fields, says she was aged 78, at her death in 1742. Thii do- termines the year of her birth aa 1669. 40 HISTORY OF mp:thodism. Westley,'^ after serving the Established Church in several parishes, under Charles I., joined the Puritan par.ty. He was ejected at the Restoration, and obstinately refusing to conform, lived by the practice of medicine, a persecuted outcast, not allowed by the Five Mile Act to approach within five miles of any of his former parishes, or an) borough town, but preaching, meanwhile, as he had oppor tunity, till the treatment and premature death of his son^ occasioned by a like conscientious independence of opinion, " brought his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." *^ We know little else of him than these brief characteristic facts of his sufferings. Calamy says he was, when an old man, and the vigor of life had gone, " as tender hearted and affectionate as he had been pious and prudent." His son, Johia Westley, imder whose afflictions the veteran dissenter sunk into the grave, was true to the independent and vigorous character of his father. He was educated at •« Such was the original orthography of the name. Clarke thinks it may be of Arabic origin, and that the family came from Spain. Beal ("Wesley Fathers") gives it a good Saxon origin. There are traces of it in Dorsetshire as early as the fourteenth century, a period before which, Camden tells us, surnames were not common in England, families being designated by localities. Smith (History of Wesleyan Methodism, book I, chap. 2) says there were in Dorsetshire certain portions of land formerly called hides, vils, (fields,) and manors, dis- tinguished by the names Wautesleigh, Wynesleigh, Wernsley, and Westley. Hutchinson, the historian of Dorsetshire, says there is a hamlet in Broadwindsor called Wansley, Wautsley, Wantsleigh, and Wanslew, and further observes that there are twenty acres of land in Hook called West Leas. " This latter statement," remarks Smith, " probably afford* a key to the whole case. I^ea, in Saxon, signifies a place, and in English an enclosed piece of cultivated or pastured land. Such a place, desig- nated by its bearing, would be called Westlea, and might have given the original of the family name." John de Wintereslegh, vicar :f Frampton, in 1360 ; George Westley, treasurer of Sarum, 1403 ; John Westley, rectoi of Langton Maltravers, 1481 ; John Wannesleigh, rector of Bettiscomb, 1497 ; and John Wennesley, chaplain of Pillesdore, 1508, were all, both {jersons and places, in the same county and same neighborhood where the great-grandfather of John Wesley resided ; there can be little doubt that they were ancestors of Samuel Westley, as the father of the foundex of Methodism wrote his name at Oxford. •• Southey's Wesley, chap. 1. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 41 Oxford, where he excelled in Oriental studies He seema not to have sought ordination, but was abroad during Crom- well's powei", preaching at various places, at one time to seamen, at others in rural churches. lie was remarkable for his religious zeal, and, like several others of his family, kept strict notes of his interior life by a diary. At the Restoration he had scruples against the us»e of the Common Prayer. He was cited before the Bishop of Bristol for his irregularities, and told by the prelate that if he continued to preach, it must be according " to order, the order of the Church of England, upon ordination." " What," he replied, *' does your lordship mean by an ordination ? If you mean that sending spoken of in Romans x, 2, 1 have it." " I mean that," rejoined the bishop; " what mission had you? You must have it according to law and the order of the Church of England." " I am not satisfied in my spirit of that," was che truly Wes leyan reply of the evangelist; "I am not satisfied in con science touching the ordination you speak of." He pro- ceeded to vindicate his preaching by its good results, the approval of good men, and his entire devotion to it. " I am glad 1 heard this from your o^vn mouth," replied the prelate. " You will stand to your principles, you say ?" " I intend it, through the grace of God, and to be feithful to the king's majesty, however you may deal with me." "I will not meddle with you," said the bishop, perceiving, doubtless, what kind of man he was dealing with. " Farewell to you, sir," was Mr. Westley's only reply, ' Farewell, good Mr. Westley," responded his lordship.'^^ Here was the germ of the ministerial system whiin afterward flourished under his grandson ; a kind of epitome of Methodism, says Clarke. He was a " lay preacher, and he was an itinerant evangelist." " It caimot," continues Clarke, "escape the reflection of the reader, that Method ism, in its grand principles of economy, and the means by which they have been brought into action, had its specific •• Cftlamy (Nonconformists' Mcni., vol. ii.) has preserved the interesting diitloKUO at length. Mooro qnotes it, Life of Wesley, I, 1. 42 HlteTOKY OF METHODISM, healthy, though slowly vegetatmg seeds, in tho original member^s of the Wesley family ."^^ The good impression which he left upon the niind of the Bishop of Bristol, oould not save him from iniprisonmenl shortly after. He was released by an order of the King's Council, in 1661, but was seized while leaving his church, ir the next year, and again thi-ust into prison. A leading magistrate of the county, however, bailed him out. Soon afterward the Act of Uniformity went into eilect ; Wesley would not yield to it ; he stood up amid his weeping peo pie, and preaching a farewell discourse, left them, to become an outcast and a wanderer. The remainder of his history is a series of affecting sufferings ; but they were borne with intrepid steadfastness. On leaving his congregation at Whitchurch, he took his family to Melcombe, but the local authorities hunted him there, imposing upon him a fine, and upon his landlady the forfeiture of twenty pounds. He took refuge in Ilmmster, Bridgewater, and Taunton, living on the charity of their dissenting Churches. Hia sufferings at last touched the sympathies of a wealthy gentleman, who gave him a house free of rent, in the villajie of Preston. There he found a retreat for almost two years, when the Five Mile Act drove him out of his com- fortable refuge. He sheltered his flimily at Poole, preach- ing there as he found opportunity, but living in the country to escape the new law. Four times was he imprisoned, once for half a year, and in another instance for three months. He thought of seeking shelter in America, but about the year 1670 found it in heaven. He sunk into tho grave, under his many trials, at the early age of thirty- four, bearing with him the broken heart of his father, whose admiration of his independence and zeal could not sustam his own spirit in its painful sympathy with his tried and « Olarke infeTS from tho " escalop shell " on the family arms, that some of its ancestors had been in the Cnisades ; whether this is the fact or not, the crusading spirit seemed hereditary and ineradicable in the Was- 'eyan constitution. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 48 faithful son. His sufferings, says Southey, have given liira a place among the confessors of the Nonconformists. Cal- amy has left us evidence that John Westley was alike devout and firm, and an able theologian.22 He lies in the church- yard of Preston ; such was the spirit of the times that the Ticar would not allow him to be buried in the church.23 Weak character is indicated as often, perhaps, by strong as by feeble opinions, for opinions are mostly prejudices ; and on theological subjects, and especially on ecclesiastical ques- tions, where so much must always be doubtful, liberality must always be more wise as well as more generous than dogmatism. It should be borne in mind, however, that if the Wesleys were tenacious of their later sentiments, this very fact proves that they were not so of their earlier opinions. They conquered, at least, the prejudices of education. Opin- ions on the questions for which they suffered were deemed, in their day, to be more fundamental than they have been considered since the epoch of Methodism. They were still matters of conscience, and strong souls are always strongest in matters of conscience. The opposition of Bartholomew and John Westley to the Common Prayer, and other ecclesi- astical requisitions of the times, was more a protest against bigotry than bigotry itself; and by the progress of such dissent has the Anglo-Saxon mind reached its later and more forbearing liberality. Such were the immediate ancestors of Samuel Wesley, the rector of Epworth, and father of the founder of Method- w Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. ii. 3« Southey's Life of Wesley, chap. 1. One of Wesley's circuit proacliers makes an affecting reference to this good and brave man's grave : " In the chorch-yard no stone tells where his ashes lie, nor is there a monument to reooid his worth. The writer would not seem to affect anything; yet to this village (which ho visits regularly, ns a small Wcsleyaii chapel is there) he does not go without rememhermg the Vicar of Whitchurch. lu tliis and that house, lonely dell, and retired spot, he seems to see the man whose spirit was crmshttl^ the Cliristian hunted to ohsourity, and the min- ister whose lamp, tliough lighted in the skies, was wickedly queucliod bj the triumphant spirit of persecution ; and he is uo stranger to the hal- owed spot where his mortal part is deposited."— i?eai'« Weiley Fathtrt. A 44 HISTORY OF METHODISM. ism. The rector himself had a '•obust soul, and early proved that he inherited the ancestral spirit of his' family. Designed for the ministry of the Nonconformists, and trained by so many domestic examples and sufferings to sympathize with their cause, he was appointed to prepare a reply to some severe invectives which had been published against them. In attempting the task " he conceived that he saw reason to change his opinions." 2* Rising one morn- ing very early, and without acquainting any person with his design, he set out on foot for Oxford, and entered himself as a " poor scholar " at Exeter College. He had but two pounds five shillings in his pocket when he arrived there, and received during his collegiate life but one cro\vn as assistance from his friends. Strong in the characteristic energy and methodical habits of his fomily, he successfully prosecuted his studies, supporting himself by his pen and by instructing others as a tutor. We have but few glimpses of his Oxford life; they show, however, the genume Wesleyan character. He was laborious, devout, and not forgetful of those whom the Church of the day seemed most inclined to forget — prisoners and the wretched poor. He visited the former in the Castle, relieving their necessities and ministering to their souls ; and when his sons afterward became notorious at Oxford for similar labors, he was able to wi'ite to them : " Go on, in God's name, in the path into which your Saviour has directed you, and that wherein your father has gone before you." Wesleyan in his economy as in his liberality, he was able at last to leave college for London with more than ten pounds in his pocket. Dunton, his London publisher, had married a daughter of Dr. Annesley, and introduced hia young friend to the fomily. The acquaintance ripened at last into his marriage with Susanna Annesley. After beginning his clerical life as a curate, with twenty-eight pounds a year, and receiving a chaplaincy aboard the fleet, at seventy pounds, he took charge of a curacy in London at ** John Wesley ; Adam Clarke's Wealey Family, p. 88. THE WESLEY FAMILY. 46 thirty pounds, which, however, he doubled by the tireless industry of his pen. While in the city he gave a remark- able instance of his hereditary spirit. Tlie " Declaration " of James II. was ordered to be read in the churches ; and the court party, deeming Wesley a talented partisan, prom- ised him preferment, as a motive for his support of the measure. He was poor, and living in lodgings with his wife and one child ; but he spurned the overture, and be lieving the Declaration to be a Papal design, he not only refused to read it, but ascended the pulpit and denounced it in a sermon from the text : " If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." We next find him in the curacy of South Ormsby, near Epworth, with fifty pounds a year. Here his family in- creased to six cliildren ; but, with true English paternity, ho welcomed each addition as a gift from God, and struggled manfully to provide bread for every new comer. He says, in a letter to the Archbishop of York, that he had but fifty pounds a year for six or seven years together, and one child at least per aimum. The parish had been ob- tained for him by the Marquis of Normanby ; a character- istic instance of conduct led to its resignation. This noble man, says John Wesley, had a house in the parish, where a woman who lived with him usually resided ; she insisted on being intimate with Mrs. Wesley, but to such an inter- course the rector would not submit. Coming in one day, and finding the intrusive visitant sitting with his wife, he went up to her, took her by the hand, and unceremoniously led her out. The nobleman resented the affront, and made it necessary for Wesley to retire from the living. The dedication of one of his works to Queen Mary procured him the rectory of Epworth, where, on two hundred pounds a, year, and the proceeds of his literary labors, he sustained 46 UISTORy OF MSTHODISM. and odiicated his numerous family, amounting at, last t Southey's Early English Poets. AdamClarke demurs to the latter point. The veteran commentator was, however, himself not very squeamish. «« The Epworth parish clerk was a well-meaning and honest, but an ob- trusively vain man. His master, the rector, he esteemed the greatest char- acter in the parish, or even in tlie county, nnd himself, being second to Mm in church services, as only second to him, also, in importance and title to general respect. " He had the privilege of wearing Mr. Wesley's cast oflf clothes and wigs, for the latter of which his head was by far too small, and the ligure he presented was ludicrously grotesque. The rector finding him particularly vain of one of the canonical substitutes for hair, which ho had lately received, formed the design to mortify him in the presence of that congregation before which Jolin wished to appear in every respect what he thought himself in his near approach to his master. One morning before church time Mr. W, said: 'John, I shall preach on a particular subject to-day, and shall choose my own paalm, of which I shall give out the first line, and you shall proceed as usuaL' John was pleased, and the service went forward as usual till they came to the singing, when Mr. Wesley gave out the following line : * Like to an owl In Ivy bush.' This was sung; and the following line, Jolm, peeping out of the large canonical wig in which his head was half lost, gave out with an audible voice, and appropriate connecting twang — ' That ruefVil thing am L' The "whole congretrnti'in, struck with John's appearance, saw and felt *Ji» similitude, and could not refrain from laughter. The rector was pleaf ed, for John was mortified and his self-conceit lowered." — Clarke's Wesley Family. This anecdote was questioned in the Wesleyan Magazine, Lon- don, for 1824. Clarke replica " that he had it from John Wesley himself, and, as near as he can possibly recollect, in tlie very words given." Ho adds, what may be as relevant to our pages as to his own, that it ifl char- acteristic of the man, and it is from facts of tliia nature tliat the author forms a proper estimate of the character ho describe*. The Vol I.— 4 50 UISTOIIY OF MKTHODISM. Ad;un Clarke, to whom we are indebted for our most interesting, if not most important informalion respecting Samuel Wealthy, an'd who evidently ft nid in him' a kindred nature, took pains to inquire on the spot respecting his cluiracter and labors, and discovered aged parishioners to whom the memory of the man and pastor was still dear. They bore grateful testimony to his pastoral fidelity and his devoted piety, as well as his eccentricities. lie had the zealous energy of his Methodist sons, and had it not ex- pended itself in mcessant literary labors, it would probably have led him into extraordinary evangelical schemes, like those which resulted in Methodism. He did, indeed, con- ceive a plan of gigantic missionary efforts, w^hich, it caimot be doubted, he would have heroically prosecuted, had it not been defeated by the neglect of the government. It com- prehended St. Helena, India, and China, and reached even to Abyssinia, taking in the foreign British territories as posts from which to extend the Gospel to the heathen. The written sketch of the scheme, signed by the Archbishop of York, still remains. Wesley offered to attempt it in person, if the government would sanction it, and provide a humble subsistence for his family. Clarke contends that it was en- tirely practicable to the English government and Church. It was an anticipation of the missionary enterprise of Methodism ; but the time for it had not yet come. Hia wife was unconsciously prcparuig for it in the nursery at Epworth, while her husband was discussing it with prelates and statesmen. A prophetic anticipation of the approaching revival harm'.esB weukness of the aged clerk seema to have made him quite » "character" in the Epworth circle, and the humor of the hard-workiug rector was doubtless often refreshed by his comicalities. Clarke sayb : "This is the same man who, when King William returned to London, after some of his expeditions, gave out in ]ipwonn church, 'Let us sing to the jiridse nnd glory of God, a hymn of my own composing : ' King William Is come home, come home, King William liome Is come; Therefore let us togetiier sing Tlie livinii tli.it'r- tailed Te D'um. " THE WESLEY FAMILY. 51 of the Protestant faith seemed to linger in this good man's mind down to his hist hour. When dying he h\id liis hand repeatedly Moore's Life of Wesley, H, 1. 62 H I S T O R Y O F METHODISM. maiiliood and the ecclesiastical system which he fountled. Even the extiaordinaiy "noises" for which tlie rettory be- came noted, and which still remain unex])hiined, are supposed to liave had a providential influence upon his character. These phenomena were strikingly similar to marvels which, in our times, have suddenly spread over most of the civilized world, perplexing the learned, deluding the ignorant, producing a "spiritualistic" literature of hundreds of volumes and peri- odicals, and resulting in extensive church organizations. ° The learned Priestley obtained the family letters and jour- nals relating to these curious facts, and gave them to the Tvorld as the best authenticated and best told story of the kind that was anywhere extant.' John "Wesley himself has left us a summary of these mysterious events. They began usually with a loud whistling of the wind around the house. Before it came into any room the latches were frequently lifted up, the windows clattered, and whatever iron or brass was abovit the chamber rung and jarred exceedingly. When it was in any room, let the inmates make what noises they could, as they sometimes did on purpose, its dead hollow note would be clearly heard above them all. The sound very often seemed in the air, in the middle of a room ; nor could they exactly imitate it by any contrivance. It seemed to rattle down the pewter, to clap the doors, draw the curtains, and throw the man-servant's shoes up and down. Once it threw open the nursery door. The mas- tiff barked violently at it the first day, yet whenever it came afterward, he ran whining, or quite silent, to shelter him- self behind some of the company. Scarcely any of the fam- ily could go from one room into another but the latch of the door they approached was lifted up before they touched it. " The best account and, perhaps, the best solution of these modern wonders, liave been given by Count Gasparin, of Geneva : Science versus Spiritualism, 2 vols., translated from the French. New York. See, also, Kogers's Philosophy of Mysterious Agents. Boston. ' Original Letters of the Rev. John Wesley and his Friends, illustrative of liis Early History, with other Curious Papers, etc. By Kev. Joseph Priestley, L.L.D., F. K. S. Birmingham: 1791. JOHN AND c; H A R L E S W K S L E Y . 63 It was evidently, 8:13-8 Southey, a Jacobite goblin, and seldom suffered Mr. Wesley to pray for the king without disturbing the family. John says it gave " thundering knocks " at tiie Amen, and tlie loyal rector, waxing angry at the insult, sometimes rcjDeated the prayer with defiance. He was thrice "pushed by it" with no little violence; it never disturbed him, however, till after he had rudely de- nounced it as a dumb and deaf devil, and challenged it to cease annoying his innocent children, and meet him in his studjM'f iL had anything to say. It replied with "a knock, as if it would shiver the boards in pieces," and resented the affront by accepting the challenge. At one time the trencher danced upon the table without anj'body's touching either. At another, when several of the daughters were • amusing themselves at a game of cards upon one of the. beds, the wall seemed to tremble with the noise; they' leaped from the bed, and it was raised in the air, as de- scribed by Cotton Mather, in the witchcraft of New England. Sometimes moans were heard, as from a person dying; at others, it swept through the halls and along the stairs, with the sound of a person trailing a loose gown on the floor, and the chamber walls, meanwhile, shook with vibrations. It, would respond to Mrs. Wesley if she stamped on the floor and bade it answer; and it was more loud and fierce whenever it was attributed to rats or any natural cause. These noises continued about two months, and occurred the latter part of the time every day. The family sooa came to consider them amusing freaks, as they were never attended with any serious harm; they all, nevertheless, deemed them preternatural. Adam Clarke assures us that though they subsided at Epworth, they continued to molest some members of the family for many years. Clarke be- lieved them to be demoniacal; Southey is ambiguous re- specting their real character;* Priestley supposed them a * Though Southey avoids any explicit explanation of them in his Life of Wesley, in a letter to Will)ert'oree lie avows his helief in their preter- natural eharaeter. See Wilherlbrce's Correspondence, 2 vols. London. 64 HISTORY OF METHODISM. trick of the servants or neighbors, but without any other reason than that they seemed not to answer any 'adequate purpose of a " miracle," to which Southey justly replies, that with regard to the good design which they may be supposed to answer, it would be end sufficient if sometimes one of those unhappy persons who, looking through the dim glass of infidelity, see nothing beyond this life, and the narrow sphere of mortal existence, should, from the well-established truth of one such story, trifling and object- less as it might otherwise appear, be led to a conclusion that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their philosophy. Isaac Taylor considers them neither "celestial" nor "infernal," but extra-terrestrial, intruding upon our sphere occasionally, as the Arabian locust is sometimes found in Hyde Park.* Of the influ- ence of these facts on Wesley's character, this author remarks that they took effect upon him in such a decisive manner as to lay open his fixculty of belief, and create a right of way for the supernatural through his mind, so that to the end of his life there was nothing so marvelous that it could not freely pass where these mysteries had passed before it. Whatever may be thought of this very hypo- thetical suggestion, and of its incompatibility with the dispo- sition of this vv'riter, and, indeed, of most of Wesley's critics, to impute to him a natural and perilous credulity, it cannot be denied that in an age which was characterized by skepticism, a strong susceptibility of faith was a necessary qualification for the work which devolved upon him, and less dangerous by far than the opposite disposition ; for though the former miglit mar that work, the latter must have been fatal to it. When but thirteen years old, John Wesley left the paternal home for the Charter-House School, in London. Inhere could hardly be a misgiving of his moral safety in passing OTit into the world from the thorough and consecrat- mg discipline of the rectory. His scholarship and life a\ the Charter-House showed a character already determinate Wesley and Millioilisin, p. SO. JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 66 and exalted. He suffered the usual tyranny of the elder students at the Charter-House, being deprived by them, most of the time, of his daily portion of animal food ; but he pre- served his health by a wise prescription of his fether, that he should run round the garden three times every day. The institution became endeared to him, and on his yearly visita U) London he failed not to walk through its cloisters and recal the memories of his studious boyhood, memories which were always sunny to his healthful mind. In 1720 he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, at the age of sixteen. Meanwhile his brother, and chief coadjutor in founding Methodism, Charles Wesley, had also left Epworth, for Westminster school. Born December 18, 1708, he was the junior of John by more than five years. At Westminster he was under the tuition of his brother, Samuel Wesley, who was usher in the school. While there an incident oc- curred which might have changed considerably the history not only of Methodism, but of the British empire. Garret Wesley, of Ireland, who seems not to have been related to the family, proposed to adopt him and settle upon him his estate. The Rector of Epworth must have favored the offer, for money was forwarded yearly from Ireland to Lon- don for the expenses of the son. The latter, however, finally declined the proposition of his benefactor, and thus, as his brother John remarked, made " a fiiir escape " from fortune. Richard Colley, afterward known as Richard Colley Wesley, was adopted in his stead. This gentleman passed through several public offices, and by the time that the Wesleys were abroad founding Methodism, had entered Parliament. Under George 11. he became Baron Morning, ton. He was the grandfather of the Marquis of Wellesley, Govcrno'' General of India, and of the Duke of Welling- ton, the conqueror of Napoleon.* Had the wish of • This fiut liiia been questioned by Maxwell, in his Life of the Duko of Wellington. Jackson, however, demonstrates its con'cctnesa ; Life of (Jharlos Wesley, 1, 1. Tlio diike's name, in the "Army List" o< ISOO. it the Hon. Arthur Wesley, Lieutenant Colonel of 3,3d Hcgimeiit. Vol. I.— .'"> fid UISTOKY OF METHODISM. Garret Wesley been accomplished, tne name of the Dake of Wellington, and the hymns of Charles Wesley, might not to-day be known wherever the English language is spoken. When about eighteen years old, Charles was elected to Christ Cliurch College, Oxford. John had previously left it to become a fellow at Lincoln ; the religious seriousness which had grown with his youth, now deepened into a pro found anxiety to solve, by his own experience, the questions of personal religion. Healthful in his temperament, and not knowing, as he records in later years, " fifteen minutes of low spirits " during his life, he nevertheless bore, from day to day, the consciousness of a want of harmony with God. Such a harxi»uny, " peace with God," was his ideal of personal religion. Could it not be attained 1 If attained, could it fail to be a matter of consciousness 1 Did not the Scriptures teach that " the Spirit itself beareth %vitness with our spirits that we are the children of God ?" Was there not also a " Christian Perfection " taught in the Scriptures ; a " perfect love which casteth out fear 1" Not, of course, a perfection according to the absolute moral law of God, but according to the accommodated relation to that law in which our fallen race exists, under the mediatorial economy, and in which unavoidable imperfections are provided for by the Atonement, as in the case of unregenerate infancy, without the remorseful sense of guilt. If these conjectures were correct, what a deplorable condition did Christendom pre- sent 1 How few exemplified essential Christianity 1 How generally had dogmatism, ecclesiasticism, or, at best, mere ethical principles, overshadowed the spiritual life, and free- dom, and beauty of genuine religion 1 How necesssary was it that the Christian world should be recalled from the "tithe of the mint and anise and cummin," to the spiritual life and simplicity of the Gospel, and that he, first settling these questions for himself, should proclaim them as on the house- tops to his generation 1 These were the essential questions of " Methodism," that is to say, of primitive Christianity ; and thus, while meditating in the cloisters of Oxford, was JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 67 he being prepared, by the habitual pressure of such interro gatioiis upon his own conscience, for the great mission which was before him. His vigilant mother, who seems to have been providentially guided, not only to form his character for the origination of Methodism, but to direct him, during her long life, in many of its distinct and most important stages, strengthened, by her letters, the tendencies of his mind at this time. " And now," said she, " in good eanest, resolve to make religion the business of your life ; for, after all, that is the one thing that, strictly speaking, is necessary. All things besides are comparatively little to the purposes of lifa I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself, that you may know whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have, the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward your pains ; if you have not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in any tragedy."' As usual in the moral discipline of good men, he was to reach the solution of the problems which now ab- sorbed his attention, by inward struggles, the "fiery trial" which purifies. He did not yet apprehend the Scriptural simplicity of faith as the condition of justification, and also of sanctification. He pored over the pages of that marvelous book, De Imitatione Christi, which has lent the fragrance of its sanctity to every language of the civilized world, and which, by its peculiar appositeness to almost every aspiration, misgiving, or consolation of devout minds, has Beemed more a production of Divine inspiration than any other work in Christian literature, except the Scriptures. l\ had been a favorite with his father, his "great and old compani()n," Almost perfect for its design as a monastic manual, its very adaptedness, in this respect, sniggered the youthful Wesley, but it failed not to infect him with its fas- cinating mysticism. Its impression was deepened by Jer- emy Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying." Hie rare poetit ' Southev's Wesley, chap. 2. Smith's II'iHtory of MetLodiam, I, 8. 68 HISTORY OF METHODISM. beauties of this work coujd not fail to charm his young imagination; but Its piety was still more grateftil to hia present inquiring temper. Taylor's views of simplicity and purity of motive commended themselves to his con- science. Instantly, he says, he resolved to dedicate all his life to God, all his thoughts, and words, and actions — being thoroughly convinced there is no medium ; that not only a part, but the whole must either be a sacrifice to God or himself, " that is, in effect, to the devil ;" a sentiment that characterized his entire remaining life. The more genial light of the " Holy Living " illuminated, though it did not fully explain the pages of the "Imitation," and both books became his daily companions. His letters show their effect, and his fiither, perceiving it, endeavored to confirm it. "God fit you for your great work," he wrote to him ; " fast, watch, and pray; believe, love, endure, and be happy; toward which you shall never want the ardent prayers of your most affectionate father." Some of Taylor's opinions provoked the dissent of the devout student, and led him more defi- nitively to doctrines which were to be vital in the theology of Methodism. The bishop, in common with most theolo- gians of his day, denied that the Christian could usually know his acceptance with God. Wesley replied : " If we dwell in Chi'ist and Christ in us, which he will not do unless we are regenerate, certainly we must be sensible of it. If we can never have any certainty of our being in a state of salvation, good reason it is that every moment should be spent, not in joy, but in fear and trembling; and then, imdoubtedly, hi this life we are of all men most miserable. God deliver us from such a fearful expectation ! Humility is, undoubtedly, necessary to salvation; and if all these things are essential to humility, who can be humble, who can be saved 1 That we can never be so certain of the par don of our sins as to be assured they will never rise up against us, I firmly believe. We know that they will infal- libly do so, if we apostatize ; and I am not satisfied what evidence there can be of our final perseverance, till we have JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 69 finished our course. But I am persuaded we may know if we are now in a state of salvation, since that is expressly promised in the Holy Scriptures to our sincere endeavors, and we are surely able to judge of our own sincerity." ' Here was not only his later doctrine of the " Witness of the Spirit," but a clear dissent from the Calvinistic tenet of ' final perseverance." His proclivity to Arminianism be- came quite decided about this time. " As I understand faith," he wrote, " to be an assent to any truth upon rational gi'omids, I do not think it possible, without perjury, to swear I believe anything unless I have reasonable grounds for my persuasion. Now that which contradicts reason cannot be said to stand upon reasonable grounds ; and such, undoubtedly, is every proposition which is incom- patible with the Divine justice or mercy. What, then, shall I say of predestination ? If it was inevitably decreed from eternity that a determinate part of mankind should be saved, and none besides, then a vast majority of the world were only born to eternal death, without so much as a possibility of avoiding it. How is this consistent with either the Divme justice or mercy 1 Is it merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting misery ? Is it just to punish a man for crimes which he could not but commit? That God should be the author of sin and injustice, which nmst, I think, be the consequence of maintaining this opinion, is a contradiction to the clearest ideas we have of the Divine nature and perfections." His mother confirmed him in these views, and expressed her abhorrence of the Calvinistic theology. God's prescience, she argued, is nc moi'e the effective cause of the loss of the wicked than cm foreknowledge of the rising of to-morrow's sun is the cause of its rising. She prudently advised, however, abstinence from these speculations as " studifs which tended more tc confomid than to inform the understanding." The writings of the celebrated William Law had much influence upon him at this stage of his progress. Tliey • Moore'u Wesley, II, 1, 2. fO HISTORY OF METHODISM. deepened his mysticism and confirmed his asceticism, leading him to depend upcwi his own works as the means of purifi- cation and comfort, but failing to give him just ideas of the faith "which worketh by love." And precisely here was the critical period in his history, one which was to determine whether he should be the ascetic recluse at Oxford, with the "• Imitation " ever before him, or the evangelist of his age, on Moorfields, and the Gwennap hills, with the Bible in his hand, homo unius libri, a " man of one book." With an earnestness oorderiug on agony, he wrote to his mother, deploring the repugnance toward holiness, which he felt to be natural to him. He sought for humility, but complained that it seemed impossible to him. Humility with him, however, meant at this time the ascetic self-abnegation of the " Imitation," a temper which, though it infected him transiently after- ward, was incompatible with his healthful temperament and with the destined work of his life. He implored his mother's counsels and prayers, entreating her especially to grant him the Thursday evening, which, according to her method of domestic training, she used to spend in devotional retirement with him. His removal from Christ Church College to that of Lin- coln, enabled him to change his ordinary society. He re- solved to make but few acquaintances in his new residence, and none that could not aid his religious progress ; and now he began that marvelous diary which so much illustrates his character, his literary opinions, and his unparalleled energy. He received the communion every week ; he gave alms to thu poor, and his whole life was consecrated to the attain ment of the personal "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." Meanwhile he had been admitted to orders, and preached occasionally. He had already attained a high reputation at the university, and was esteemed an excellent critic in the cl.assic languages; his skill in logic was extraordinary ; he was elected Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes in a few months after obtain- ing his fellowship, and when but little more than twenty JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 71 tliree year r old. These successes were a part of his provi' dential preparation for the career before him. Six times a week disputations were held at Lincoln College ; " I could not," he writes, " avoid acquiring some degree of expertness m arguing, and especially in discerning and pointing out well-covered and plausible fallacies. I have since found ibundant reason to praise God for giving me this honest art. By this, when men have hedged me in by what they call demonstrations, I have been many times able to dash them in pieces ; in spite of all its covers, to touch the very point where the fallacy lay, and it flew open in a moment." fie was called away much of the time to assist his father, who was sinking under years, at Epworth. On one of his occasional visits to Oxford, he found that his brother was passing through the same religious crisis as himself. Charles wrote to him, urging his return to Oxford; he describes himself as mysteriously awakened from the moral lethargy in which he had spent his youth ; and attributes the Divhie illumination which had been given him to the prayers of his mother. Both seemed to turn instinctively to her, rather than to their father, whenever their hearts were deeply moved by any religious anxiety or difficulty. John, during his rural retirement at Epworth, had yielded still more to his mystical tendencies under the influ- ence of ^ Kempis and T^aw. The turning point which was to fit or unfit him for his great task, had not yet been passed. He had desired at one time to try the tranquil life of the Catholic recluses ; " it was the decided temper of his soul," he said. Seclusion from the world for at least some months might, he hoped, settle his thoughts and habits. A school in one of the " Yorkshire dales" was proposed. His wiser mother again stepped in to save him for his appointed career, prophetically intimating that God had better work for him to do. He tells us himself, that before his return to the university he traveled some miles to see a " serious man." Sir, said this person, as if inspired at the right moment, with the right word, for the man of Providence standing be- 72 HISTORY OF METUODISM. fore him ; Sir, you wish to serve God aud go to heaven ; remember you cannot serve nim alone ; you must, therefore find companions, or make them ; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion. Wesley never forgot these words. They, perhaps, forecast the history of his life. On reaching Ox- ford he found "companions" already prepared for him by his brother's agency. The " Holy Club " was now known there, and the epithet of "Methodist" had already been committed to ecclesiastical history. He arrived at Oxford in November, 1729; Charles and his religious associates gathered immediately around him, recognizing at once thai capacity for guidance and authority which all who ap proached him afterward, seemed spontaneously to acknowl edge. Charles was now twenty-one years of age, a Bache lor of Arts, and a college tutor. The "Holy Club," of which he was considered the founder, at first consisted of but four members. Their names are reverently preserved by Methodist writers ; they were, "Mr. John Wesley, who was fellow of Lincoln College ; his brother Charles, student of Christ Church ; Mr. Morgan, commoner of Christ Church the son of an Irish gentleman; and Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College." They were closely bound together not only in their religious sympathies, but in their studies, spending three or four evenings each week in reading together the Greek Testament and the ancient classics, and Sunday even- ings in the study of divinity. They received the Lord"? Supper weekly, and fasted twice a week. A rigid system of self-examination was drawn up for them by Wesley, which, it has been observed, might have been appended to the spiritual exercises of Loyola, had it not mentioned the laws of the Anglican Church. The almost monastic habits of life they were forming, in which, as Wesley's biographers. Coke and Moore, remark, " the darkness of their minds as to Gospel truths is evident," was counteracted by the benevolent and active sympathies of Morgan. He had visited the prison, and brought back reports which induced the little company systematically to mstruct the prisoners once oi JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 78 twice a week. Morgan also came to them from the bedside of a sick person of the town, and they were led to adopt a plan for the regular visitation of the sick. Meanwhile their numbers increased. In 1730 several pupils of John, and one of Charles, joined them ; in 1732 Ingham, of Queen's Col- lie, and Broughton, of Exeter, and about the same time Clayton, of Brazcnnose, with some of his pupils, and Her fey, the author of " Theron and Aspasio " and " The Medi- tations," were received. Whitefield joined them in 1735. Before the return of John from Epworth, the term Meth odist had been applied to them in jest, by a fellow student, and Charles was the first of the family who received the now honored title. It was suggested, doubtless, by their meth- odical lives ; but it had been pi-eviously used among religioua parties. A hundred years prior to this date, we hear of " the Anabaptists and plain pack-staiT Methodists," * A class of Nonconformists, in the days of Amiesley, were designated by the epithet, for their views respecting the method of man's justification before God; and a controversial pamphlet of those times discusses the principles of the " New Method ists."^° A class of high Calvinistic divines in England, about the time of the Wesleys, also bore the title. Morgan, whose influence on his companions was so salu tary, was of delicate constitution, but tireless beneficence He not only visited the sick and prisoners, but collected together the peasant children of the vicinity for religious in- struction, and the distribution of good books. His health failed and he retired to his home in Ireland, where, after a period of mental depression, produced by disease, he died id •' great peace and resignation." • Jackson's Cliarlcs Wesley, clinj). 2. '• The controversy mid llie {larty socin to have been extensive. Dr. Williame, wUd prciiclied Aniicsloy's funeral sennon, wiw one of Uioit writers. Tlio (luestioiis iu dispute were referred to tlio arbitration of Mishop Stilliii^'fleet. Tho title of the pamplilet alliide.l to is, " A Wui Among the Angles of tho Cluirehes, wlua-ciu is shown tho Prineiplos rf UiO New Methodists in the great I'oint of J ustitieutiou also a Form of Prayer according to those Principles," etc. — Ibid. 74 HISTORY OF METHODISM. Whitefield has left us a characteristic account of his conneo tion with the " Holy Club." He was born in 1714,' at Giou cester. He describes his childhood as exceedingly vicious. " If I trace myself," he says, " from my cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be damned ; and if the Almighty had not prevented me, by his grace, I had now eithei been sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death, or con iemned, as the due reward to my crimes, to be forevei lifting up my eyes in torments." '* Yet he alludes to intervals of deep religious sensibility in his early life. When about fifteen years old he " put on his blue apron and his snuffers," washed mops, cleaned rooms, and became a " common drawer " in the Bell Inn, which was kept by his mother at Bristol. Thomas a Kempis, so important with the Wesleys at Oxford, had fallen into his hands, and could not fail to impress a heart like his, which retained through life the freshness of childhood, and attained with advanced piety, the vivid but steady ardor of a seraph. He had already given evidence of his natural powers of eloquence in school declamations, and while in the Bristol Inn composed two or three sermons. Hearing of the possibility of obtaining an education at Oxford, as a servi tor or "poor student," he prepared himself and went thither and afterward provided for his expenses, chiefly by serv Uig his fellow collegians. His mind had taken a deeply re- ligious turn while yet at Bristol, but k Kempis had not helped him to comprehend the doctrine of Justification by Faith. He says that when he was sixteen years of age, he began to fast twice a week for thirty-sLx hours together, prayed many times a day, received the sacrament every ten days, fasted himself almost to death all the forty daya of Lent, during which time he made it a point of duty never to go less than thi-ee times a day to public w^orship, besides seven times a day to his private devotions, yet, he adds, "I knew no more that I was to be born again in God, born a new creature in Christ Jesus, than if I was never bom at all." He obtained Law's Serious Call at Oxford, and that " Kobert Philip's Life and Times of Whitefield, chap. 1. JOHN AND CHAKLES W E 8 L B Y. 76 powerful book aifected him as it had the Wcsleys. He says, that he now began to pray and sing psalms twice every day. besides morning and evening, to fast every Friday, and to receive the sacrament at a parish church near his col lege, and at the castle, where the " despised Methodists used to receive it once a month." The Methodists were not only the common butt of Oxford ridicule, but their fame had spread as far as Bristol before Whitefield left his home. He had "loved them," he tells us, before he entered the univer- sity, and now defended them against the sarcasms of his fellow students. For a year he longed to meet them, but an opportunity seemed not to offer, though he often gazed at them with deep emotions as they passed through a satirical crowd to receive the Eucharist at St. Mary's. He procured, at last, an introduction to Charles Wesley, who received him at once to his heart, for they were conge- nial spirits, being both ardent with vivid natural sympathies ; the one a natural poet, the other a natural orator. He was soon introduced to the Holy Club. "They built me up daily," he says, " m tne Knowledge and fear of God, and taught me to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Like them he now began to live by rule, to econo- mize the very moments of his time ; and whether he ate or drank, or whatsoever he did, to do all to the glory of God. Like them, he received the sacrament every Sunday, at Christ Church, and he joined them in fasting Wednesdays and Fridays. Regular retirement, morning and evening, for meditation and prayer, he says he found at first difficult, if not irksome; but it grew profitable and delightful. He was soon abroad visiting the sick and prisoners, and reading to poor families, for it had become a custom of the Methodist band to spend an hour every day in such acts of usefulness. The morals of the university were low at this time. Infi- delity prevailed, and called forth public remonstrances from the collegiate authorities. What regard whs paid to religion was formal and lifeless, and the little company of earnest taiquirers looked beyond their circle, in vain, for sympathy 6 76 HISTORY OF METHODISM. and guidance. It :s not a matter of wonder, then, that some of them fell into errors. Whitefield, for a time, became a Quietist, and sought repose for his troubled spirit in seclusion from the usual meetings of the club, in walks in the fields, and in praying silently by himself. The Wesleys rescued him, and gave him directions as hia * various and pitiable state required." " God gave me," he writes, with his characteristic tenderness of feeling, "God gave me, blessed be his holy name, a teachable temper, and I was delivered from those wiles of Satan." The scene presented by these young men, thus struggling for self-purification at the greatest seat of English learning, and unconsciously preparing a new development of Protest- antism, at a time of general infidelity and demoralization, cannot fail to strike any devout mind as a most impress- ive spectacle. It is one of those examples of Di- vine Providence by which the Church, in some of its dark- est and most hopeless exigences, has been endowed with "power from on high," and led forth, as from the wilder- ness, for renewed triumphs, by means which none had antic- ipated, and which, notwithstanding their apparent insignifi- cance, have surpassed the wisdom of the wise and the resources of the mighty. Voltaire predicted, about this time, that in the next generation Christianity would be overthrown throughout the civilized world ; these young men defeated the prophecy, and rendered the next generation the most effective in Christian history since the days of Martin Luther. But their preliminary training was not over. The lead- ing agents of the coming revolution were to be cast out upon the world, to prepare themselves, in a larger arena, for the work before them. The father of the Wesleys, approaching his end, and exhorting his sons, meanwhile, to struggle on, had entreated John to become his successor at Ep worth, and protect his family from dispersion at his death. The appeal was an affecting one, and the sen has been reproached for not heeding it ; but he was steadfast in his conviction that a different course of life devolved upon JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 77 nim ; and his thoughtful mother seems not to have joined ner husband in the attempt to divert him from it. The rector died, the family was scattered, and the Epworth rec- tory fades from the history of Methodism, to reappear again only when, in later years, its founder, hastening over the realm to call the neglected multitudes to repentance, and, denied the pulpit of his father, stood upon his tombstone, in the church-yard, and proclaimed his message to the vil- lagers. The disinterestedness of his motives, in declining the Epworth living, was soon tested. General Oglethorpe, the friend and correspondent of his father, was about to conduct a reinforcement to the colony of Georgia, and the young divine, who had refused a quiet rectory, and the com- forts of the parental home, consented to go, accompanied by his brother Charles, as a missionary to the American aborig ines. lie was to be disappointed in his main design, but was to learn, by the expedition, important lessons for the future. The charm of the mystic winters still hung about him ; it was to be dispelled in the remote wilds of America, where it could do little harm, but where his failure to find relig- ious peace, contrasted with the practical piety and spiritual enjoyment of a few simple Moravians, was to prepare him to return better qualified for the predestined work of his life. It was still a question whether he ought to desert his widowed mother, who was now dependent upon her chil- dren. " I can be," he replied to the invitation, " the staff" of her age, her chief support and comfort." TTis consent depended upon hers ; and her reply was what might have been expected fi-om such a woman : " If I had twenty sons, ( should rejoice that they were all so employed, though ( should never see them again." On the 14th of October, 1735, the party, consisting of the two Wesleys, and Messrs. Ingham and Delamotte, left London to embark. They found on board the ship one hundred and twenty-four persons, including twenty-six German Moravians, with their bishop, David Nitschman. John Wesley seems immediately, though informally, to 78 HISTORf OF METHODISM. have been recognized as the religious head of the floating community, and his niethodicsil habits prevailed over all around him. The ship bectime at once a Bethel Church and a seminary. The daily course of life among the Methodist {>arty was directed by Wesley : from four till five o'clock in the morning each of them spent in private prayer ; from five till seven they read the Bible together, carefully comparing it with tne writings of the earliest Christian ages ; at seven they breakfasted ; at eight were the public prayers. Frf»in nine to twelve Wesley usually studied German, and Dela- motte Greek, while Charles Wesley wrote sermons, and Ingham instructed the children. At twelve they met to give an account of what each had done since their last meeting, and of what they designed to do before the next. A-bout one they dined ; the time from dinner to four was spent in reading to persons on board, a number of whom each of them had taken in charge. At four were the even- ing prayers, when either the second lesson of the day was explained — as the first always was in the morning — or the children were catechised and instructed before the congrega- tion. From five to six they again retired for private prayer. From six to seven Wesley read in his state-room to two or three of the passengers, and each of his brethren to a few more in theirs ; at seven he joined the Germans in their public service, while Ingham was reading between decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight they met again to exhort and insti-iict one another. Between nine and ten they went to bed, where, says Wesley, neither the roaring of the sea, nor the motion of the ship, could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave them. ^' Here was practical "Mfthodisir." still struggling in its forming process ; it was Epworth rectory and Susanna Wesley's discipline afloat on the Atlantic. The great event of the voyage, as affecting the history of Methodism, was the illustration of genuine religion which lie little band of Moravian passengers gave during a '• Wesley's Journal , Anno 1785. JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 79 perilous htorrii. Wesley had observed with deep interest their hu7iible piety, in offices of mutual kindness and serv- ice, and in patience under occasional maltreatment; but when the storm arose there was an opportunity, he says, of seeing whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger, and revenge. In the midst of the psalm with which their service began, the sea broke over the ship, split the main-sail into pieces, and poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed them up. A terrible alarm and outcry arose among the English, but the Germans calmly sung on. Wesley asked one of them : " Were you not afraid ?" He answered : " I thank God, no." "But were not your women and children ?" " No ; our women and children are not afraid to die." Wesley felt that he had not yet so learned Christ, and retired to lay the lesson to heart, and to urge it on the attention of their " crying, trembling English neighbors." On arriving in America it was again to be pressed upon his awakened mind by a representative of these devoted people lie met Spangenberg, one of their pastors, and consulted him respecting the best plans of ministerial labor. " My brother," said the Moravian, " I must first ask you one or two questioDS. Have you the witness within your- self? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God ?" Wesley was surprised, and knew not what to answer. Spangenberg observed his embarrassment, and asked : " Do you know Jesus Christ 1" " I know he is the Saviour of the world," replied Wesley. " True," rejoined the Moravian ; " but do you know that he has saved you ?" " I hope he has died to save me." Spangenberg only added : " Do you know yourself?" " I do," responded Wesley ; " but," he writes, *' I fear they were mere words." He was impressed b\ the simple beauty of the religious life of these Moravians Delamotte and he lodged with them, and had opportunities, day by day, of observing 80 HISTORY OF METHODISM. their whole demeanor ; for they were present in one room with them from morning till night, unless fc»r the little time spent in walking for exercise. He describes them as al ways employed, always cheerful, always cordial to one another; "they had put away all anger, and strife, and wrath, and bitterness, and clamor, and evil-speaking ; they w^alked worthy of the vocation wherewith they were called, and adorned the Gospel of our Lord in all things." His Churchly prejudices were rebuked by the apostolic purity of their ecclesiastical forms. They met, he says, to con- sult concerning the affairs of their Church; Spangenberg being about to go to Pennsylvania, and Bishop Nitschman to return to Germany. After several hours spent in con- ference and prayer, they proceeded to the election and ordi- nation of a bishop. The great simplicity, as well as solemnity, of the proceeding almost made him forget the seventeen hundred years between him and the apostles, and imagine himself in one of those assemblies where form and state were unknown, but Paul, the tent-maker, or Peter, the fisherman, presided, with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." It early became manifest that he could not prosecute his designs respecting the Indians, and he continued in Savan- nah ; but his ascetic habits and severe formalism were un- successful in reclaiming the demoralized colonists. A similar failure attended his brother at Frederica. They labored indefatigably, but had yet very imperfect ideas of the " way of salvation by faith." The forms of the Church were enforced with a repetition and rigor which soon tired out the people, and provoked resentments and persecutions. Charles performed four public services every day, en- larging them by an explanation of the morning and even- ing lessons. John, assisted by Delamotte, formed what serious persons they could find at Savannah into a society, to meet once or twice a week, in order to reproveu instruct, and exhort one another, and from them selected a >» Wesley's Journal, Anno 1786. JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY. 81 smaller number for a more intimate commimion. He read Ine prayers according to the primitive order of his Church, begiiming with the morning service at five o'clock, giving a eermon and the communion service at eleven, and the evening service at three. Between eleven and three, when the people were compelled by the heat to remain at home, he visited them from house to house. Following the primitive but obsolete Rubric, he would baptize children only by immersion, and no person was iidmitted as a sponsor who was not a communicant. He refused to recognize any baptism which was performed by a clergyman who had not received episcopal ordination, and insisted upon rebaptizing such children as had otherwise received that sacrament. His rigor extended even so far as to refuse the Lord's Sup- per to one of the most devout men of the settlement, who had not been baptized by an episcopally ordained minis- ter ; " and the burial service itself was denied to such as died with what he deemed unorthodox baptism. Asceticism is usually associated with formalism, for the misled but anxious mind, failing to find comfort in the one, would add other expedients for its relief. Both the broth- ers denied themselves not only the luxuries, but many of the ordinary conveniences of life. They slept on the ground rather than on beds ; they refused all food but bread and water ; and John went barefooted, that he might encourage :he poor boys of his school — a condescension better in its oaotive than in its example. In fine, these Oxford students, misapprehending the simplicity of the Gospel, and the lib- erty wherewith Christ maketh free, were groping their way, in the new world, through nearly the same deplorable errora " When he escaped tlicse " orthodox " foUies, he referred to tliem with astonishment. In liis Journal for September 29, 1749, he gives n letter from John Martin Bolzius, and adds : " What a truly Christian piety and Biniplicity breathe in these lines I And yet this very man, when I whs at Savannah, did I refuse to admit to the Lord's table, beauiso he was not baptized ; that is, not baptized by a mmister who had been epis- copally ordained. Can any one carry High-Church zeal higher thuo Uiis? And how well have I been since beaten with mine owu ataflfl" Vol. I.-. -6 82 HISTORY OF METHODISM. which a class of earnest men of the same university have promulgated in our day, with as little success, both as it re spects their own spiritual life and the reformation of the Church. They were Puseyites. Not only their rigorous practices, but their theolc^cal opinions defeated them. Faith, not works, as the con dition of justification — faith producing works as its neces- sary fruits ; ordinances and sacraments as only aids tc faith ; the conscious forgiveness of sins ; peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; the sanctification, not the abnegation, of the natural affections and appetites, with cheerful thankful- ness to Him " who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ;" these were conceptions as yet obscure, if not foreign to their minds. How, with the Holy Scriptures in their hands, they could thus err might, indeed, be a mystery to us, were it not that the history of the human mind shows so uni- versally the power of traditional influences, and of even appar ently accidental states of opinion, to distort the interpretation of the plainest truth ; so that the declaration of a profound and evangelical writer i* of our own age may yet prove true, that ideas now admitted by the Christian world to be correct, may yet come to be repelled as intolerable and abominable. The colonists recoiled from the earnest but erring mis- sionaries. Gossip, backbiting, and scandal, the prevalent vices of small and isolated settlements, beset them at all }i< lints; an unfortunate "courtship" which Wesley found it prudent to abandon, occasioned the disaffection of a large family circle; open persecution followed, and an attempt was made to assassinate Charles Wesley. In about a yeai he returned by way of Boston, where he preached repeatedly in King's Chapel. In some fifleen months more John fol lowed him. They had failed in their designs, but they had learned important lessons. On the sea Wesley wrote that he had bent the bow too far, by making antiquity a co-ordinate rather than a subordinate rule with Scripture ; by admit ting several doubtful writings ; by extending antiquity ton '6 Vinet. JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY, 88 far ; by believing more practices to have been universal in the ancient Church than ever were su; by not considering that the decrees of synods or councils were of but human autho- rity. ITiese considerations insensibly stole upon him, he says, as he grew acquainted with the Mystic writers, whose di^scriptions of union with God and internal religion made everything else appear mean and insipid. " But, in truth," tie adds, "they made good works appear so too; yea, and faith itself, and what not? They gave me an entire new view of religion, nothing like any I had before. But, alas ' it was nothing like that religion which Christ and his apostles taught. I had a plenary dispensation from all the com- mands of God ; the form was thus : Love is all ; all the commands besides are only means of love ; you must choose those which you feel are mi^ms to you, and use them as long as they are so. Thus were all the bands burst at once ; and though I could never fully come into this, nor contentedly omit what God enjoined, yet, I know not how, I fluctuated be- tween obedience and disobedience. I had no heart, no vigor no zeal in obeying ; continually doubting whether I was right or wrong, and never out of perplexities and entanglements. Nor can I at this hour give a distinct account how or when 1 came a little back toward the right way ; only my present sense is this — all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers; the Mystics are the most dangerous; they stab it in the vitals, and its most serious professors are most likely to fall by them." Thus was he bi-eaking away from the mists which had encompassed him ; but he had not yet reached those higher acclivities of the religious life, where the problems which had agonized his spirit shine out in clear, serene illumina- tion to the vision of faith. There is an earnestness which is touching in its pathos in an entry of his journal, written as the ship approached the Land's End of England : " I went to America," he says, " to convert the Indians, but O ! who shall convert me? Who, what is he that will deliver mo from this evil heart of unbelief? 1 have a fair summer re- ligion ; 1 can talk well, nay, and believe myself, while no 84 HISTORY OF METHODISM. danger is near ; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled, nor can I say, to die is gain, i think verily, if the Gospel be true, I am safe ; for I not only have given and do give all my goods to feed the poor — I not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever else God shall appoint for me, but I follow after charity — though not ia I ought, yet as I can — if haply I may attain it. I novi believe the Gospel is true. I show my faith by my works, by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Who- ever sees me, sees I would be a Christian. Therefore are my ways not like other men's ways ; therefore I have been, 1 am, I am content to bo, a by-word, a proverb of reproach. But in a storm I think. What if the Gospel be not true 1 Then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth 1 a dream 1 a cunningly-devised fable ? O ! who will deliver me from this fear of death 1 What shall I do ? Where shall I fly from it 1 Should I fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it 1 A wise man advised me some time since, ' Be still, and go on.' Perhaps this is best; to look upon it as my cross ; when it comes to let it humble me, and quicken all my good resolutions, especially that of praying without ceasing ; and at other times to take no thought about it, but quietly to go on in the work of the Lord." On the 1st of February, 1738, he was again in England, and writing in his diary : " This, then, have I learned in thij ends of the earth — that I ' am fallen short of the gloiy of God ; ' that my whole heart is ' altogether corrupt and ibominable,' and, consequently, my whole life — seeing it c/Miiot be that an 'evil tree' should 'bring forth good fruit ; ' that, ' alienated ' as I am fiom ' the life of God,' I am a ' child of ^vrath,' an heir of hell ; that my own works, my own sufferings, my oavti righteousness, are so far from re- conciling me to an offended God, so far from makmg any atonement for the least of those sins which ' are more in JOHN AND CHAKLES WESLEY. 86 number than the hairs of my head,' that the most specious of them need an atonement themselves, or they cannot abide his righteous judgment ; that * having the sentence ol death' in my heart, and having nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope but that of being justified freely, through the redemption that is in Jesus ;' I have no hope, but that if I seeK, I shall find Christ, and ' be found in him, not having my o^vn righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'" Astonishing and affecting disclosures of the mys- terious heart of man ! Admonitory lesson to all who would successfully seek the truth, and by it be made free ! Here was a man of healthful temperament, of rare intelligence, of logical astuteness, who had read every line of Holy Scrip- ture in the very language in which prophet or apostle had penned it, and yet, with the Bible in his hand, and an anguish of earnestness in his heart, he stumbles before the most im portant and most simple truths of revelation. What is the solution of this mystery ? Can we suppose that had he read the Scriptures only, and interpreted them as an earnest, unsophisticated peasant would have done, he could so long have failed of their simple faith and inexpressible comfort ? These were all he needed ; he had reached all other con- ditions of the Christian life; the taith to appropriate to him- self the promises and consolations of the Gospel was still lacking ; but could he have failed to discern this fact if he had looked into the Scriptures without the sophistications of other books and the prejudice of traditional errors? Hia previous references to councils, and Church decrees, and mysticism — his asceticism and ecclesiasticism in Georgia — these explain the mystery. They complicated and rendered nugatory his more direct and simple views of truth. Neither the personal history of Wesley noi- the history of Method- ism itself, can be comprehended without these revelationa of his inward struggles. But the light was dawning, and the morning was at hand. The Moravians wer«3 jigain to meet him in LoDdoii^ 86 HISTORY OF METHODISM CHAPTER IV. GEORGE WniTEFIELD. Wliitefield's Mental Conflicts — His Ascetic Errors — His Oonversion — He begins to preach — He preaches in the Metropolis — RemarkabU Eflfects of his Sermons — His Powers as an Orator — Ho embarks foi America — His Return to England. During the absence of the Wesleys in America, George Whitefield was the presiding spirit of the " Holy Club " at Oxford. He preceded the Wesleys in obtaining the peace of mind, and "assurance of faith," which they had sought together so arduously before they parted. But, like them, he passed through an ordeal of agonizing self-conflicts, in which his sensitive mind became deeply melancholy, and was betrayed into ascetic follies. He was overwhelmed with morbid horrors, and describes himself as losing at times, even the power of thinking. His memoi-y failed; his feelings were cramped, he says, as a man bound in iron armor; he sel exited the poorest food, and the meanest ap- parel, and by dirty shoes, patched raiment, and coarse gloves, endeavored to mortify his burdened spirit. He was insulted by his fellow students, and those who employed his serv- ices discharged him, because of his self-negligence. He daily underwent some contempt at college. Students threvr dirt at him in the streets. Whenever he knelt down to pray he felt great pressure both in soul and body, and often prayed under the weight of it till the sweat dripped from his fjice. "God only knows," he writes, "how many nights 1 have lain upon my bed groaning under what 1 felt. Whole days and weeks have 1 spent in lying pros trate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer." ' During » Philip's Life and Times of Whitcflcld, chap 1. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 87 the forty days of lent he ate nothing but " coarse bread and sage tea," except on Saturday's and Sundays. He prayed under the trees at night, trembling with the cold, till the bell of the college called him to his dormitory, where he often spent in tears and supplications the hours which should have brought him the relief of sleep. Ilis health sunk under these rigors ; but he writes that, notwithstanding his sickness continued six or seven weeks, ho trusted he should have reason to bless God for it through the ages of eternity. For about the end of the seventh week, after having under- gone inexpressible trials by night and day, under this spirit- ual bondage, God was pleased at length to remove the heavy load, to enable him to lay hold on the cross by a living faith, and by giving him the Spirit of adoption to seal him, as he humbly hoped, even to the day of everlasting redemp- tion. " But !" he continued, "with what joy, joy unspeak- able, even joy that was full of glory, was my soul filled, when the weight of sin went off, and an abiding sense of the par- doning love of God, and a full assurance of faith, broke in upon my disconsolate soul ! Surely it was the day of my espousals, a day to be had in everlasting remembrance. At first my joys were like a spring tide, and, as it were, over- flowed the banks; go where I would I could not avoid the singing of psalms almost aloud; afterward they became more settled, and blessed be God, saving a few casual inter- vals, have abode and increased in my soul ever since." Healed in soul and convalescent in body, he visited Bristol for a change of air. He met there the bishop of Gloucester, who perceived his talents and earnest spirit, and proffered him ordination. He prepared himself for the ceremony by fasting and prayer, and spent two hours the previous evening on his knees in the ncighbcring fields. At the ordination he consecrated himself to an apostolic life. *' I trust," he writes, " I answered to every question from the bottom of my heart, and heartily prayed tliat God might say. Amen. And when the bishop laid his hands upon my head, if my vile heart doth not deceive me. 88 HISTORY OF METHODISM. I offered up my whole spirit, soul, and body to the service of God's sanctuary. Let come what will, life or 'death, depth or height, I shall henceforward live like one who, this day, in the presence of men and angels, took the holy sac- rament, upon the profession of being inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the Church. I can call heaven and earth to witness, that when the bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave myself up to be a martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto him are all future events and contingencies. I have throwTi myself blindfold, and, I trust, without reserve, into His almighty hands," His remaining life was an exempli fication of these vows. He had a soul of fire, and hence- forth it glowed brighter and brighter even unto the perfect day. Fitted by every attribute of his large but simple mind to be an evangelist, but not an ecclesiastical legislator, he now went forth as the Baptist of Methodism, to prepare the way in both hemispheres for the Wesleys and their coadju- tors. The good Bishop of Gloucester, who seems to have felt a genial sympathy Avith his ardent soul, gave him five guineas, "a great supply," wrote Whitefield, "for one whc had not a guinea in the world." His fu^t sermon was preached in the church where he had been baptized, and had received his first communion. He revealed at once his ex- traordinary powers. It was reported to the bishop that fifteen of his hearers had gone mad. The prelate only wished that the madness might not pass away before another Sabbath. Eeturning to Oxford he forthwith resumed his ''Meth. odist" labors, comforting his brethren, visiting the sick and prisoners, and encouraging several charity schools which the " Holy Club " had established. He was called to London to preach temporarily at the Tower. There was some scofiing at his first appearance in the pulpit, but his natural eloquence and vivid zeal burst with surprise upon the people, and he passed out amid their blessings, while the GEOKGE WHITEFIELD 89 query flew from one to another, " Who is he ?" For two months he continued to labor in the metropolis, visiting the soldiers in the barracks and hospitals, catechising children, reading prayers every evening in one chapel, preaching in others, and delivering one sermon a week at least at Lud- l^ate prison. The people crowded to hear him. Returning to Oxford he had the pleasure to see the Meth- odist band increasing, but he was soon away again preaching at Dummer, in Hampshire, where he spent eight hours a day in reading prayers, catechising children, and visiting the parishioners. He had received several letters from the Wesleys, in Georgia, calling him thither. " Do you ask me what you shall have?" wrote John Wesley. " Food to eat, and raiment to put on, a house to lay your head in, such as your Lord had not ; and a crown of glory that fadeth not away." His heart, he says, leaped within him, and echoed to the call. Hervey, of the Oxford Club, took his place in Hampshire, and he resolved to go again to London to em bark. He went first to Bristol to take leave of his friends. While there he preached indefatigably. People of all classes, and all denominations, from Quakers to High Churchmen, flocked to hear him. "The whole city," he wrote, "seemed to be alarmed." The churches were crowded, " the word was sharper than a two-edged sword, and the doctrine of the new birth made its way like light- aing into the hearer's consciences." After a short absence he returned to Bristol, and found the excited people, some on foot and some in coaches, coming a mile out of the city to welcome him. They blessed him as he passed along the streets. Though preaching five times a week, he could not appease the eager crowds. It was diflicult for him t<; make his way through them to the pulpit. Some climbed upon the roof of the church, others hung upon the rails of the organ loft, jiiid the mass witlnn made the air so hot with their breath, that the steam fell from the pillars like drops of rain. When lie preached his (arewell sermon, the Irreoressible feelings (S his hearers brokn out into sobs and 90 HISTORY OF METHODISM tears all over the house. They followed him weeping inU the street. They kept him busy the next day, from early morning till midnight, in comforting or counseling them, and he had to escape from their importunities, secretly, during the night, for London. While delayed there by hia preparations for the voyage, his unexampled eloquence {.roduced a general sensation through the metropolitan ^nurches. When he assisted at the Eucharist, the consecra- tion of the elements had to be twice or thrice repeated. Charitable institutions claimed his services, and larger col lections were made than had ever been received by them on similar occasions. Constables were stationed at the doors to restrain the multitude of hearers. Churches were crowded on week-days and on the autumnal Sunday mornings the streets were thronged before dawn with people, lighting their way by lanterns to hear him. This transcendent power arose from a combination of qualities, with which he was providentially endowed for the crisis that was approaching in the history of English, and, it is not too much to say, the history of general Prot- estantism. A great movement was at hand, which needed, among other agencies, powers like these to usher it in on both sides of the Atlantic, and to awaken the popular sympathies to welcome it — a movement which, it has been said, has immediately, or remotely so given an impulse to Christian feeling and profession, on all sides, that it has come to present itself as the starting point of our modern religious history.2 Wesley was approach ing the coast of England while Whitefield was prepar- ing for his embarkation ; " and now," says an author who was not over credulous respecting the providential facts of Methodism, "and noAV, when Whitefield, having excited this powerful sensation in London, had departed for Georgia, to the joy of those who dreaded the excesses of his zeal, no sooner had he left the metropolis than Wesley arrived there, to deepen and widen the impression which Whitefield had 3 Isaac Taylor's Wesley and Methodisra, Preface. GEORGE WHITEFIKLD. 9l Jnade. Had their measures been concerted they could not more entirely have accorded,"' In a few days Wesley was proclaiming, in the pulpits of London, " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." It would be difficult, if not impossible, to define the elo- quence of Whitefield. It was the utterance of the whole man — heart, head, and person. It was more; it was the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," the utterance of a living, exultant piety. Just before these scenes in Lon- don, while in his native country, he says his spirit would make such sallies that he thought it would escape from the body. At other times he was so overwhelmed with a sense of God's infinite majesty, that he was constrained to throw himself prostrate on the ground, and offer his soul as a blank for the Divine hand to write on it what should please God. One night he describes as a time never to be forgotten. It happened to lighten exceedingly ; he had been expounding to many people, and some being afraid to go home, he thought it his duty to accompany them, and im- prove the occasion to stir them up for the coming of the Son of man. He preached to thein warnings and consolations on the highway, while the thunders broke above his head, and the lightnings sped along his path. On his return to the parsonage, while the neighbors were rising from their beds, and terrified to see the lightning run upon the ground, and shine from one part of the heavens unto the other, he and a poor but pious countryman continued in the field, praying, praising, and exulting in God, and longing for the time when Christ shall be revealed from heaven in a flame of fire ! " O that my soul," he wrote, " may be in a like flame when he shall actually come to call me !" Mow could such a man be other than eloquent ? At. untutored hearer, returning from one of his sermons, significantly said, " He preached like a lion." But with this moral power he combined most, if not all other qualifica tions of a popular orator. He is said to have had a perfect » Southey'a Wepley, chup. 4. 92 HISTORY OF METHODISM. natural grace of manner out of the pulpit, and of gesture in it. Marvels are told about the compass and music of his voice. He was tall in person ; his features were regular, and expressive of a generous and buoyant heart; his eyes were blue and luminous, though small, and a slight squint in one of them, caused by the measles, is said not to have "lessened the uncommon sweetness" of his countenance. His humble origin, and occupation in the Bristol Lm, enabled him to understand and address the common people, who, while admiring that natural grace which afterward rendered him at home in aristocratic circles, felt that he was one from among themselves. He had also an aptitude for illustrations drawn from common life, and a tendency to popular humor, which, without degenerating into vulgarity, drew irresistibly toward him the popular interest ; so that Wesley, who was scrupu lously, though simply correct, said: "Even the little im proprieties, both of his language and manner, were the means of profiting many, who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more calm and regular manner of preaching." His passage to America M'as long. The ship's company, including, besides the crew, soldiers and emigrants, were mostly an immoral class; but he jireached, read prayers, catechised the children, and ministered to the sick, with Ruch zeal, that before they reached Georgia the whole moral aspect of his floating congregation was changed. He remained in the colony only about four months, but during that time traveled and labored incessantly among its settlo ments. A brief residence among the Indians, and an unsuo cessful attempt to frame a grammar of their language, seem to have satisfied hira that his call was not unto them. He found many orphan children among the colonists, and pro- jected an asylum for them, a design which led to his early return to England. He embarked from Charleston, Souta Carolina, September, 1738, in time, as we shall see, for important events in the incipient history of Methodism. WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 98 CHAPTEK V. WESLEY AND THE MOKAVL&JNfS. (Lesley's Return from Georgia — His Eeligious Disquiet — Sketch of the Moravians — Obligations of Methodism to the Martyrs of Constance — Ziska and his Peasant Heroes — Commencement of Hermhut — Count Zinzendorf — The Moravians in London — Peter Bohler — Conversion of Charles "Wesley — Conversion of John Wesley — Wesley's Visit to Hermhut — His Description of it — Theological Views — Obligations of Methodism to the Moravians. The ship which bore Whitefield from England, passed in sight of that which bore Wesley back, only a few hours before his arrival at the Downs ; but neither of them knew the fact, Whitefield, liberated in spirit, and winged with zeal as with pinions of flame, was flying exultingly on his mission ; ^ but Wesley, who was to be last, and yet, in an important sense, first in the new career they had been fore- casting, entered the metropolis, which was still stirred by the evangelical triumphs of his friend, bowed and broken in spirit. In placing his foot again on English soil, he repeats, with profound contrition, the record of his inward struggles : "It is now," he writes, "two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learned myself, meantime ? Why, what I the least of all sus- pected, that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. I ma otot mad, tliougli I thus speak, but I speak the words of truth and soberness, if, haply, some of those who still dream may awake and see that as I am so are they." Were they read in j)hilosoi»hy ? he continues, with eloquent earnestness, and in language • The device of Wliitefield's seal was a winged heart, soaring above tho globe, and tlie motto, Astra ^etamits. Southcy's Wesley, note 24. 94 HISTORY OF METHODISM. which would cover boiistfuhiess itself with shame; were they read in philosophy 1 so was he. In uiicieiit or modern tongues? he was also. Were they versed in the science of divinity? he too had studied it many years. Could they talk fluently upon spiritual things 1 the very same could he do. Were they plenteous in alms '] behold, he gave all his goods to feed the poor. Did they give of their labor aa M ell as their substance ? he had labored more abundantly Were they willing to suffer for their brethren 1 he had thrown away his friends, reputation, ease, country ; he had put his life in his hands, wandering into strange lands ; he had given his body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and wearmess, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon him. But, he continues, does all this, be it more or less, it matters not, make him acceptable to God? Does all he ever did, or can, know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify him in His sight ? If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by the Uiw and testimony, all these things, though, when ennobled by faith in Christ, they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are dung and dross. He refuses to be com- forted by ambiguous hopes. " If," he adds, " it be said that I have faith, for many such things have 1 heard from many miserable comforters, I answer, so have the devils a sort of faith; but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. The faith I want is a sure trust and confidence ha God, that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and 1 reconciled to the favor of God." ^ But the time of his deliverance was at hand. He had learned in anguish its preparatory lessons ; his good works, his ascetism, his ritualism had failed him. It had been necessary, perhaps, that he should try them, in order to be a competent guide for the millions who were yet to be affected by his influence. Susanna Wesley had educated him for his great work, and in this respect was the real foundei of Methodism, for with a different character he would have * Journal. Anno 17S8. WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 95 had a difiercnt history ; the germinal principle of Methodism had sprung up at Oxford ; but the vital element which was to give it growth and enable it to branch out over the world, was still wanting. It was to be supplied in a manner which forms one of the most extraordinary illustrations of Divine Providence afforded by the annals of the Church. More than three hundred years had passed since the Comicil of Constance had sacrificed, at the stake, the two noblest men of Bohemian history, Jerome and Huss. With Wicklif, they had initiated Protestantism a century before Luther. Though Wicklif died without the honors of martyrdom, his work was apparently yet not really defeated; and his bones, dug up from the grave and reduced to ashes, were cast on the Severn, and borne hy the ocean to the wide world, an emblem, says a Church historian, of the future fate of his opinions. The Papal persecutors representing Europe at Constance, deemed that in destroying Jerome and Huss they had extinguished the new movement on the continent at least; but "God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts." A spark from the stake of Con- stance lit up at last the flame of Methodism in England, and is extending over the world in our day like fire in stubble. The princes and prelates had hardly retired from Con- stance when the people, always truc^r than the great of the earth in their instinctive appreciation of great truths, rose throughout Bohemia to defend the opinions and avenge the death of their martyred teachers. Armed with flails, they marched victoriously against trained armies, for they were fighting for the right of themselves and of their children Ui the word of God and its sacraments. A nobleman ( f the court. Count Ziska, placed himself at their head, and c i'ga nizing them into a formidable army, fought against the Emperor Sigismund for the independence of Bohemia. lie had lost one eye ; the remaining one was destroyed by an arrow in battle about a year after the war began ; but, when no longer able to see, he still led his triumphant peasants from vicU)ry to victory. Mounting a cask in the 96 HISTORY OF METHODISM. camp, tlie sightless hero prepared them for battle by his eloquent appeals. The emperor invaded Bohemia, but Ziska totally defeated him. The blind commander in- vaded Austria and ITimgary. His victory at Arssig placed \he Austrian dominions at his mercy. He founded among his rustic heroes the modern science of fortification; he held at bay the arms of all Germany ; he restored the in- dependence of Bohemia, extinguished factions, and achieved eleven victories in pitched battles. Apparently immortal in war, he fell at last by the plague ; but ordered, it is said, that his skin should be converted into drum-heads, to be beat in the marches of his soldiers. Eleven years after his death did they maintain the desperate struggle. After memorable scenes of fanaticism and terror on both sides, it was concluded at last by the treaty of Prague, nearly twenty years subsequent to the martyrdom of Jerome and Huss. That treaty conceded the most important religious demands of the Bohemians ; but the Papal party afterward denied them. The Hussites were depressed, persecuted, and exiled ; and it seemed at times that the movement had been defeated, and that " the blood of the martyrs " could not, in this instance at least, be said to be " the seed of the Church." It is not necessary, in order to vindicate a maxim which has so often been the boast of Christian virtue and suffering, lo trace the influence of the Wicklifite and Hussite agitations on the " Great Reformation " a century later. The Bohemian Reformation, though repressed, was not extinguished. It had its own peculiar effect on the world, and has it to-day. Many families lingered in Bohemia and Moravia from generation to generation, retaining, in humble obscurity, the truth for which the Constance martyrs had burned. A half century after their martyrdom the prisons of Bohemia groaned with the sufferings of their faithful fol- lowers. Five years later they were again ruthlessly hunted down by persecutions. They were declared outlaws ; were expatriated and despoiled of their property. The sick and aged were driven out of their homes, and many perished o^ WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 97 cold and hunger. Some expired in dungeons, others were tortured and burned, and the remnant took refuge in the thickest forests, where, fearing discovery during the day, they kindled their fires only by night, and around them spent the hours in watchings, in reading the Scriptures, in mutual exhortations, and in prayer.^ It IS a noteworthy fact that these persecuted Bohemians gavo the first printed edition of the Bible to the world, and the old- est version in any modern language. They established presses at three different places for the purpose of printing it, and had issued three editions before Luther appeared. They hailed the Reformation under Luther ; the terrible " Thirty Years' War " ensued, but failed to secure them liberty of con- science ; and they wandered away to other lands to find it. One of them — Christian David, an earnest-minded carpenter — led ten persons of like mind from Schlen, Moravia, to Bertholsdorf, in Lusatia, a domain of which Count Zinzen- dorf, a devout young nobleman, was then lord. He was absent, but welcomed them by Heitz, his major-domo ; Heitz led the little band to a piece of land, near a niound, the Hutberg or Watch-hill, where Christian David, lifting his ax, cleaved a tree, exclaiming: "Here hath the sparrow found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts." On the 17th of June, 1722, the first tree was cut down ; on the 17th of October the exiles entered their new home. The count was still absent, but his pious major-domo wrote him a report of their progi-ess. A phrase in his letter has since given name to the locality, and become a household word, if not a ivatchword throughout the Protestant world. " May God bless the work according to his loving-kindness," wrote Heitz, " and grant that your excellency may build a city on the Watch-hill, which may not only stand under the Lord's guardianship, but where all the inhabitants may » " Memorial Days of the Ancient Brethren's Clmrch." The chief soiiroe of my data respecting the Bohemian Kefomiation is Bonnecliose'a E* formers bofore tlio Reformation. See alno Soi'they's Wesley, cluip. R Vol. I —7 98 lIlriTOKY OF METJIOIMSM. staiid upon thr WaUh of the Lord !" Ilerrnhut. At the dedication uf the building the good major-doino Jis- (xtursed to the little company uri the words of Isaiah: "I will ^et watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem ! which shall aever hold their peace day nor night : ye that make mention o{ the Lord keep not silence, and give him no rest till he setahlish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth " Thus arose Herrnhut — Watch of the Lord — and the Moravian Brotherhood, a religious community whose name is as " ointment poured forth," whose missions have beeii the admiration of all good men, and who, in our day, have the extraordinary distinction of enrolling the majority of their communicants on their lists of reclaimed pagans. Zinzendorf, accompanied by his young wife, visited the domain some few months later, and seeing from the high way the new home of the exiles in the forest, descended from his carriage, and hastily entering it, fell upon his knees amid the group of grateful inmates, and " blessed the place with a warm heart." lie had secured Eoth, a dili- gent pastor, for his tenants at Bertholdsdorf, and his frii.aid, the pastor Schaefer, had said at the introduction of Roth : "God will place a light upon these hills which will illumi nate the whole country ; of this I am assured by a living faith." The count shared this faith, and sacrificing the honors and prospects of his rank, devoted himself thence- forth to Christian labors. His friend, the Baron de Watte- ville, joined him ; the lady Goanna de Zetzschwitz subse quently took thither a number of young women for education, and founded the famous Economy of Girls at Herrnhut, and the forest sanctuary now became the home of hundreds, not only of the remnants of the old Bohemian Protestants but of devout men from many parts of Europe. The government grew jealous of tne new establishment, the count was exiled, and saved his estates only by securing them to his wife. Disguised by the name of De Freydeck, one of his real but least known titles, he traveled in Gerniany, and became a private tutor in the family of a WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 99 mercliaiit till he could prepare himself for an examination for ordination. He succeeded, and began tu preach, and journeyed as an evangelist in Sweden, Holland, Switzer- land, and England. Meanwhile, under his patronage, niis- sionaries were passing out from Herrnhut to various parts of the world. He visited in their behalf the West Indies, New-York, and Pennsylvania. Returning to revisit his Herrnhut people, he was imprisoned, was re-banished, and resumed his religious travels in various parts of Europe. Finally he found shelter again among his devoted Herm huters, and died at the age of sixty, amid the tears and prayers of "nearly a hundred brethren and sisters who were assembled in the room where he lay and the adjoin- ing apartments."* A few hours before his departure he said to those around him: "We are together like angels; and as if we were in heaven." "Did you suppose in the begiiuiing," he asked, " that the Saviour would do as much as we now really see, in the various Moravian settle- ments, among the children of God of other denominations, and among the heathen? I only entreated of him a few first- fruits of the latter, but there are now thousands of them." The " Reformers before the Reformation " had not then labored in vain. The Bohemian sufferers at Constance had verified the maxim so often consecrated by the tears and thanksgivings of the faithful, that " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." There gleam to-day on the darkest skies of the Pagan world reflections of light from the martyr fires of Constance; and Herrnhut, "the watch of the Lord," has become a watch-light to the world. From this people — so remarkable and fruitful in their his- tory — was Methodism not only to copy much of its internal discipline, but to receive the impulse which was yet neces- sary to start it on its appointed route. Wesley had already learned much from them. In their resignation amid the storms of the Atlantic, he had seen a piety which he po» * Spangenberg's Life of Zinzendorf, triinsluted \ who received the name of Methodist, so was he the first tn learn by experience the saving truth which Methodism \\:v.< destined to witness to the world. He had conversed with Zinzendorf. and had been in one of the small Moravian a* 102 HISTORY OF METHODISM. semblics, where, he says, " I thought myself in a choir of angels."^ He was entertained during a period of sixiknesg at the house of a pious mechanic, by the name of Bray, who was an attendant of the London " Societies," and who, he says, " is now to supply Peter Bohler's place," as the latter hfid left England. This devoted artisan read the Scriptures to him, and was able, from his own experimental kn;»wledge of them, to direct his troubled mind. "God sent," he says, " Mr. Bray, a poor, ignorant mechanic, who knows nothing but Christ; yet, by knowing him, knows .and discerns all things." A Christian woman of the family conversed with him on the nature of faith. " Has God bestowed faith on you V he asked. " Yes, he has." " Why, have you peace with God ?" " Yes, perfect peace." " And do you love Christ above all things?" "I do, above all things incomparably." "Then, are you willing to die?" " I am, and would be glad to die this moment ; for I know all my sins are blotted out ; the handwriting that was against me is taken out of the way, and nailed to the cross. He has saved me by his death. He has washed me by his blood. He has hid me in his wounds. I have peace in him, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Her an- swers to the most searching questions he could ask were so full, that he had no doubt of her having received the atone ment, and waited foi* it himself with a more assured hope. On May 21, 1738, he inserts a remarkable passage in his journal : " I waked in hope and expectation of His coming. At night my brother and some friends came and sang a hymn to the Holy Ghost. My comfort and hope were hereby increased. In about half an hour they went. I be- took myself to prayer, the substance as follows : ' O, Jesus, thou hast said, / toill come unto you. Thou hast said, / will send the Comforter vnto yon. Thou hast said, My Father • Jackson's Ijiff "f Cliarles Wesley, chapter iv. I cannot too stronglj commend this work. It has hcen our best Tiktory of Mcthorlism. It is to be regretted that the American e(.Ution omits many of its best specimeni of Charles Wesley's poetry. The English edition is a mosaic set with the gems of his genins. WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 103 O/Tid I will come unto you and make our abode with you. Thou art God, who canst not lie. I wholly rely upon thy most true promise. Accomplish it in thy time and manner." Having thus prayed he was composing himself to sleep in quietness and peace, when he heard some one say, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise, and believe, and thou jhalt be healed of all thy infirmities." The words were "0 appropriate to his state of mind that they "struck him to the heart." He said within himself, " O that Clirist would but speak thus to me !" and lay " musing and trembling for some time." Then ringing the bell for an attendant he sent to ascertain who had uttered the words, feeling in the mean time "a strange palpitation of heart," and saying, yet fear- ing to say, 1 believe, I believe. The devout woman who had before given him so positive a testimony respecting the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, came to him and said : " It was I, a weak, sinful creature, that spoke ; but the words were Christ's. He commanded me to say them, and so constrained me that I could not forbear." He sent for his pious host, and asked him whether it would be right for him to dare to presume that he now had tliith ? Bray answered, that he ought not to doubt of it ; and proposed that they should pray together. " But first," said he, " I will read what I have casually opened upon : ' Bless(>d is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spiru there is no guile.'" "Still," says Wesley, "I felt a vio 'ent opposition and reluctance to believe ; yet the Spirit of God strove with my own and the evil spirit, till, by degrees, he chased away the darkness of my unbelief. I found myself convinced, I knew not how nor when, and immediately fell to intercession. I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of loving Christ. My temper was for the /•est of the day mistrust of my own great but unknown ft'eakness. I saw that by faith I stood, and the contimml support of faith kept me from filling. thoii<:h <>f myself I am 104 HISTORY OF METHODISM. ever sinking into sin. 1 went to bed still sensible of m^ own weakness ; I humbly hope to be more and more so, yet confident of Christ's protection." Three days after Charles had thus attained " rest to his soul," John also found it. He records that he continued to seek it, though with strange indifference, dullness, and coldness, and unusually frequent relapses into sin, till Wed- nesday, May 24. About five o'clock on the morning of that day he opened his Testament on these words : " There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature." 2 Peter i,4. Just as he went out he opened it again on the passage, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." In the evening he went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-street, where a layman was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans; about a quarter before nine, while listening to Luther's description of the change which the Spirit works in the heart through faith in Christ, "I felt," he writes, " my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, ' This cannot be faith, for where is thy joy 1' Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy which usually attend the be- ginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth them, accord ing to the coimsels of his own will. After my return home I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out and they fled away. They returned again and again ; I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me help from his holy place. And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea fighting with all my might under the law as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered ; now \ was always conqueror." Thtis had the feet of both the WESLEY AND THE MORAVIANS. 105 brothers been directed into the path of life by the instru- mentality of the London Moravians. Wesley's mother, who was residing in London, was still his guide and counselor. He read to her a paper recording his late religious experience. She strongly approved it, and said " she heartily blessed God who had brought him to so just a way of thinking.'" Thus, in the thirty-fifth year of his dge, after twenty -five years, as he elsewhere informs us,^ of religious solicitude and struggles, did he, by a clearer ap prehension of the doctrine of justification by faith, find rest to his soul, and feel himself at last authorized to preach that blessing to all contrite men, from his own experimental proof of its reality. But had he not faith before 1 Doubtless he had ; at another time he declared that he had, but that it was " the faith of a servant " rather than " of a child." The inimadversions of Southey and Coleridge on his present ex perience are conclusively met by the direct question whether that experience was in accordance with the Scriptures or not. Was his previous state of inward struggle and deso- lation, or his present one of settled trust and peace, most in harmony with the Scriptural description of a regenerated soul, which has " peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," liaving "not received the spirit of bondage unto fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father?" Any further question than this on the subject, is not one of Christian experience, but of Christianity itself. The interest which these and previous events had given him for the INforavlans, induced him to visit Ilerrnhut. In jibout a fortnight he set out on the journey, accompanied by lis friend, Ingham, and six others. At Marienborn they saw Zinzendorf, who had organized there a brotherhood of about fifty disciples from various countries. "I continu- ally met," says Wesley, " with what I sought for, living proofs of the power of faith; persons saved from inward as » Compare his Journal, June 8, 1738, witli Juno 13, 1739. Tlieso rof- erencos effectually correct Southcy's mifircpresentations of her opinion 3D the subject. « Smith's History of Metliodism, U, 1. l06 niSTORY OF METHODISM. well as outward sin, by the love of God shed abroad it their hearts; and from all doubt and fear, by the abiding witness of the Holy Ghost given unto them." He sums up the views which Zinzcndorf gave him concerning justifica- tion, as follows: 1. Justification is the forgiveness of sins. 2. The moment a man flies to Christ he is justified. 3. And has peace vvith God, but not always joy. 4. Nor, perhaps, may he know he is justified till long after. 5. For the as- surance of it is distinct from justification. 6. But others may know he is justified by his power over sin, by his seriousness, by his love of the brethren, and his " hiuiger and thirst after righteousness," which alone prove the spirit- ual life to be begun, 7. To be justified is the same thing as to be born of God. (" Not so," intei-polates Wesley.) 8. When a man is awakened he is begotten of God, and his fear and sorrow, and sense of the wrath of God, are 'the pangs of the new birth. He passed to Herrnhut, which he reached August 1, 1738. 1 le describes it as lying in Upper Lusatia, on the border of Bohemia, and containing about a hundred houses, built on a lising ground, with evergreen woods on two sides, gardens and cornfields on the others, and high hills in the back ground. It had one long street, through which the great road from Zittau to Lobau extended. Fronting the middle of this street was the orpnan house, in the lower part of which was the apothecaries' shop ; in the upper the chapel, capable of containing six or seven hundred people. Another row of houses ran, at a small distance, from the orphan house, which accordingly divided the rest of the tovsTi, be- sides the long street, into two squares. At the east end of it was the Count's house, a small, plain building like the rest, having a large garden behind it, which was well laid cut, not for show but for the use of the community. Wes- ley spent there about a fortnight. He found at Herrnhut defects, doubtless, but his best expectations were surpassed. " (iod," ho says, " has given me at length the desire of ray heart. I am with a Church whose conversation is in WESLEY AND THE MOBAVIANS. 107 heaven, in whom is the mind that was in Christ, and who walk as he walked. As they have all one Lord and one fai^h, so they are all partakers of one spirit, the spirit of meekness and love, which uniformly and continually ani- mates all their conversation. O how high and holy a thing Christianity is, and how widely distant from that which is 30 called, though it neither purifies the heart nor renews the life, after the image of our blessed Redeemer." He heard there, with admiration, Christian David, who had cleaved with his ax the first tree for the mansion of the colony. Of justification this Christian mechanic said: "The right found- ation is not your contrition — though that is not your own, not your righteousness, nothing of your owni, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; but it is something without you, the righteousness and the blood of Christ. For this is the word: 'To him that believeth on God, that justi- fieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' This, then, do if you would lay a right foundation : go straight to Christ with all your ungodliness; tell him, 'Thou whose eyes are as a flame of fire, searching my heart, seest that I am ungodly ; I plead nothing else. I do not say I am humble or contrite, but I am ungodly ; therefore bring nie t(^ him that justificth the ungodly, Let thy blood be the propitiation for me.' Here is a mystery, here the wise men of the world are lost ; it is foolishness unto them." He was struck by the peculiarity of almost everything about this Christian community. Some of its customs were questionable, but most of them appeared to him peculiar only as being thoroughly Christian. Even what might be called their recreations were religious. He saw, with agree- able surprise, all the young men march around the towTi in the evening, " as is their custom," singing praise with instru- ments of music, and gathering into a circle on a neighboruig hill to join in prayer. Returning with resounding songs, they concluded the evening, and made their mutual adieus by commending one another to God in the great scpiare. He was affected by their simple biiri:il rites. Their grave- 8 108 HISTORY OF METHODISM. yard was "God's Acre." They bore thither the dead with hymns. Little children led the procession, and carried the bier of a deceased child. He saw a bereaved father, a humble mechanic, looking upon the grave of his mfant, and wishing to console him, found it unnecessary, for he had a higher comforter. Wesley inquired respecting his affliction. " Praised be the Lord," was the parent's reply ; " praised be the Lord, he has taken the soul of my child to himself; I know that when his body is raised again both he and I shall be ever with the Lord." " I would gladly," says Wesley, " have spent my life here, but, my Master calling me to labor in other parts of his vineyard, I was constrained to take my leave of this happy place." He returned as he came, on foot, bearing with him lessons which were to be available m all his subsequent career. Methodism owes to Moravianism special obligations. First it introduced Wesley into that regenerated spiritual life, the supremacy of which over all ecclesiasticism and dogmatism it was the appomted mission of Methodism to reassert and promote in the Protestant world. Second, He derived from it some of his clearest conceptions of the theological ideas which he was to propagate as essen- tially related to this spiritual life; and he now returned from Herrnhut not only confirmed in his new religious experience, but in these most important doctrinal views. Third, Zinzendorf 's communities were based upon Spener's plan of reforming the Established Churches, by forming "little Churches within them,"' in despair of maintaining spiritual life among them otherwise; Wesley thus organ- ized Methodism within the Anglican Cliurch. And, fourth, not only in this general analogy, but in many details of his discipline can we trace the influence of Mora^^anism. He reached England in September, 1738. After these providential preparations, he was ready to begm his great career, though as yet without a distinct anticipation of its historical importance. • Spangenberg's Life of Zinzendorf. BOOK 11. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF METHODISM. 1739—1744. CHAPTEE 1. THE WESLEYS AND WHITEFLELD ITINERATEN'G. Wesioy returns from Germany — Charles Wesley — Religious " Societies" in London — Wesley takes Refuge in them when expelled from the Churches — He preiiches to the Prisoners at Newgate — His Tenacity for Church Order — Whitefield arrives — He is denied the City Pulpits — He goes to Bristol — Is excluded from the Pulpits there — Preaches in the open Air at KLngswood — Wesley at Bristol — He begins to preach in the open Air — Vast Congregations — Whitefield's Departure — Scenes at Kingswood — Methodism in Wales — Griffith Jones — Howell Harris — Wliitefield in Moorfields — Extraordinary Effects of his Preaching — Wesley's Labors — He encounters Bean Nash at Bath — The First Methodist Chapel — Wesley in Mooriiclds — Marvelous Efl'ecta on his Hearers — Examples — Charles Wesley threatened with Excom- munication — He preaches in Moorfields — The Foundry opened for Worship — Separation from the Moravians — Epoch of Methodiflm. While Wesley was returning to England on the German Ocean, Whitefield was also returning on the Atlantic. They were about to meet, to lay permanently, though uncon- sciously, the foundations of Methodism. Charles Wesley had been preaching with increased zeal during his brother's absence. Several clergymen had em braced his improved views, and converts were multiplied daily by his labors. When he preached the houses were gonerully crowded with eager hearers, but church after ilO UISTORY OF MKTUODISM. ehiiich was closed iigainsL him. He had taken charge of the curacy of Islington, but was ejected from it, not so much because of his doctrine, as for the earnestness with which he uttered it. He frequented Newgate, and ministered to the convicts; and his fervid spirit rejoiced in the simple but lively devotions of the small assemblies which th( Moravians had revived in London. These societies wert formed in 1G67, under the labors of two London clergj>- •aien, Horneck and Smithies, and the auspiceij of Bishop Hopkins, during a period of extraordinary religious inter est. More than thirty years later Dr. Woodward published an account of them. He reports that there were, in his day, forty in London and its neighborhood, besides several in the country and nine in Ireland. They seem to have had uo other mutual relation than a common purpose and the ties ol a more intimate religious sympathy than the formal means of grace in the Established Church afforded. They became active in Christian philanthropy, and originated, it is said, no less than twenty associations for the suppression of vice and the relief of suffering, some of which grew into suffi- cient importance to command the interest of several bishops and of the queen of William III.* They had latterly much declined, but the visits of the Moravians to London renewed a few of them. They seemed a providential preparation for the approaching development of Methodism ; for when the Wesleys were expelled from the pulpits of the Establish- ment, they found refuge and audiences in these humble as- semblies, and they afforded at last the nucleus and form of the more thoroughly organized Methodist " Societies ' ' in several parts of the kingdom. When Wesley reached the metropolis, on returning from Germany, he flew to them as to an asylum. He arrived on Saturday night. The next day " I began," he says, " to de- clare in my own country the glad tidings of salvation, preaching three times, and afterward expounding to a large • Mary, not Anne as Smith says, History of Methodism, II, 2. Fiiilip's Life of Whitefield, chap. 4. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. Ill company in the JMiiiories. On Monday 1 rejoiced tx:> meet our little society, v\hich now consisted of thiity-two persona. rhe next day 1 went to the condemined felons in Newgate, and offered them a fi'ce salvation. Li the evening I went to a society in Bear Yard, and preached repentance and remis- sion of sins. The next evening I spoke the truth in love at a. society in Aldersgate-street ; some contradicted at first, but not long ; so that nothing but love appeared at our part- ing. Thursday, 21st, I went to a society in Gutter-lane, but I could not declare the mighty works of God there, as I did afterward at the Savoy, with all simplicity, and the word did not return empty. On Saturday, 23d, I was enabled to speak strong words both at Newgate and at Mr. E.'s society, and the next day at St. Anne's, and twice at St. Jolm's, Clerkenwell, so that I fear they will bear with me there no longer." ^ Thus he entered upon the great career of his life, for these incessant labors were no consequence of a febrile or temporary zeal ; they are an example of what was thereafter to be al- most his daily habit till he fell, in his eighty-eighth year, at the head of more than a hundred and fifty thousand followers, and five hundred and fifty itinerant preachers, who were stimulated by his unabated zeal to similar labors in both hemispheres. And now those remarkable "Journals" which have afforded so much inspiration to the devout, so much matter of criticism to the learned, and of astonishment and scorn to the skeptical, open before us as a new book of won- ders, calm themselves, but hurrying us along, year after year, with an almost feverish excitement. He began by " expounding," nearly every day, in the Londo:^ " Societies.'' On Sundays he preached in the churches, but at the end of almost every sermon he records it to be the last time , not that his manner was clamorous, or in any way eccentric ; nor that his due-trine was heretical, for it was clearly that of the Homilies and other standards of the Church; but it was brought out too foi-ci])ly and presented too vividly for tba Jouruttl, Supt. 17, 17SH 112 HISTORY OF METHODISM. state of religious life around him. He went from the closed pulpits not o.ily to the " Societies," but to the prisons &nd the hospitals, where his message was received with gratitude and tears, and was attended with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. " Friday, November 3, 1738," he 'Arrites. " I preached at St. Antholin's; Sunday, five in the morning, at St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate; in the afternoon at Islington; md m the evenmg to such a congregation as I never saw before, at St. Clement's in the Strand. As this was the first time of my preaching here, I suppose it is to be the last. On Wednesday my brother and I went, at their earnest de- sire, to do the last good office to the condemned malefactors.'' He describes the scene at their execution as the most affecting instance he ever saw of faith triumphing over sin and death. Observing the tears rumiing down the cheeks of one of the criminals, while his eyes were steadily fixed upward, a few moments before he died, Wesley asked, " How do you feel now V He calmly replied : " I feel a peace which I could not have believed to be possible ; and I know it is the peace of God which passeth all understanding." His brother made use of the occasion to declare the Gospel of peace to a large assembly of publicans and sinners. " O Lord God of my fathers," exclaimed Wesley, "accept even me among them, and cast me not out from among thy children." In the evening he was preaching at Basingshaw church, and the next morning at St. Antholin's. The Wesleys were still tenacious of " Church order ;" they had done nothing, nor did they yet intend to do anything contrary to that order. They had consult ations with the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and were found by these prelates to be even jOO rigid in some of their ecclesiastical opinions. The former ap- proved their doctrine of Assurance as explained in his prejs- ence, but had to reprove them for their readiness to rebap- tize Dissenters. The latter gave them sensible advice. " K-^.ep," he said, " to the doctrines of the Church ; avoid all exceptionable phrases; preach and expound only the essen- ORIGIN OF METHODISM. IIS tials of religion ; other things, time and the providence of God only can cure." Denied the city pulpits, the brothers went not only to the "Societies" and prisons, but to and fro in the country, preaching almost daily. Whitefield was needed to lead them into more thorough and more necessary "irregular- Ities." He arrived in London December 8, 1738. Wesley Hastened to greet him, and on the 12th " God gave us," he writes, " once more to take sweet counsel together." The mighty preacher who had stirred the whole metropolis a year before, now met the same treatment as his Oxford friends. In three days five churches were denied him. Good, however, was to come out of this evil. He also had recourse now to the " Societies," and his ardent soul caught new zeal from their simple devotions as from his new trials. Wesley describes a scene at one of these assemblies, which reminds us of the preparatory Pentecostal baptism of fire, by which the apostles were " endued with power from on high," for their mission. He says, January 1, 1739, that Messrs. Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, and his brother Charles were present with him at a love-feast in Fetter-lane, with about sixty of their brethren. About three in the morn- ing, as they were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon them, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. A.S soon as they had recovered a little from the awe and amazement which the presence of the Divine Majesty had inspired, they broke out with one voice, " We praise thee, O God ; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord." Whitefield ex- claims : " It was a Pentecostal season, indeed." And he adds, respecting these "Society meetings," that "sometimes whole nights were spent in prayer. Often have we been filled tus with new wine, and often have I seen them overwhelmed with the Divine Presence, and cry out, 'Will God, indeed, dwell with men upon earth? How dreadful is this place ! This is no other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven !'"^ ' Gillies'a Life of Wliitoliv;U. cliup. 4, note. Vol. I.— K 114 HISTORY OF METHODISM. In this manner did the three evangelists begin together the memorablt- year which was afterward to be recognized as the epoch of Methodism. On the 5th Whitefield recoi'ds an oc casion which foreshadowed the future. A "conference" was tield at Islington with seven ministers, "despised Methodists," cxjncerning many things of importance. They continued in ■asting and prayer till three o'clock, and then parted " with a fuU conviction that God was about to do great things among us."* Whitefield wished to take collections for his projected Orphan House, but the churches were soon generally closed against him ; only two or three still remained at his com- mand for a few days. Preaching in one of them with " great freedom of heart and clearness of voice," while nearly a thousand people stood outside the edifice, and hundreds had gone away for want of room, he was struck with the thought of proclaiming the word, as Christ did, in the open air. He mentioned it to some friends, who looked upon it as a fimatical notion. " However," he writes, " we knelt down and prayed that nothing may be done rashly. Hear and answer, O Lord, for thy name's sake." He went to Bristol, his native city, which had formerly received him with enthusiasm. The churches were open to him at his arrival, but in a fortnight every door was shut, except that of Newgate prison; and this, also, was soon after closed against him, by the authority of the mayor. Not far from Bristol lies Kingswood, a place which has since become noted m the history of Methodism. It was formerly a royal chase, but its forests had mostly fallen, and it was now a region of coal mines, inhabited by a population which is described as lawless and brutal, worse than heathens, and differing as much from tJie people of the surrounding country in dialect as m appearance.* There was no church among them, and none nearer than the suburbs of Bristol, three or four miles distant. White- field found here an unquestionable justification of field « Philip's Life and Times of Whitefield, chap. 4. • Bonthey's \V -sley, chap. 6. ORIGIN OF METHODISM, 116 preaching, and on Saturday, Febriiai^ 17, 1739, he crossed the Rubicon, and virtually led the incipient Methodism across it, by the extraordinary irregularity of preaching in the open air. Standing upon a mount, he proclaimed the truth to about two hundred degraded and astonished colliers. He took courage from the reflection that he was imitating the example of Christ, who had a mountain for his pulpit, and the heavens for a soundmg-board ; and who, when his Gospel was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges, " Blessed be God," he writes, " that the ice is now broken, and I have now taken the field. Some may censure me, but is there not a cause ? Pulpits are denied, and the poor colliers are ready to perish for lack of knowledge." lie repeated his labors at Kingswood with continually in creasing hearers ; two thousand were present at his second sermon ; from four to five thousand at his third ; and they rapidly grew to ten, fourteen, and twenty thousand. His marvelous powers fomid their full play in this new arena, and his poetic spirit felt the grandeur of the scene and its surroundings. He speaks of the sun shining \'ery brightly, and the people standing in such " an awful manner around the mount," and in such profound silence, as to fill him with a "holy admiration." The trees and hedges were full. All was hushed when he began; and he preached for an houi with great power, and so distinctly that all could hear him. " Blessed be God," he writes, " Mr. spoke rightly ; the fire is kindled in the country." To behold such crowds standing together in solemn silence, and to hear the echo of their singing resounding over the mighty mass, suggested to him the scene of the general assembly of the spirits of just m<.'n made perfect, when they shall join in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb in heaven ! The moral effect of these occasions still more deeply impressed him. I laving no righteousness of their own to renounce, tlie poor colliers were glad to hear that Christ was a fViend to publicans, an J OAine not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Ue 116 HISTORY OP METHODISM. 3ould see the eftect of his words b_) l\w \Anlc guLtcia made by the tears which tjickled down their blackened cheeks, for they came unwa.^hed out of the coal pits to hear him. iliiiidreds after hundreds of them were brought under deep religious impressions, which, as the event proved, happily ended in sound and thorough conversions. The change was ioon visible to all observers. As the scene was quite new, md Whitefield had just begun to preach extempore, it often, he says, occasioned him inward conflicts. Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before him, he had not, in his own apprehension, a word to say either to God or to them. "But," he continues, "I was never totally deserted, and frequently (for to deny it would be lying against God) so assisted that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'" The open firmament above hiin, the pros pect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands be- yond thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times " all afieeted and drenched in tears together," presented a scene which was sublime and overpowering to his vivid imagination, especially when the grand picture was impressed with the solemnity of the ap- proaching evening. "It was then," he writes, "almost too much for, and quite overcame me."® He soon ventured to preach on a large bowling-green in Biistol, and as thousands flocked to the novel scene, he wrote to Wesley to come to his aid. Wesley arrived on Saturday evening, March 31, 1739, He could hai-dly rec- oncile himself at first, he says, " to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example or: Sunday, having been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious ^f every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it nad not been done in a church." The next evening, Whitefield behig .gone, he began expounding to a small " Society " the Sermon ^on the Mount ; " one pretty remarkable precedent," he writes, • QiUieti's Whitefield, chap, 4. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 117 ** of field-preachiiig, though I suppose thei'e were churches at that time also." Monday, 2d of May, at four in the after- noon, he " submitted to be more vile," he says, and pro- claimed in the open air the glad tidings of salvation, from a little emir. 3nce in a ground adjoining the city, to about three thousand people. His text befitted the occasion : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised ; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." In a few days more he was standing on the top of Hannam Mount, in Kingswood, proclaiming, " Ho, every one that thirstcth, come ye to the waters : . . yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price;" and in the after- noon he again stood up amid five thousand, and cried, " If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink." He too had now crossed the Rubicon, and all who knew him knew that with him there could be no retreat. Driven out of the churches, the new evangelists had evi dently taken possession of the people. Whitefield com mitted his out^door congregations to Wesley, and left for other fields. The multitude sobbed aloud at his farewells ; crowds gathered at his door when he departed, and twenty accompanied him out of the city on horseback. His exit was hardly less triumphant than at his former visit, notwith- standing his different treatment from the clergy and author- ities. As he passed through Kingswood th(^ grateful colliers stopped him; they had prepared an "entertainment" for him, and offered subscriptions for a charity school to be establisned among them. He was surprised at their lavish Ii])erality ; and laying, at their urgent request, a corner-stone for the building, knelt down on th(! ground among them, and prayed that the gates of hell might not prevail against it, to which their rough voiees responded a hearty '" Amen." Breaking away from them at last, he passe<1 into W.ile.s. Religion and morals had sunk as low in tlic rrinei 118 HISTORY OF METHODISM. pality, during this century, as m other parts of the country A contemporary witness' represents that spiritual darknesa hung over the land. The morals of both high and low were generally corrupt, drunkenness, gluttony, and licentiousness being everywhere prevalent. Saturday night was spentj usually to the dawm of the Sabbath, in the Nosweithian Cann, or song singing to the harp, accompanied with danc Ing; and Sunday afternoon at the Achwaren- Gamp^ ath- letic sports and rustic dances, which drew together the population of towns and villages; while the Bobl gerdded^ or walking people, a vagabond class, infested the country, living by beggary. The Church, meanwhile, is represented as almost totally inert, and "nothing would appear more improbable than that Methodism could find proselytes" among a people so thoughtless, reckless, and profligate. Many papal superstitions still lingered among the peasantry, and Wesley, at his first visit, said " they were as little versed in the principles of Christianity as a Creek or Cherokee Indian," a condition which Methodism was destined totally to revolutionize. The moral desolation of the country induced GriflSth Jones, who, though he lived and died a clergyman of the Establish- ment, became noted as a Methodist, to attempt some extra ordinary means for its improvement. He established the Welsh "circulating schools," an itmerant system of religious education, conducted by an organized corps of instructors, who were distributed over the country to teach the common people to read the Scriptures in Welsh, and to instruct them in the catechism and in psalmody. They passed from one district to another, pausing sufficiently in each to teach such person? as they found willing to receive them, and revisiting them for the same purpose at intervals. This novel scheme waj eoon extended over the whole country. Jones was meanwhile * See " An Account of Religion in Wales about the Middle of the Eighteenth Century." Pliilip's Whitefleld, chap. 6. It was taken from tlie mouth of a very old Welsh Methodist, and published in 1799, in the Trysorva, edited by Kev. Thomas Charles, of Bala. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 119 the most indefatigable preacher m Wales; and while the Wesley s and Whitefield were beginning their extraordinary labors in England, he was making preaching tours, and ex- tending his itinerant schools, through a large portion of the Principality. lie sometimes preached from tombstones^ and on the green sward, for the churches could not accom- modate the people. About the time of Whitefield's visit, one hundred and twenty-eight of his schools were in opera- tion ; and they had been established in almost every parish when their venerable founder died, in 1761. Though a faithful Churchman, the impulse which he gave to religion in Wales resuscitated and greatly promoted evangelical Dissent. His teachers became the earliest native Methodist preachers ; and their travels as instructors, as also his own preaching tours, opened the way for the Methodist itinerancy. He co-operated with Wesley and Whitefield, met in their Conferences in London, and is entitled to be considered one of the Methodist founders. The name of Howell Harris is as dear to evangelical Welshmen as that of Griffith Jones. He was bom at Tre- vecca in 1714. In 1735 he went to Oxford to study for the Church, but disgust at the infidelity and immorality which prevailed there drove him away. Returning to Wales, he began to exhort the neglected poor in their cottages, and was so successful that in a few months he formed several societies among them, thus affording another of those providential coincidences which mark the religious history of the times. Thirty of these organizations were sustained by him at the time of Whitefield's arrival, and in three years more they numbei'cd three hundred. He lived and died a Churchman, but received little sympathy from the established clergy, and, until the visits of Whitefield and the Wcsleys, pursued his evangelical labors almost alone, apparently without anticipating that they would result in a widespread Dis sent. In 1715 there were only thirty Dissenting chapels in t^e Principality, and in 1736 only six in all North Wales :• ■ Philip's Life and Timos of Whitefield, chap. 6. 120 HISTORY OF MtTUODISM. in 1810 they numbered nearly a thousand; they have increased to more than two thousand.® Harris was a laj' preacher ; he applied repeatedly for ordi- nation, but was der.ied it by the bishops on account of his ir regular modes of labor. Whitefield passed from Kingswood to CaidifT, and there saw him for the first time. Their soufe met and blended like two flames, and "set the whole Prraci pality ia a blaze." '*' Foi three years had the laborious lay man traveled, and preached twice nearly every day. Seven counties had he gone over, calling the people to repentance, addressmg them hi fields, from tables, walls, or hillocks. "He is full of the Holy Ghost," wrote Whitefield ; "blessed be God, there seems a noble spirit gone out into "Wales." And he expresses himself as not doubting that Satan envied the happiness of their first meeting, and as believing that they should make his kingdom shake throughout the Principality, They held public meetmgs immediately in Cardiff", preaching amid weeping crowds Avithin and a scoffing rabble without. The next day they were at Newport, where Whitefield addressed a large assembly. He fomid, he said, Wales well prepared for the Gospel ; new schools were opening every day, on the plan of Griffith Jones, and the people readily came twenty miles to hear a sermon. Husk, Ponty- pool, Abergavemiy, Carlean, and Treleck were rapidly visited. In some instances the churches were opened to him, and when they could not accommodate the crowd he preached a secund sermon in the open air. All the way, he says, he could think of nothing so much as of Joshua, going from city to city and subduing the devoted nations. Mobs thi-eatened him, but he hesitated not. At Treleck, being • According to the official statistics of the British Government for 1857 thoy were about 2,300. Over one million, or nearly the whole Welsl pcpiilation, now attend public worship sonic part of the day every Sab- bath. There is now a church, National or Dissentuig, to nearly every three square niilos of Wales. (Article by Rev. J. G. Evans in New-York Observer, May 1, ISiiS.) Methodism, which, as we shall hereafter see, made but slight impression on Scotland, has elevated the popular religions condition of Wales above that of Scotland. " Philip'b Whitefield, chap. 6. ORIGIN OF METHODISM, 121 denied the church, he stood upon a horseblock before the inn and delivered his message. At Carlean Harris had been assailed by the rabble, who beat a drum and huzzaed around him. Whitefield considered it tc be a challenge which he himself ought to accept. He stood up amid " many thou- sands," but "God suffered them not to move a tongiie " He pleached with unusual power, and "was carried out beyond himself" Harris followed the English discourses of Whitefield with exhortations in Welsh. They were con- genial spirits, and their co-operation gave an impulse to the religious spirit of Wales which has not only been felt down to our day, but promises to be perpetual. Returning to England, Whitefield traversed a large per tion of the country, preaching in bowling-greens, at market- crosses, and on the highways. After thus preparing the way for the Wesleys, by arousing the popular attention of the rural districts, he went to London, where, while opening the services at Islington church, he was silenced by a church- warden, but stood upon a tomb in the church-yard, and pro- claimed the truth to the willing people. Excluded from all the churches, he resolved to preach at Moorfields on the next Sunday. His friends admonished him of danger from the rabble which frequented that noted resort; two of them, however, had courage enough to ac- company him. Arm in arm, they pushed their way through the multitude ; but he was separated from his companions by the pressure, and borne along through a lane which the mob formed for him to the center of the fields. A table placed there for his pulpit was broken to pieces; he was then pressed to a wall, mounting which he preached to the swarming thousands with such effect that they were soou tamed down to the quiet and decorum of a church. "Tlio v\'ord of the Lord," he writes, " runs and is glorified ; pco pie's hearts seem quite broken; God strengthens me ex- ceedingly ; I preach till I sweat through and throiigh." He went the same evening to Kenningfon CoTnmon, n:id addressed a vast multitude. These labors he continued 122 HISTORY or METHODISM. with increasing interest. Scores of carriages, hundreds of horsemen, and thirty or forty thousand on foot, thronged around him.'^ Their singing could be heard two miles off, and his own -voice a mile. Wagons and scaffolds were hired to the throng that they might the better hear and see the wonderful preacher, who, consecrated and gowned as a clergyman of the national hierarchy, had brokeo aw&/ from its rigid decorum, and, like his divine Master, had come out into the highways and hedges to save their neglected souls. The genuine popular heart recognized him as a true apostle; and in the collections, made after these field sermons, for his Orphan Asylum, the poor people gave their half-pence so liberally that he was wearied down in receiving them, and a single man could not carry the amount home for him. He records a contribution, of which nearly one half consisted of but little short of ten thousand pieces of copper. After the collection had been taken, the crowd gathered aroimd his carriage throwing their mites into the windows. Such are the people at heart, whatever their voices and fists may declare in the mob. Wesley, meantime, was greatly successful at Bristol, where he had formed " Bands ;" and at Kingswood, where the school, begun by Whitefield, was rising under his care. He made excursions, also, to other towns, and his journals afford, on almost every page, examples of incredible labors. Astonishing effects began to attend his word. While preach- ing at Newgate, Bristol, on the words, " He that believeth hath everlasting life," he was led, without any previous design, to declare strongly and explicitly that God wnlleth " all men to be thus saved," and to pray that if this were the truth of God, he would " bear witness to His word." Immediately jne, and another, and another, sank to the earth ; " they dropped on every side as thunderstruck." And the next day he records " that all Newgate rang with the cries of those whom the word of God cut to the heart." '^ His own " He gives one estimate of nearly sixty thousand in Moorfields. Philip's Life, etc., chap. 4. " Journal, Anno 1739. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 123 .•;pint grew mighty in the consciousness of the moral power he was now wieldmg by the word of God. On one occasion, he says, his soul was so enlarged that he thought he could have cried out, in another sense than Archimedes, " Give me where to stand and I will shake the earth." The same day he stood amid hundreds of people on Rose Green, and taking for his text, " The God of glory thundereth," eta, preached to them in a storm of lightning and rain, which could not disperse them from his magical presence. In one of his excursions to Bath, about this time, he encountered the noted Beau Nash, the presiding genius of ita gayeties. The incident is interesting, as being the first of those public interruptions of his ministry which were soon to de- generate into mobs, and agitate most of England and Ireland. The fashiorable pretender hoped to confound the preacher and amuse the town, but was confounded himself Wesley says there was great public expectation of what was to be done, and he was entreated not to preach, for serious conse- quences might happen. The report gained him a large audience, among whom were many of the rich and fashion- able. He addressed himself pointedly to high and low, rich and poor. Many of them seemed to be surprised, and were sinking fast into seriousness, when their champion ap- peared, and, coming close to the preacher, asked by what authority he did these things 1 By the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to me by the now Archbishop of Canter- bury, when he laid hands upon me and said. Take thou authority to preach the Gospel, was the reply. This is contrary to act of pai-liament ; this is a conventicle, rejoined Nash. Sir, said Wesley, the conventicles mentioned in thai act, as the preamble shows, are seditious meetings ; but this is not such ; here is no shadow of sedition ; therefore it is not contrary to that act. I say it is, replied Nash; and, besides, your preaching frightens people out of their wits. Sir, asked Wesley, did you ever hoar me preach 1 No. IIow, tlion, can you judge of what you never heard ? Sir, by common report. Common report is not enough; g\v9 9 124 niSTORY OF METHODISM. me leave, sir, to ask, is not your name Nash ? My name ia Nash. Sir, continued Wesley, I dare not judge of ^ou by common report. The irony was too pertinent to fail of effect. Nash paused awhile, but, having recovered himself, said, 1 desire to know what these people come here for? One of " the people " replied, Sir, leave him to me ; let an old woman answer him : you, Mr. Nash, take care of your body ; we take care of our souls, and for the food of our souls we come here. His courage quailed before the sense and spirit of the common people, and, without another word, he retreated in haste. As Wesley returned the street was full of people hurry mg to and fro, and speaking emphatic words. But when any of them asked. Which is he? and he replied, 1 am he, they were awed into silent respect. He had already undesignedly become an "Itinerant;" his ordinary employment in public, he says, was now as follows : every morning he i-ead prayers and preached at Newgate ; every evening expounded a portion of Scripture to one or more of the societies. On Monday, in the afternoon, he preached abroad, near Bristol ; on Tuesday at Bath and Two-mile Hill, alternately; on Wednesday, at Baptist Mills; every other Thursday, near Pcneford ; every other Friday, in another part of Kingswood ; on Saturday afternoon and Sunday mornmg, in the Bowling Green, (which lies near the middle of Bristol;) on Sunday, at eleven, near Hannam Mount ; at two, at Clifton ; and at five, on Rose Green ; and "hitherto," he adds, "as my days, so my strength hath been." His societies in Bristol grew so rapidly that he was com- pelled to erect a place of worship for their accommodation ; and thus was another step taken forward in the independent career upon which he was being unconsciously led by the providence of God. On the 12th of May, 1739, the corner- stone " was laid with the voice of praise and thanksgiving." This was the first ]\fethodist chapel in the world. He had cot the least design of being personally engaged either in tha ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 126 expense or the direction of the work, having appointed " eleven feoffees," on whom he supposed the burden would fall ; but, becoming involved in its entire financial responsi- bility, he was constrained to change this arrangement. And as to the direction of the undertaking, he says he presently received letters from his friends in London, Whitefield in particular, (backed with a message by a person just from tr^e metropolis,) that neither he nor they would have anything to do with the building, nor contribute anything toward it, un- less he would instantly discharge all feoffees and do every thing in his own name. Many reasons they gave for this course; but one was decisive with him, namely, that the feof- fees always would have it in their power to control him, and, if he preached not as they liked, to turn him out of the house he had built. He accordingly yielded to his advisers, and, calling all the feoffees together, canceled, without oppo- sition, the instrument made before, and took the whole man- agement into his own hands. Money, he says, it was true, he had not, nor any human prospect of procuring it ; but he knew "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof," and in his name set out, nothing doubting. In this manner was it that the property of all his chapels became vested solely in himself during the early part of his career, a responsi bility which was necessary in his peculiar circumstances, which he never abused, and which he transferred, in prospect of his death, by a " deed of declaration," to his Legal Con ference. Decisions in the Court of Chancery, made under this document, have given security to the property, and sta- bility to the whole economy of Wesleyan Methodism dowri to our day. (Jliarles Wesley was laboring, meantime, incessantly in many parts of London, and Ingham in Yorkshire. White- field lingered in London, as if detained to thrust out Wesley before the multitudes there. Wesley arrived fi-om Bristol, and the next day accompanied him to Blackheath, to hoar him preach. Between twelve and fourteen thousand people urere present. Whitefield urged him t(j addre^js them ; he 126 HISTORY OF METUODISM. recoiled, but at last consented, and thus became known as a field-preacher in the metropolis. Whitefield felt that lie himself had done a good work that day. He says : " I went to bed rejoicing that another fresh inroad was made into Satan's territories, by Mr. Wesley following me in fieid preaching in London as well as in Bristol." After accompanying Wesley to Bristol, Kingswood, and Gloucester, and visiting other places as a field-preacher, Whitefield embarked again for America August 14, 1739. He had a work of preparation to do there also, for, in a few years, Wesley's itinerants were to follow on his track. Most English religious wi-iters of our day, who have treated of these events, have come to acknowledge the utility, if not the necessity, of the irregular labors of Whitefield and the Wesleys in the condition of the Church and of the de- graded masses of their time, for the beneficial results are inscribed on all the land and on much of the \\(jrld; but they have not been equally liberal in excusing the marvel- ous phenomena which attended the zealous evangelists, and which surprised them as much as their enemies. It was im- possible that such extraordinary exertions should not be accompanied by extraordinary excitement, and it was, per- haps, equally impossible that the extraordinary excitement should not occasion correspondent physical effects. Some of these effects have already been mentioned. The most singular fact about them is, that for a considerable time the superior ardor and eloquence of Whitefield did not produce them, while, under the calmer and more logical preaching of Wesley, people dropped on every side as if thunderstruck. It is also noteworthy, that from the date of his return from Germany down to this time, not one of his texts, as recorded in his Journals, was of a severe or terrific character, but they were, as in most of his life, selected from the " great and precious promises," or related to the nature and means of personal religion. Yet under such preaching did hardened, as well as sensitive hearers, fall around him like men shot in battle. While preaching on the Common, at Bristol, from ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 12? the words, " When they had nothing to pay, he frankly for- gave them both," a young woman sank down in violent agony, as did five or six persons at another meeting in the evening. Many were greatly offended by their cries. The same offense was given during the day by one at "ITieaner's Hall," and by eight or nine others at "Gloucester-lane." One of these was a young lady, whose mother was irritated at the scandal, as she called it, of her daughter's conduct ; out " the mother was the next who dropped down and lost her senses in a moment, yet went home Avith her daughter full of joy, as did most of those who had been in pain." Such " phenomena " increased continually. Bold blasphem ers were mstantly seized with agony, and cried aloud for the divine mercy, and scores were sometimes strewed on the ground at once, insensible as dead men, A traveler at one time was passing, but on pausing a moment to hear the- preacher was directly smitten to the earth, and lay there ap- parently without life. A Quaker, who was admonishing the bystanders against these strange scenes as affectation and hypocrisy, was himself struck down, as by an unseen hand, while the words of reproach were yet upon his lips. A weaver, a great disliker of Dissenters, fearing that the new excitement would alienate his neighbors from the Church, went about zealously among them to prove that it was the work of Satan, and would endanger their souls. A new convert lent him one of Wesley's sermons ; while reading it at home he suddenly turned pale, fell to the floor, and roared so mightily that the people ran into the house from the streets, and found him sweating, weeping, and screaming in anguish. He recovered his self-possession, and arose re- joicing in God. On one occasion great numbers fell around the preacher, while he was inviting them to "enter into the Holiest by a new and living way." A woman opposed them as giving way to an agitation which they might control, and endeavored to escape from the assembly. Scarcely had she got throe or four yards when she fell do^vn in as violent Eigony as the rest. 128 UISTORY OF METHODISM. Not until July, 1739, when Whitefield was agaui with Wesley, did any such phenomena attend his own preaching. " Saturday, 9th," says Wesley, " I had an opportunity to talk with him of those outward signs which had so often ae(y">in- panied the mward work of God. I found his objections v, erv chiefly grounded on gross misrepresentations of matter of fact. But the next day he had an opportunity of informing himself better, for no sooner had he began to invite all sin- ners to oelieve in Christ than four persons sank downi close to him, almost in the same moment. One of them lay with out either sense or motion. The third had strong convulsioiis all over his body, but made no noise unless by groans. The fourth, equally convulsed, called upon God with strong cries and tears. From this time I trust we shall all suffer God to carry on his own work in the way that pleaseth him." These marvels were not peculiar to Methodism ; they had occurred in "Religious Revivals" from the Reformation down to this time. Edwards records them as common under his ministry m New England. '^ Gillies shows them to have been frequent in Scotland and other sections of the Church." They have occurred in our day, with even an epi- demic prevalence, in many parts of America. Charles Wes- ley discountenanced them. John considered them at first with favor, as proofs of the power of the truth, but afterward discouraged them. Most Methodists agree Nvith Watson, " that in no such cases does the occasional occurrence Latrobe, in a note to Spangenberg's Life of Zinzendorf, examinea the Moravian difficulties in London very candidly, in reply to Wliitefield'i charges. They seem to have been temporary errors, ar d not chargeable to the Church elsewhere. Wesley however believed, with Whitefield, that they were inherent in the Moravian system, and he attacked them often afterward. Zinzendorf was certainly inclined to defend them. I will- ugly take, however, Latrobe's »-rpJunation.s. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 181 oeen for this temporary disturbance, Wesley and his associ- ates might have been merged in the Moi-avian body,'^ and assuredly not with the advantages which have resulted to the world from the distinct organization of Methodism. Wesley had previously secured the foundry in Moorfields, a building which the government had used for the casting of cannon, but which was desert-ed and dilapidated. At the imitation of two strangers he preached in it, and at their in- stance, and by their assistance, opened it for regular public worship on the 11th day of November, 1739, some eight months before his separation from the Fetter-lane Society. This date has been considered the epoch of Methodism, for thenceforward the Foundry was its head-quarters in London, In his " Church History," Wesley assigns it other dates, as the formation of " the Holy Qub," at Oxford, in 1729 ; and the meeting of himself and others, by the advice of Peter Bohler, in Fetter-lane, May 1, 1738 ; but in his introduction to the " General Rules of the Society," he says : " In the latter end of the year 1739 eight or ten persons came to me in London and desired that I would spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the wi-ath to come ; this was the rise of the United Society." " This," he tells us, " was soon after the consecration of the Foinidry." Twelve came the first night, forty the next, and soon after a hundred.^' Though he continued in fraternal relations with the Moravians till the separation of July 20, 1740, the society formed the preceding year was organized and controlled by himself, and has continued in imbroken succession dovni to our day.*^ The date of its origin was celebrated with '• At a later period Charles Wesley Avas deterred from joining tht Moravians, and adopting their English Quietism, only by the etreuuou* romonatrances of his brother and Lady Huntingdon. Jackson attempts to disprove the fact, but Smith successfully corrects him. Jackson't Charles Wesley, chap. 8: Smith's Hist, of Methodism, II, 2, " Jackson's Life of Charles Wesley, chap. 7. '» Dr. Smith (History of Wesleyan Methodism, II. 2,) argues in tavoi of the date of the separation from the Moravians in 1740. His reasons do not, however, justify such a deviation from tlic acknowledged opinion of 132 HISTORY OF METHODISM. centenary solemnities by all the Methodist communities of the world in 1839. It was signalized not only by the organization of the Society, and by the openitig of the Foundry for worship, but by tlu; erection at Brist(jl of the first Methodist chapel, by the organization of "Bands" in that city, and by the publication by the Wesleys of their " Hymns and Sacred Poems," the beginning of that Method istic psalmody which has since been of inestimable service to the denomination wherever it has extended.*^ The purely accidental, or, rather, providential manner in which Methodism had reached this stage of its progress, is too obvious to need much remark. Excluded from the churches, and with " Bands " of converted num in London, Bristol, and Kingswood under his care, Wesley was com- pelled to provide places for their assemblies and regulations for their government. He did so only as the necessity was thrust upon him, not knowing what result would follow. Neither at this period, nor indeed at any subsequent time, did he think of deviating from the national Church. It was the practical and summary philosophy of his life to do the duty nearest to him, assured that all otliers would come in their due order. His least partial biographer has justly said, that whither his plans at this time were to lead he knew not, nor what consistence the societies he was collecting would take, nor where he was to find laborers as he enlarged his oper- all Methodist bodies throughout the world. There can hardly be a dis • pute respecting tlie real epoch of Methodism. The same afQmiation can- not be made, however, respecting the locality of its origin. " Bauds " were formed by "Wesley, and the " New Eoom," or chapel, was commenced at Bristol, some months before the opening of the Foundry and the form- ation of the "Society" in London. Myles (Chronological Historj- of the Methodists, chap. 1) says : " The tirst preaching-house was hvilt in Bristol ; the first which was opened was in London." The italics are his own. '» At their return from Georgia they published a sunilar work, but i* was less adapted to public use. The two volumes issued in 1739 spread rapidly among the new "Societies.'' Two editions were issued during the first year; they introduced that popular church music which has ever since been characteristic of Methodism, and one of the most potent moans of its sucetss. ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 188 ations, nor how the scheme was to derive its financial support But these considerations troubled him not. God, he believed, had appointed it, and God woidd always provide means for His own ends.^" English Methodist writers have deemed it desirable to defend him against imputations of disregard for thf authority and " order" of the national Church. The task is not difficult, as will be seen in the course of our narrative ; but it may hereafter be a more difficult one to defend him, before the rest of the Christian world, for having been so deferential to a hierarchy whose moral condition at the time he so much denounced, and whose studied policy throughmit tie rest of his life was to disown, if not to defeat him *> Southey's Life of Wosloy, cLesp. 9. 134 HISTORY OF METHODISM CHAPTER n. FHE WESLEYS ITnsrERATnvrG IN ENGLAND; WillTifl FIELD ITITTERATING IN AMERICA. Susanna Wesley — Her Counsels and Encouragements to her Son — Beginning of the Lay Ministry — David Taylor — Mobs — Charlea Wesley itinerating — Is mobbed in Wales — Whitefleld itinerating in America — Effects of his Preaching in Philadelphia — Princeton Col- lege — His Eeccption in Boston — His triumphant Passage through the Colonies. During these important events Susanna Wesley was provi dentially still at hand, though in extreme age, to counsel and encourage her son. She had approved his field-preach- ing, and accompanied him to Kennington Common, where she stood by his side amid twenty thousand people.* Her son Samuel Wesley, with whom she had resided at West^ minster since the dispersion of the family from Epworth, remonstrated against her sanction of the irregular labors of his brothers ; but she saw the overruling hand of God in the inevitable circumstances which compelled them to their extraordinary course. A consultation was held in her pres- ence respecting their separation from the Fetter-lane So- ciety, and she approved that necessary measure. She had been led, about this time, by a clearer faith, to sympathize more fully than ever with their new views of the spiritual life. John Wesley records a conversation mth her on the subject, in which she remarked that till lately she had rarely heard of the present conscious forgiveness of sins, or the Witness of the Spirit, much less that it was the com- mon privilege of true believers. " Therefore,'* she said^ ♦' 1 » Wesley's Joomal, Anno 1789. THE WESLEyS AND WHITEFIELD. 185 never durst ask for it myself. But two oi three weeks ago, while my son Hall, in delivering the cup to me, was pro- nouncing these words : ' The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee,' they struck through my heart, and I knew that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven me all my sins." Wesley asked whether her father (Dr. Annesley) had not the same faith, and if she had not heard him preach it to others. She answered, he had it himself, and declared, a little before his death, that for more than forty years he had no darkness, no fear, no doubt at all of his being " ac- cepted in the Beloved ; " but that, nevertheless, she did not remember to have heard him preach even once ex- plicitly upon it ; whence she supposed he also looked upoL it as the peculiar blessing of a few, and not as promised to all the people of God.^ Doubtless she had enjoyed before this time a genuine Christian experience ; her writings incontestably prove this ; her misgivings related to the degree of confidence which attends a true faith. The doctrine of Assurance, or the Witness of the Spirit, as Wesley called it, had always been admitted by the Puritan divines of both Old and New England; but, as she remarked, it had not been considered the privilege of all true believers. It was a logical consequence of the Calvinistic theology, that it should be assurance of eternal as well as of present salva- tion, and the perilous liabilities of such an inference ren- dered it a rare and almost esoteric opinion in Calvinistio Churches. Arminianism alone could therefore safely re- store this precious truth as a common privilege to the Church, And herein is seen the providential necessity of Arminianism as the theological basis of the Method istic movement; for what would Methodism have been -without its most familiar doctrine, the " Witness of the Spirit " as the common right and test of Cliristian experience ? Under the stirring events of these times the aged mother of Wesley was, after a long and faithful pilgrimage, enabled, • tlonma], Sept 3, 1789. 136 HISTOKV OF METHODISM. "with himiblu boldness," to claim the consolation of that *' assurance" which she had so long hesitated to accept. , Such is the only possible explanation of the case. In changing the foundry into a chapel, he had prepared an adjacent house as a residence for himself and his assist ants in London. Hither his mother now removed, and here she spent her remaining days, sustained by his filial care, and counseling him in his new responsibilities. After his separation fi-om the Moravians, Wesley re- Bumed his itmerant ministrations with unabated zeal. He had appointed John Cennick, a layman, to take charge of the Kiiigswood society, and to pray, and expound the Scriptures, though not to preach, during his absence. Thomas Maxfield, one of his converts at Bristol, was ap pointed to the same duties at the Foundry in London, and about the same time John Nelson (a memorable name in the annals of Methodism) began to exhort in public, work- ing as a mason for his bread by day, and holding meetings at night; and thus, as will hereafter be seen, originated, without design on the part of Wesley, that " lay ministry " which has spread and perpetuated Methodism i.i both hemispheres. During the years 1740 and 1741 Wesley traversed many parts of the kingdom, preaching almost daily, and sometimes four sermons on the Sabbath. Ingham, his com- panion in America, was abroad also, itinerating in York- shire, where he formed many societies. Howell Harris pursued his labors successfully in Wales, and John Bennet preached extensively in Derbyshire and its surrounding counties. David Taylor, a man of signal usefulness, also began to travel and preach about this time. He was a servant to Lord Huntingdon. Converted through the ir- strumentality of the Methodists, with whom Lady Hunting- don was now openly identified, he was encouraged by her to pursue his labors in the hamlets around her residence at Domiington Park. He had some education, sound sense, and good ability as a preacher. He went, under THE WES LEYS AND WHITE FIELD. 137 the directitui of the countess, to Gieiificld and Ralby, hi Leicestershire, where his discourses in the open air excited extraordinary interest, and attracted great assemblies of th( rustic population. Samuel Deacon threw downa his scythe in the field, and wended his way with the multitude lo the proachuvg place ; he returned to his home deeply impressed with the truth, and eventually became a distinguished preachei' at Barton-fabis, in Leicestershire ; his labors and church extended out into Hugglescote, Melbourne, Lough- borough, Derby, Leicester, (where a decayed Church was resuscitated,) Nottingham, and other places. All the neigh- boring regions, in fine, were pervaded by the Methodistic influence thus introduced, and the salutary results con- tinue to our day.' ' The Churches thus formed, together with others in Camnridge and Yorksliire, were united, in 1770, into a " connection," with Baptist pnnci)>les. In 1840 it comprised one hundred and thirteen churches, eleven thousand three hundred and fifty-eight members, live dis- trict home missionary societies, a foreign missionary society, and two academics. The author of the "Life and Times of Lady Ilnntingdon" vol. 1, p. 44) says : " The principal strength of the New Connection of General Baptists is in the Midland Counties, and Barton-fabis is con- sidered the ' mother of thcin all.' In 1802, the Midland Conference included twenty-one churches. In 1816, the Warwickshire chnrches, si.x in nnmber, formed themselves into a separate conference; as also in 1825, four or five churches in the north of Nottinghamshire were fonnod into what was called the North Mi and singing, "Angel of God, whate'er betide, Thy Bummonfl I obey," preached to some hundreds who gathered respectfully around him, from the text, " If God be for us, who can be against us 1" He had fairly won the field. " Never," he says, " did I feel so much what I spoke. The word did not return empty, as the tears on all sides testified." He passed to Evesham, Westcot, Oxford, and other places, preaching, and withstanding the clamors of the people, till he arrived again in London, where the Foundry, Moorfields, and Kennington Common were his arenas. While in the city he was tireless also in pastoral labors, devoting three hours daily to " conferences " and to the " bands.** In June, 1740, he was again abroad among the rural towns, accompanied by nis faithful assistant, Thomas Maxfield. He preached in Bexley, Blendon, Bristol, and Kingswood. At the latter place he was especially refreshed by the good results of the Meth- odist labors. Methodism had already commenced those de- monstrations of its efficacy among the demoralized masses which have commanded for it the admiration of men who have questioned its merits in all other respects. " O what simplicity," he exclaims, " is in this childlike people ! A spirit of contrition and love ran through them. Here the seed has fallen upon good ground." And agam, on tne next Sabbath, he writes : " I went to learn Christ among our col liers, and drank into their spirit. that our London breth- ren would come to school to Kingswocd ! God knows their poverty ; but they are rich, and daily entering into rest, without first being brought into confusion. Their souls truly wait still upon God, in the way of his ordinances. Ye many masters, come, learn Christ of these outcasts, for know, 'ex cept ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' " He questions whether Herrnhut could afibrd a better example of Christian simpli 10 140 HISTORY OF METHODISM. city and purity ; and yet these reclaimed colliers were re polled from the Lord's Supper by most of the regular xjlei^y of the churches of Bristol, because their reformation had been effected by the " irregular " labors of the Methodists. From Kingswood he made a preaching excursion into Wales, where he spent three weelcs, co-operating with How ell Harris, who, though diifering from him on the " Five Points " of the Calvinistic controversy, welcomed him cor dially. His last night in the Principality Avas one of stormy riot. He was at Cardiff, expecting to depart by water the next day ; Howell Harris and a company of devout people had assembled with him there for some days, and the inter est of their meetings had diverted the public attention from the players of the theater. The latter, joined by the popu lace, and led on by a physician who had taken offense at one of Wesley's sermons, assailed the assembly. Many, it is said, had bound themselves by an oath to prevent his further preaching. At night the mob attacked the house; the physician struck Wesley \dth his cane, but was tripped down in the confusion, and after injuring several persons, and raving like a demoniac, was carried out; but the house was quickly again broken open by two magistrates, who, however, found it desirable to retire after some in quiries. The players then besieged it. " We sang on uncon- cerned," he writes, " though they were armed, and threatr- encd to burn the house. The ground of their quarrel is, that the Gospel has starved them." After midnight one of the actors got into the house, sword in hand : the weapon was wrested from him, and he thrust out. " When the sword was brought in," says Wesley, " the spirit of faith was kindled at the sight of the danger. Great was our rejoicing ■within, and the uproar of the players without, who strove to force their way after their companion." The hour haij arrived for him to go on board the vessel ; against the re monstrances of many of his friends, he resolutely walkeij out thiough the midst of the rabble; he was unmolested, and oassed calmly to the water side, where many of his friends THE WESLEYS AND WH 1 T EFI E LI). 141 standing on the shore, joined him in hearty thanksgiving The vessel being delayed, he returned on shore after some hours, and found IIowcll Harris and others still assembled. rie preached to them again while some of his fiercest op- posers stood weeping around him. He afterward waited on a magistrate, and presented to him, as a trophy, the Qword taken from the player the preceding night. Such Is an illustration of the trials and the spirit of the founders of Methodism. Returning to Bristol and Kingswood, he resumed his labors there, and visited the neighboring towns, preaching in- defatigably. He records even five sermons a day. During the smunier of 1741 he made three more excursions into Wales. His travels were rapid, his discourses incessant and powerful, his trials from persecutors not a few, but his suc- cess was immediate. He formed many societies, and opene(? broadly the way for the later progress of Methodism. While the Wesleys were thus definitively founding Meth odism in England, Whitefield was traversing the colonies of North America, promoting that more general but salutary influence among existing Churches which was so important a part of its mission on both sides of the Atlantic, and which forms an essential feature in its early history.* He left England, as we have seen, on his second voyage to America, in August, 1739, and landed at Philadelphia in the beginning of November. His eloquence set the city astir immediately ; its cffi.'cts are described as " truly astonishing." l^cople of all denominations, Quakers, Presbyterians, Bap tists, as well as Churchmen, thronged the churches, and after he had departed public service was held twice every day, a.nd three and four times on Sundays, for about a year, and the city, though then comparatively small, kept up twenty- six societies for social prayer.* Though the churches were at his command, he preached often in the open air, for the * Sec Isauc Taylor's Methodism. Much of this able but uasutist'actory work discusses " Methodism'' as distinguished from " WesleyaniBm." * Mouioira of Mrs. Hannah Rodgc. I'liiladelphia, 1806. 142 HISTORY OF METHODISM. eager multitudes could not find room in any buiiding. The fevorite place for his out-door preaching was the balcony oi the old courtrhouse (since Market-house) in Market-streets His powerful voice was heard on the opposite shore of New Jersey, and the crews of vessels on the Delaware could dis- tinguish his words.^ He passed to New- York, and on his route through New- Jersey proclaimed his message in the principal towns to thousands, who gathered from all the surrounding regions. A general religious interest had been previously excited among them by the labors of Frelinghuysen, the Ten nents, Blair, and Rowland.' He records that Tennent and his brethren had begun an institution for the education of pastors. The building in which the young men were then studying was a log-house, about twenty feet long and nearly as many broad. From this " despised place" seven or eight worthy ministers of Christ had been sent forth, and a foimda- tion was being laid for the instruction of many others. The work, he was persuaded, was of God, and " therefore would not come to naught." Thus arose the theological fame of Princeton. Nassau Hall received a Methodistic baptism at its birth. Whitefield inspirited its founders, and was hon ored by it with the title of A.M.; the Methodists in En- gland gave it funds ; and one of its noblest presidents was a correspondent of Wesley, and honored him as a " re- storer" of the true faith.* • Note to Amencau edition of Gillies's Life of Whitefield. Philadel- pliia, 1854. ' Physical effects like those which had attended the Mjthodist pieoon- ing in England had already occurred in New-Jersey under the minifltra- tion of Rowland ; the hearers " fainted away," and numbers were carried out of the church in a state of insensibility. GiUies's Whitefield, chap. 5. * When Davies and Gilbert Tennent were in England soliciting aid for the college, fifteen years later, Tennent called on Wesley in London. The latter alludes to the visit with an expression of his characteristic catholicity. " He informed me," he writes, " of his design, now ready to be executed, of founding an American college for Protestants of every denomination ; an admirable design if it will bring Protestants of every denomination to bear with one anotJter," — Journal, Anno 1754. Princeton has verified Wesley's doubt rather tlian his hope — and from THE WESLEYS AND WHITEFIELD. 143 He spent a week in New- York, preaching thrice a day in churches and in the open air.' Returning on land to Georgia, he preached throughout his route sometimes to ten thousand people. Many enthusiastic Philadelphians accompanied him as a cavalcade sixty miles from the city. A-bout the middle of January he was with his family at the Orphan House, where forty children were soon gathered under his protection. In a short time he found it necessary to resume his travels, in order to collect funds for their support. Taking passage for Newcastle, Delaware, he was before long again addressing thousands in Phila- delphia. " Societies for praying and singing " were multi- plied " in every part of the town ;" and a hundred and forty of his converts were organized into a Church on one day by Gilbert Tennent. His route through New-Jersey was attended, as before, by vast congregations. Since his previous visit a general outward reformation had become visible. Many ministers had been quickened in their zeal necessity as much, perhaps, as from choice. American sects have de rived but questionable advantages from such combinations. President Davies corresponded with Wesley, and addressed him Ln language whicli Methodists have not usually had the pleasure to receive from their Cal- vinistic brethren. " Though you and I," lie said, " may differ in some little things, I have long loved you and your brother, and wished and prayed for your success, as zealous revivers of experimental Cvristianity If I differ from you in temper and design, or in the essentials of religion 1 am sure the error must bo on my side. Blessed be God for hearts to love one another 1 How great is the honor God has conferred upon yoa in making you a restorer of declining religion I" See his letter m Wes- ley's Journal, Anno 1757. » The English Church was denied him. He preached usually in l)r Pemberton's Presbyterian meeting-house on Wall-street, the only one oi that denomination in New-York, and ui front of the old Exchange on Broa.l near Water-street ; and .still later at the " Brick Meeting," which was then '* in the fields ;" the effect of his labors was such that Pemberton's church iiad to bo repeatedly enlarged. In this city occurred the well-known illustration of his dramatic power, when, preacliing to a large nuinoer of siulors, he introduced a description of a storm and shipwreck, carrying a"way their imaginations so irresistibly that in the climax of the cataa- trophe they sprang to their feet, oxelaiiniiig : " Take to the long boat I" Gonant's Narratives of Remarkable Conversions and Revival Incidentat eta New- York, 1858. 144 HISTORY OF METHODISM. to preach the word in season and out of season, and their congregations were greatly enlarged. Several preachers, prompted by his example, went forth traveling and labor- ing among the to wis. After visiting New- York with un- abated success, he again returned to Savannah, But hia fame had spread to New-England, and Rev. Drs, Cc>lman and Cooper, of Boston, sent letters to Georgia, urging him to visit them. Again he took passage for the north, and arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, September 14, 1740 He began immediately his usual course of incessant preach- ing. His sermons on his way to Boston spread his repu- tation, and when within ten miles' distance he was met by the governor's son and a train of the clergy and chief citi- zens, who escorted him into the city. Belcher, the governor, received him heartily, and became his warm friend. He was denied " King's Chapel," the English Church ; but Webb, Foxcroft, Prince, Sewall, and all the other Puritan divines, welcomed him. His preaching had its usual effect. "It was Puritanism revived," said old Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians. " It was the happiest day I ever saw in my life," exclaimed Colman, after his first sermon. He " itinerated " northward from Boston, traveling one hundred and seventy miles, and preaching sixteen times in about a week. On his return the whole city seemed moved. High and low, clergymen and municipal officers, professors and students from the neighboring college of Cambridge, and people from the country towns, thronged to hear him, and appeared ready to '• pluck out their eyes for him." Twenty thousand hearers crowded around him when he delivered his farewell dis- course under the trees of the Common, where Lee, the founder of Methodism in New-England, was afterward to preach his first sermon in Boston. " Such a power and presence of God with a preacher," wrote one who heard him, " I never saw before. Our governor has carried him from place to place in his coach, and could not help following him fifty miles out of town." THE WESLEYS AND WHITEFIELD. 145 He directed his course westward to Northampton, where ne met a congenial spirit in Jonathan Edwards. Pulpits were open to him on all the route, and a " divine unction " attended his preaching. From Northampton he passed dowTi to New Haven, addressing as he journeyed vast and deeply affected congregations. He arrived there Octobe 23, when the Colonial Legislature was in session, and on the Sabbath preached before them and an immense tlirong, some of whom had come twenty miles to hear him. The aged governor was so deeply affected that he could speak but few words ; with tears trickling down his cheeks like drops of rain, he exclaimed: "Thanks be to God for such refreshings on our way to heaven !" By November 8 he was again in Philadelphia, preaching in a house which had been erected for him during his absence, and which afterward became the Union Methodist Episcopal Church. On the 14th of December he reached the Orphan House, near Savaimah. In seventy-five days he had preached a hundred and seventy-five sermons, and received upward of seven hundred pounds sterling for his orphans. "Never," he writes, "did I see such a con- tinuance of the Divine presence in the congregations to which I have preached." Never had preacher or any other orator led the masses more triumphantly. He had stirred the consciences of tens of thousands from Maine to Georgia, and doubtless, by these and his subsequent travels, did much to prepare the soil for that harvest of Methodism which in our day has " shaken like Lebanon " along all hi« course. On the 16th of January, 1741, he again embaiked at Charleston for England. Vol. L— 10 146 HISTOKY OF METHODiaar. CUAPTER m. SEPARATION OF WHITEFIELD FROIM WESLEY. TJie Calvinistic Controversy — Character of Wesley's Mind — The Diffi culties of Calvinism to such a Mind — ArminianiMii, as defined at the Synod of Dort — Intellectual Character of Whitelield — Hie Adopticii of Calvinistic Opinions — Historical Importance of the Dispute between Wesley and Whitefleld — Wesley excludes it from his Societies — It disturbs them in London — Difficulties at Kingswood — John Cen- nick — Wesley's Sermon on "Free Grace" — Whitefield's Ectum to England — His Separation from Wesley — Unsuccessful Attempts at Reconciliation. While these good and great men were thus abroad, laboring exclusively for the moral recovery of souls, and confining themselves to those vital truths which alone were essential to this end, a serious occasion of discord occurred between them , but the painful record of their partial alienation, which the fidelity of history requires, is relieved by the fact, acknowledged by both Wesley and Whitefield, that the im- portant movement in which they were engaged took a wider sway from their differences of opinion. These differences related to the problem of Predestination — the insoluble diffi- culties which for so many ages have been fruitful causes of contention and bigotry among good men, and must continue to be so till they are transferred from Dogmatic Theology CO their more legitimate place in the sphere of Metaphysics. Wesley, as we have seen, early and definitively took thtj Anninian view of these questions, and was confirmed in that view of them by the correspondence of his mother while be was yet at Oxford. If, as some of his critics say, his intel- lect was more logical than philosophical, this was, perhaps. one of lus chief qualifications for bis appointed work Whai WHITEFIELD AND WESLEY SKPAKATE. 147 was needed in the theological development of Methodism was clear, pointed defiiiitiuii.s, lallier than philosophic gene ralizations, of those elemental-} evangelical truths \\hi«^i are most essential to the personal salvation of men; tor, in its positive bearing, Methodism was to he a spiiitual, rathei than a dogmatic or ecclesiastical reform, its ellects on the dogmatic and ecclesiastical errors of the times being chiefly negative, and the more effective for being such. No thinker in the modern Church has excelled Wesley in the direct logic, the precision, the ti-ansparent clearness, and popular suitableness with which he presented the experi- mental truths of Christianity. Faith, Justification, Regener- ation, Sanctification, the Witness of the Spirit, these were his themes, and never were they better defined and discriminated by an English theologian ; and the keen faculty and practical directness with which he thus treated theological ideas was, perhaps, equally important in guiduig him to those effective expedients of church government which have won for liim, from the greatest historian of his country, the eulogy of hav ing had " a genius for government not infcrioi- to that of Richelieu." i It was impossible that a mind thus addicted to precise conceptions and direct conclusions, rather than generaliza- tions, should hesitate which side to take in the Calvinistic controversy. Even the modern qualifications of Calvinism, stated in the pious, compromising spirit of Baxter, could not satisfy him. It were vain to say to such a thinker that in predestinating the elect to be saved, God had only passed by the reprobates, leaving them to their own natural wicked- ness and fate. His prompt reply would be that, according to his opponents, the foreknowing God created the repro bate in his wickedness, and under his inevitable doom, and he would devolve upon them the formidable task of showing how then the unassisted offcast could be held responsible for his fate. He would require them, also, to reconcile with > Macaulay'B Review of Soutbey'u Colloquies, Edinburgh Review, 1860 See also hia Miacollunieu, vol. i, p. 283. 148 UISTUIIY OF M E'l'llOUiSM, such a condition of", pcrliaps, ninc-icntlis <>i' Uic liuniuu race the Divhie beneficence ; the Scriptural warnings and invita- tions addressed to them ; the universal redemption made for thom, or, if that were denied, the explicit Scriptural oflers of it ; their responsibility for their moral conduct, which, if alleged to be voluntary, is so, nevertheless, because their volitions are bound by an eternal decree, or, at least, by the absence of that Divine grace by which alone the will can be corrected. The inevitable salvation of the elect, according to the dogma of Fmal Perseverance, he would also insist to be logically dangerous to good morals. The philosophical predestinarian would not admit the logical pertmency of these difficulties ; it is not the province of the historian to discuss them polemically ; it is sufficient to say that such was the character of Wesley's mmd, and such the consequences which he drew from the Calvinistic theology. And yet, as we shall presently see, he was already too con scious of the peculiar mission of Methodism as a spiritual development of the Reformation, to attach fundamental im portance to the question, or make it a condition of member ship in his societies. In avowing Arminian opinions, and in giving that title to the magazine which he subsequently established,^ he did not adopt the perversions which many of the disciples of Ar minius have taught in Europe, and which have too often since been confounded with Arminianism by its opponents. He found in the writings of that great and devout theologian an evangelical system of opinions, as he thought, and Arminian- ism, as stated by the Remonstrants at the Synod of Dort, he did heartily receive, namely : 1. That God did decree to confer salvation on those who, he foresaw, would maintain their faith in Christ Jesus inviolate until death ; and, on the other hand, to consign over to eternal punishment the un- believing who resist his mvitations to the end of their lives. 2. That Jesus Christ, by his death, made expiation for the sins of all and every one of mankind ; yet that none but • He commenced the Arminian Magazine In 1778. WHITEFIELI) AND WESLEY SEPAllATE. 149 believers can become partokers of its divine benefit. 3. That no one can of himself, or by the powers of his free will, produce or generate faith in his own mind; but that man being by nature evil, and incompetent [iaeplus) both to think and to do good, it is necessary he should be born again and renewed by God, for Christ's sake, through the Holy Spirit 4. That this divine grace or energy, which heals the soul of man, perfects all that can be called truly good in him, yet that this grace compels no man against his will, though it may be repelled by his will. 5. That those who are united to Christ by faith are fiirnished with sufficient strength to overcome sin ; but that it is possible for a man to lose his faith and fall from a state of grace.^ While Wesley's mind was severely dialectic, and in some cases, doubtless, too much so, Whitefield's was quite the reverse. He seldom or never attempts a logical state- ment of his opinions ; his logic was in his heart rather than in his head ; and his feelings, happily of the purest temper, and guided by the conscience rather than the reason, usually determined his opinions. But the logic of the feelings, though the most important m ordinary life, that upon which the most responsible relations and duties are devolved by nature herself, is baffled in the presence of these speculative mysteries. An accidental bias may make a man like White- field a bigot through life, for or against them. Had White- field thought of the controversy, for the first time, while preaching with tears before twenty thousand neglected and depraved hearers in Moorfields ; had the question whether the Atonement comprehended them all, and whether all could " turn and live," come up then for an answer, he would have shouted the affirmative to the wretched multitude, and beer. an unwav^ering Armininn ever after.'' But ho saw the coQtro * Tho \aM, proposition was left iiiulociilcd nt tlio time of tho Syiiod, but adopted by the Aniiiiiiniis nllcrwiird. 8t'o Miirdook's Mouhciiu, Sevontcenlh Century. * He socins, indeed, not to bave liked tlio public preacbiiifj of Predesti- nation down to tbe lime of his breach witli Wesley. Before tlie criBis of the diaput(! lie jiroposcd silence to Wesley, and assured biiu that what- 150 HTSTORY OF METHODISM, versy from a different stanopoint. Up filt himself to have been so vile a sinner that he could not but ascribe his'salva^ tion to infinite and sovereign grace. Wesley would have granted this, but would also have asked the question, Why not exalt this sovereign grace still more by allowing that il has provided for all men? Whitefield saw thousands not moic depraved than he had been, yet unreclaimed ; hia grateful heart, therefore, assumed, not with egotism, but with contrition, that a special grace had mysteriously plucked him out from the lost multitude. " Free grace," he exclaimed, in a letter to Wesley, " free, indeed, because not to all ; but free, because God may withhold or give it to whom and when he pleases." And his ebullient spirit found so much delight in the hope of his final salvation, that the doctrine of "Final Perseverance" was eagerly seized by him, with apparently no hesitancy at its possible bad conse- quences to men of less conscientious fervor. In all his letters to Wesley, during the dispute that now occurred between them, we find but one allusion to " Reprobation ;" that was an aspect of the subject which he seemed inclined not to think of; it was " Electing Grace " which absorbed his thoughts — "Final Perseverance" — the inestimable mercy of God in rescuing even elect souls from perdition, without a reference to his severity in creating and then abandoning forever the lost masses of reprobates. He had not read, he says, a single work of Calvin ; he was " taught the doctrine of God ;" he even had "the Witness of the Spirit" respecting it, and pronounces Wesley no proper "judge of its truth," as he had not received that witness on the question.* " God him- sel£i" he says, in another letter, " God himself, I find, teaches my friends the doctrine of election. Sister M. has lately been convinced of it ; and, if I mistake not, dear and honored Mr. Wesley will be hereafter convinced also." Wesley was evet had been bis own opinions on the question he had never preached them. * See tlie correspondence, qiiito iiupartially given, by Sonthey, Life of Wesley, ohap. U. WHITEFIELD AN1> WESLEY SEPARATE. 151 affected by the tender spirit of the correspondence. He replied : " The case is quite plain ; there are bigots both for predestination and against it; God is sending a message to either side, but neither will receive it unless from one who is of their own opinion, Therefore for a time you are suf- fered to be of one opinion and I of another. But when his time is come, God will do what men cannot, namely, make us both of one mind." The prediction was fulfilled in its best sense, for, though never one in opinion, they became one in heart, and their separate courses in public life verified Wesley's opinion of the providential design of their theo- logical divergence. The dispute between them at this time is not without his- torical importance, as it doubtless led to the later controversy between Fletcher and his opponents, which has influenced Methodist opinions throughout the world, and which, it can be wished, more perhaps than hoped, may be the last great struggle on the question, before it shall be finally consigned by theologians over to the unavailing studies of metaphysi- cians, a suggestion which dogmatists will be slow to receive, but which, nevertheless, the popular good sense of Christen- dom is irresistibly forcing upon them. Tenacious as Wesley was of his personal opinions, we have said that he did not insist on the Arminian doctrines as a condition of membership in his societies. All he re^ quired was that disputes respecting them should not be ODtruded into devotional meetings by either party. His first trouble on the subject was from a member of one of the London societies, by the name of Acourt, who would debate it in the meetings of his brethren. Charles Wesley forbade his admission. He presented himself at a subse- quent meeting, when John was present, and inquired if he had been exclndod for his opinions? "Which opinions?" asked Wesley. "That of election," he replied. "I hold that a certain numl)cr are elected from eternity, and tliey must and shall be saved, and the rest of mankind must and shall he damned !" fTt> asserted that others of the society so believed 152 HISTOKY OF METHODISM. Wesley replied that he never questioned their opinions ; all he demanded was that they should " only not trouble' others by disputing about them." " Nay, but I will dispute about them," responded the hearty Calvinist ; " you are all wrong, and I am determined to set you right." "I fear," said Wesley, "that your coming with this view will neither profit you nor us." " I will go then," replied Acourt, " and tell all the world that you and your brother are false prophets, and I tell you that in a fortnight you will all be in confusion."^ Wesley was not. a man to be subdued by such logic. What induced him to take at last a decisive course respecting this controversy was the discovery that John Cennick, his "helper" at Kingswood, had attacked his Arminianism publicly. The school at Kingswood was entirely distinct from the seminary which afterward became noted there as Wesley's school for "preachers' sons." Whitefield had performed the ceremony of lay- ing its foundation stone, but left the institution immedi- ately in the hands of Wesley. " I bought the ground where it stands," says Wesley, " and paid for building it, partly from the contributions of my friends, partly from the in- come of my fellowship." ' John Cennick was employed by him as teacher, and though a layman, was authorized by him to expound the Scriptures to the society which Wesley himself had gathered in the vicinity, and which met in the seminary. Cennick was an earnest, pious young man. He first met the Wesleys in London, in 1739, and being poor, and without employment, was sent to Kingswood at the in stance of Charles Wesley. He did well there for seme time. In 1740 he dissented from the preaching of " Universal Re» demption," which, however, he had publicly approved be- fore, on a visit of Charles Wesley. He raised a party against the doctrine and his patrons. He wrote letters to Whitefield, in America, urging his immediate return to sup- press the heresy. Wesley was justly indignant at this • Wesley's Journal, June 19, 1740. » Works, vol. v, p. 28S. WHITEFIELD AND WESLEY SEPARATE. 153 treatment, from a man whom he himself employed, and who attempted to " supplant him in his own house." The harmony of the society was disturbed ; many efforts wert, made to restore it ; but Cennick was obstinate, and insisted that him- self and his adherents, while retaining their membership, jhould also "meet apart." After unavailing delays and overtures of peace, Wesley read publicly a paper declaring, "by the consent and approbation of the Band Society ol Kingswood," that Cennick and his followers "were no longer members thereof." One of the accused asserted that it was not for any strife or disorder that they were expelled, bat only for holding the doctrine of election. Wesley re- plied that they knew in their own consciences this was not the case; that there were several predestinarians in the so cieties, both in London and Bristol, nor did he " ever yet put any one out of either because he held that opinion." About fifty persons adhered to Cennick, and more than ninety tu Wesley. Cennick afterward united with the Whitefield Method ists, but did not continue long with them. He became at last a Moravian. He was a good though weak man, and his subsequent earnest and laborious life shows that he deserves more lenience than has usually been accorded to him by Methodist writers.^ These events convinced Wesley that it was time to pro- test against the Calvinistic doctrines publicly. He imme- diately preached in Bristol the most impassioned of his set mons, containing passages as eloquent as the pulpit litera- ture of our language affords.® It was printed, and was the Miird of his published discourses ; the first was issued on • Jflckflon treats him impartially : Life of Charles Wesley, chap. 8. Tlie Bccontric Mntthow Wilka published his sermons, with a " Life " prefixed, and sajs: " Ho possessed a sweet simplieity of spirit, with an ardent zeal in tlio cuuHo of liis divine Msister." • When tlio late Karl of Livei-jiool road its peroration m Sonthoy, ho declared that in his judgment it was tlio most eloquent passapo he liad ever met with in any writer, ancient or mod >rM. Jackson's Life of Chariot Wesley, chap. 8. 154 HISTORY OF METHODISM. fiis embarkation for Georgia, a farewell message to his friends on "The Ti;oubIe and Rest of Good Men';" the second was on "Salvation by Faith," preached and printed soon after his own conversion; the present discourse was on "Free Grace." It was sent by his opponents to White field, who was then in America. Whitefield wrote fr© quent letters to him, remonstrating against his opinions, but still aincerely proposing mutual peace. His intercourse with the New-England clergy had, however, deepened his interest for the Calvinistic opinions. Assisted by his American friends, he composed an answer to Wesley, and had it printed in Boston, and also in Charleston, South Carolina. On the 11th of March, 1741, Whitefield again reached England, and the next Sabbath was preaching in the open air at Kennington Common. But his reception was dis- heartening. His Calvinistic sentiments had become known by his correspondence. A letter from him against Wesley's opmions had been surreptitiously printed before his arrival, and circulated at the door of the Foundry. Wesley stood up in the desk with a copy of it in his hand, and referring to its disingenuous publication, said he would do what he be lieved his friend, the writer, would, were he present, and tore it into pieces. The congregation spontaneously did so with the copies which had been given them at the door. A violent prejudice now spread against Whitefield, and the people refused to hear him. He still wished for peace with the Wesleys. He hastened to Charles Wes- ley, who was in London, and says it would have molted any heart to have seen them weeping, "after prayer that the breach might be prevented." He soon began to believe, however, that he was sacrificing the truth by not preaching election, and when John Wesley returned to the city, Whitefield declared that they preached two dif- ferent Gospels, that he could no longer give the Wesleys the right hand of fellowship, but must preach iigainst them. When reminded that he had just before promised WHITEFIELD AND WESLEY SEIARATE. 155 and prayed for peace, ho, pronounced his promise an error, a weakness, and retracted iU° Whitefield's strength was also his weakness. The ardor rt'hich made him powerful when right, rendered him impetu ous when wrong, and he now committed some grave but tern porary errors. Ho preached against the Wesleys by name m Moorfields, not far from the Foundry, where his old friends were preaching at the same time. He addressed them a letter finding fiuilt with petty details in the chapel furniture at Kingswood ; but when approached by them, his better feelings revived. They invited him to preach at the Foundry ; yet there, before thousands of hearers, and with Charles Wesley by his side, he proclaimed the absolute de- crees in a most peremptory and offensive manner." Wes- ley had repeated interviews with him, and sought for a re- conciliation ; but the attempt was useless. Wesley protests, at a later period, that the breach was not necessary ; that those who believed Universal Redemption had no desire to separate, but those who held Particular Redemption would not hear of any accommodation. " So," he adds, " there were now two sorts of Methodists, those for particular and those for general redemption." '^ jj^ insists, at another time, that had it not been for the " manner " in which the Calvinistic party maintained their doctrine, the division might have been avoided ; that difference of doctrine need not have created any difference of affection, but Whitefield " might have lovingly held particular redemption, and we general to our lives' end."" Tluis did Methodism divide into two currents, but thereby watered a wider range of the moral wilderness. Both flowed from the same source and in the same general direc- tion. Both parties still adhered to the Church of England, availing theinselves of the historical if not literal ambiguity •• Wesley's Journal, March, 1741. " .fohn Wosley's Letter to Kov. TIioiuhh Muxflcld. London, 1778 JackHon's Lifo of (Jliarles Wesley, cliap. R. »> Wesley'w Short LliHlory ol' Methodism. Works, vol. v, p. 5i47. >» Letter l<) iMuxticM. Jack.son's Charles Wesley, chap. S. 11 156 HISTORY OF METHODISM. of its seventeenth Article. Neither jet thought of forming a distinct ecclesiastical organization, and both soon. a!ler en tered into cordial relations, though pursuing their common worlv in separate courses. Methodism, in fine, still continued to be a general evangelical movement, ostensibly within the English Giurch, though not hesitating to reach into any opening beyond it. Its history, therefore, if properly writ- ten, must still be a unit." " The anonymous author of " The Life and Times of the ConntesB of Huntington," has abused the Wesleys by many false details in his sketch of this dispute. I have not deemed it necessary to encumber my pages with them. The reader will find them fUlly answered in Jackson's Life of Charles Wesley, chap. 8. THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. 157 CHAPTER rV. THE OALVINISTIC METHODISTS. WTiitefield's Tabernacle opened — He employs Lay Preachers — Is reoon oiled with Wesley — Goes to Scotland — Wonderful Effects of his Preaching — Scenes at Cambuslang — Slight Success of Methodism in Scotland — Remarkable Scene at Moorfields — The Countess of Hun- tingdon — Whitefleld preaching at her Mansion — Noble Hearers : Chesterfield, BoliBgbroke, Walpole, Hume — The Countess erecta Chapels — Her Liberality — The School of the Prophets at Trevecca — Her Followers become Dissenters. The loss of Whitefield's popularity in London could be but temporary. His zeal and eloquence could not fail to triumph over popular disaffection. Evangelical Calvinists gathered about him, and some of them proposed to erect for him a place of worship. A lot of ground was secured near Wesley's Foundry, and the celebrated Tabernacle quickly rose upon it. The new building was immediately crowded, and, following Wesley's example, which he had before dis- approved, Whitefleld secured the assistance of lay preach- ers. Cennick and Humphreys, both of whom had been Wesley's " helpers," joined him, and soon after Howell Harris came to his aid from Wales. Though operating thus at separate batteries, and in near proximity, Wesley and Whitefleld did not long maintain opposing fires, but turned them against the common enemy. '"' All," says Whitefleld, " was wonderfully overruled for good, and for the furtherance of the Gospel." ^ They were soon personally reconciled ; cordial letters passed between them ; brotherly meetings took place, and they preached in each other's pulpit. "May you be blessed in bringing 1 Gillies's Wliitefiold, chap. 8. 168 UISTOUY OF METHODISM. Bouls to Chiist more and more," wrote Whiieficld to Charles Wesley. "Our Lord exceedingly blesses us at the Tabernacle. Behold what a happy thing it is fi,>r brethren to dwell together in unity." The poet of Methodism responded in one of his noblest lyrics.^ " Bigotry," said John Wesley, writing of Whitefield at a later date, when distinguished Calvinists were patronizing him, "bigotry camiot stand before him, but hides its head wherever he comes. My brother and I conferred with him every day ; and let the honorable men do what they please, we re- solved, by the grace of God, to go on hand in hand through honor and dishonor." It would be impossible to detail, within our appropriate limits, the marvelous labors and successes of Whitefield durh)g the three years of his present sojourn in England. Though separated from Wesley, he desired not to establish a sect ; he knew that he was not competent to do so ; he lacked the requisite legislative capacity ; but as he repre- sented Calvinistic Methodism, Calvinistic clergymen and Churches encouraged his labors. The Erskiues of Scotland, distmguished as leaders of the Scoteli Secession, in\ited him thither, and he made two excursions beyond the Tweed Defore his next return to America. The Erskines and thei^ brethren of the Associate Presbytery were staunch zealots for the Solemn League and Covenant, which forms so inter- esting a feature in not only the ecclesiastical, but the civil history, and even the romantic literature of the a)untry. They could make no compromise with English Cliurchmen, or any others who differed from themselves. Soon after his arrival at Dunfermline, where Ralph Erskine resided, Whitefield was surprised by a grave but ludicrous scene-, ludicrous by its very gravity. He fomid himself intro- duced to the presence of several venerable members of the Associate Presbytery, who proposed to proceed to busi- • Hymn for the Rev. Mr. Wliitefleld and Messrs. Wesley. See Jack- son's Life of Cliarles Wesley, cliap. 8, Enprlish edition. This spirited poem is uiifortimately omitted in the American edition. THE CALVINISTIO METHODISTS. 169 nes« ill funual scssiun. IIu inquii'cd fur what purpose. They gravely replied, to consult and set him right about Church order, and the Soleiiin League and Covenant. He assured them they might save themselves that trouble ; thai he had no difiiculties about cither subject, and to intermed die with either was not wdthm " his plan." Yielding to his devout feelings, he proceeded to relate his Christian ex- peiience, and how Providence had led him mto his present catholic course of labor. Some of them were deeply affected by the smgular narrative. Ebenezer Erskme en- treated their forbearance with him as a good man who had unfortunately been born and bred in England, and had never studied the Solemn League and Covenant. One of the Associate divines replied, that he was the less excusable on this account, for England had revolted most in regard to Church government, and he should be acquainted with the important matters in debate. Whitefield insisted that he had never made them a subject of study, being too busy with more important interests. Several of the sturdy Scotchmen repelled the hint. " Every pin in the Taber- nacle," they said, was important. He begged them to do good in their own way, and to allow him to proceed ui his. They dissented; he then entreated them to say what they would have him do. They demanded that if he could not forthwith sign the Solemn League and Covenant, he should at least preach only for them till he was better enlight- ened, for they were the people of the Lord. It was even suggested that two of their brethren should be deputed iisith him to England, to settle a Presbytery there, aud two more to accompany him to America for a similar purposj. He declined to take side with either of the Scotch par ties, but was determined to preach, as he had opportunity, for both. " If the pope himself," he said to the astonished Ralph Erskine, "if the pope himself would lend me his pulpit I would gladly declare the righteousness of Jesua Christ therein." The Seceders, absorbed by local contro 160 HISTORY OF METHODISM. v(;rsies and the Solemn League and Covenant, could not eompreheiid him, and left him to himself. One of them mounted the pulpit," and preached against the ' English Church, declaring that any one who held communion with it or with " the backslidden Church of Scotland could not be an instrument of reformation." They afterward appointed a day of fasting and prayer against him.^ He preached, however, with great success in the kiiks of some thirty towns and cities, delivering from two to seven sermons a day, and left them in a general religious revival. On his second visit, in the spring of 1742, he was re- ceived with enthusiasm. Multitudes met him at the laud- ing at Leith, weeping for joy, and welcoming him with blessings. They followed his coach to Edmburgh, and crowded around him when he alighted, pressing him m their arms. His preaching stirred the ^vhole city. The churches could not contain the people, and an amphitheater, under awnings, had to be constructed in the Park for their accommodation. He was called to the west, and made a tour of several weeks through its prmcipal towns, preach- ing daily, and leaving a profound sensation wherever he went. At Cambuslang the popular interest reached a height which was never equaled elsewhere under his labors. He preached three times on the day of his arrival to many thousands. Tlie third discourse was at nine o'clock at night, » Gillies's WLitefield, chaps. 8, 10. A violent pampMet, character- istic of the times, was issued against hira, entitled, " A Warning against rx)unteuaucmg the Ministrations of Mr. George Whitefield. Together with an Appendix upon the same Subject, wherein are shonn that Mr. Whitetie'ld is no Minister of Jesus Christ ; that his Call and Coming to Scotland are scandalous ; that his Practice is disorderly and fertile of Dis- order ; that his whole Doctrine is, and his success must be Diabolical ; so tliat People ought to avoid him from Duty to God, to the Church, to them- selves, to Fellow-Men, to Posterity, to him. By Adam Gib, Minister ol the Gospel at Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 1742." This c:irious publication is noticed in Philip's Whitefield, p. 27S, American edition. A copy of it (the only one perhaps in America) is in the Library of the General Theo- logical Seminiuy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, New-York. THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. 161 and continued till eleven, " amid such a commotion," he says, "as scarcely ever was heard of." A fellow-clergyman r©> lieved him at eleven, and preached on till one in the morn- ing. All night the voice of prayer and praise could be heard in the fields. This remarkable introduction soon brought all the surrounding population to hear him. A " brae " or hill near the manse, was occupied instead of the church. * The people," he writes, " seem to be slain by scores. They are carried off, and come into the house like soldiers wounded in and carried off a field of battle. Their cries and agonies are exceedingly affecting." At another time a great sacra- mental occasion was held, in imitation of Hezekiah's Pass- over. More than twenty thousand people were present. Three tents were set up for the administration of the Supper, and twenty clergymen assisted in the service. There was pi'eaching all day to such as could not get access to the ad- ministrators, and at nightfall Whiteficid preached to the whole mass. Though usually occupying but about half an hour in his sermons, he now stood up for an hour and a naif, speaking with irresistible power. The next morning, he says, " I preached again to near as many, but such a uni- versal stir I never saw before. The motion fled as swift as lightning from one end of the auditory to the other. You might have seen thousands bathed in tears, some at the same time wringing their hands, others almost swooning, and others crying out and mourning over a pierced Saviour." By these and subsequent labors in Scotland did White- field promote the mission of Methodism to that land. In no part of Europe had the Reformation more thoroughly wrought its work among the common people. An intelli gent, frugal, and religious population, they needed, less thaL any other, the provocations of zeal which are usually fur- nished by new sects. Wesley marveled at their insuscepti- bility to Methodism; but Methodism at this time was more important as a general moral movement, pervading the old churchas and the whole public mind, than as a sectarian de- velopment more or less organizcMl. In the former sense it Vol, I.— 11 162 HISTORY OF METHODISM. did a good work in Scotland. The revivals under VVhito field's preaching spread new energy through mych of the Kirk, and since his day Scotland has shared largely that general influence of the movement which has been man ifest in the religious progress of the whole United Kingdom. Her increased spiritual life, her foreign missions, her scarcely paralleled fidelity to the independence and integrity of the Church in the organization of her grand "Free Kirk," show that she has felt profoundly the religious spirit of our times. Arminian Methodists may condemn her tenacious Calvinism, but they should remember that Methodism itself proposes to ignore the Calvinistic controversy as a condition of Church communion. If Methodism regrets its little prog ress in Scotland, it may at least console itself that there is less reason for this regret there than in any other country in the world. At London Whitefield could not long be content with nis spacious Tabernacle, but took again the open field. The most riotous scenes at Moorfields were usually during the Whitsun holidays. The devils then held their rendezvous there, he said, and he resolved "to meet them in pitched battle." He began early in order to secure the field before the greatest rush of the crowd. At six o'clock in the morn- ing he found ten thousand people waiting impatiently foi the sports of the day. Momiting his field pulpit, and assured that he " had for once got the start of the devil," he soon drew the whole multitude aromid him. At noon he again took the field. Between twenty and thirty thousand swarmed upon it. He described it as in complete possession of Beel zebub, whose agents were in full motion. Drummers, trumpeters, meny-andrews, masters of puppet shows, exhib itors of wild beasts, players, were all busy in entertaining their respective groups. He shouted his text, " Great ia Diana of the Ephesians," and boldly charged home upon the vice and peril of their dissipations. The craftsmen were alarmed, and the battle he had anticipated and challenged now fliirly began. Stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and dead cata THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. 168 were thrown at him. " My soul," he says, '■ was aiuong lions ;" but before long he prevailed, and the immense mul- titude "were turned into lambs." At six in the eveniu'f o he was again in his field pulpit. " I came," he says, " and 1 saw ; but what ] Thousands and thousands more than l)o- fore." He rightly judged that Satan could not brook such repeated assaults in such circumstances, and never, per- haps, had they been pushed more bravely home against the very citadel of his power. A harlequin was exhibiting and trumpeting on a stage, but was deserted as soon as the people saw Whitefield, in his black robes, ascend his pulpit. He " lifted up his voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound." At length they approached nearer, and the merry -and rew, attended by others, who complained that the} had taken many poundsjess that day on account of the preach- ing, got upon a man's shoulders, and advancing toward the pulpit, attempted several times to strike the preacher with a long, heavy whip, but always tumbled do\vn by the vio- lence of his motion. The mob next secured the aid of a re- cruiting sergeant, who, with music and straggling followers, marched directly through the crowd before the pulpit. VVhitefield knew instinctively how to manage the passions and whims of the people. He called out to them to make way for the king's officer. The sergeant, with assumed offi- cial dignity, and with drum and fife, passed through the opened rauks, which closed immediately after him, and left the solid mass still in possession of the preacher. A third onslaught wa^ attempted. Roaring like wild beasts on the outskirts of the assembly, a large number combined for the purpose of sweeping through it in solid column. They bore a long pole for their standard, and came on with the souiid of drum and menacing shouts, but soon quarreled among themselves, threw down their pole and dispersed, leaving many of their number behind, " who were brought over to join the besieged party."* At times, however, the tumult rose like the noise of many waters, dro\ming the « Gilliua'u Whitefield, chap. ». 164 HISTORY OF METHODISM. preacher's voice; he would then call upon his brethren near him to unite with hiia in singing, until the clamorous host were again charmed into silence. He was determined not to retreat defeated ; preaching, praying, singing, he kept his ground until night closed the strange scene. It was one of the grefitest of his field days. He had won the victory, and ^loved off with his religious friends to celebrate it at night in the Tabernacle ; and great were the spoils there exhibited. No less than a thousand notes were afterward handed up to him for prayers, from persons who had been brought " under conviction " that day ; and, soon after, upward of three hun- dred were received into the society at one time. Many of them were "the devil's castaways," as he called them. Some ne had to marry, for they had been living together without marriage ; and " numbers that seemed to have been bred up for Tyburn were at that time plucked as brands from the burning." It may be doubted whether the history of Chris- tianity affords a more encouraging example of the power of the Gospel over the rudest minds, and in the most hope- less circumstances. The moral sense will respond to Divine truth from the depths of the most degraded soul, and amid the wildest tumults of mobs. The response may not be heard ; it may be stifled ; but it is felt. Apostles knew the fact, and ancient heathenism fell before the confidence with which it inspired their ministrations. The charge of enthu- siasm applies doubtless to these labors of Whitefield ; but it IS a compliment rather than a detraction. In less urgent circumstances such enthusiasm might appear to be fanaticism, but here it was legitimate. How were these heathen masses to be otherwise reached by the Gospel 1 Thousands of them never entered the churches of London. Clothed in rags, their very persons labeled with the marks of vice and wi'etch- edness, they would have hardly found admission into them had they sought it. Moorfields must be invaded if it were to be conquered, and no less energetic invasions than those which Whitefield and Wesley made there, could be success- fill. Thev were successful ; and the suppression, at last, of THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. 165 the enormous scenes of that and similar resorts in England, is attributable greatly to the moral triumphs of Methodism among the degraded classes of the common people. Besides his labors in London and Scotland, Whit( field traveled extensively in England before his next embarka- tion for Georgia, in 1744. His popularity had fully re- turned. At Bristol assemblies more numerous than ever attended his preaching. Even in the minor towiis ten oi twelve thousand were his frequent estimates of his heai'crs, for the population of all neighboring villages usually thronged to the places of his out-door sermons. He made repeated tours through Wales, and each time with increased success. In one of these visits, employing three weeks, he traveled four hundred English miles, preached forty sermons, and spent three days in attending Associations of the new socie- ties. " At seven in the morning," he v.-rites, " have I seen perhaps ten thousand from difl'crent parts, in the midst of a sermon, crying Gogonniant hendigedig^ (Glory ! Blessed !) ready to leap for joy." " The work begun by Mr. Jones spreads far and near in North and South Wales." Though Whitelield designed not to establish a Methodist sect, circumstances compelled him, after his separation from Wesley, to give a somewhat organized form to the results of his labors among the Calvinistic adherents who gathered about him. Lady Betty IListiugs had patronized the little band of Methodists at Oxford ; Lady Margaret Hastings, her sister, had adopted, through her influence, the ^Methodist sentiments, and afterward married Ingaam, who was one of the Oxford Methodists, and the companion of Wesley in Georgia. Her influence over her sister-in-law Selina, the Countess of Huntingdon, led the countess, during a serious sickness, to a religious life, and to a strong sympathy with tne Methodists. Bishop Benson, who had uidained While- field, and had been tutor to her husband, the Earl of llinil- ingdon, was called by the latter to i-estore his wife to a "saner" mind, The good bishop iailed in the attempt, and expressed regret that he had ever laid his hand on White- 166 HISTORY OF MKTnODISM. field. " Mark my words, my lord," replied the countess, " when upon your dying bed, that will be one of the ordinar tions upon which you will reflect with pleasure." The pre- diction was fulfilled. The bishop, when he came to die, sent Whitefield a present of ten guineas, and asked an interest in his prayers. Lady Huntingdon, though remotely related to the royal family, and moving in the highest circles of aristocratic life, frequented the Moravian societies in London, and at the separation of Wesley from them, co-operated with the Methodist party. She invited him to her residence at Donnington Park, where he often preached. She adopted heartily his doctrine of Christian Perfection. "The doc- trine,'' she wrote him, " I hope to live and die by ; it is ab- solutely the most complete thing I know."^ She encouraged him in his extraordinary labors, and especially in the pro- motion of a lay ministry as the great necessity of the times. Her Calvinistic opinions led her to patronize Whitefield when he separated from Wesley, and her talents, wealth, and influence placed her at the head of Calvinistic Method- ism ; but she endeavored to secure a good understanding between the great evangelists. She wrote to each, recom- mending their closer co-operation, and not without effect. Whitefield preached in Wesley's chapel, Wesley reading the prayers; the next Sunday Wesley officiated at the Taber- nacle, assisted by Whitefield, and twelve hundred persons received the Lord's Supper at the conclusion of the sermon. The reconciliation was further strengthened by a powerful discourse to an overfljwing assembly at Wesley's chapel the following day, by Harris, the Welsh colaborer of both the great leaders.^ Their personal friendship remained um- iaterrupted during the rest of their lives. "Thanks be w God," wrote the countess, " for the love and unanimity which have been displayed on this occasion. May the God of peace and harmony unite us all in the bond of aflTeotion." It is not irrelevant to notice here, though with the anlicipa- » Lady Iluutiiigdon Portrayed, chap. 8. New York, 1857. ' Life and Times of Polixia, Countess of Hniitinedon, vo!. i, chap 8. TUK CALVINISTIC METHODISTS. 167 tion of some dates, the early development of this part of the Methodistic movement. At the death of her husband Lady Huntingdon devoted her life to religious labors, and in 1748 invited Whitefield to preaeh in Hit house at Chel- sea, near I^ondon, hitherto a resort fnr the highest classes of the fashionable and aristocratic world. She soon after appointed him one of her chaplains. Paul preached privately to those that were of reputation, thought Whitefield ; be therefore concurred in her ladyship's proposal to combine with his public labors among the crowds at the Tabernacle, ;ind the ten thousands at Moiu-fields, private sermons at the Chelsea mansion. Notable men heard there the truth from his eloquent lips. Chesterfield listened to him with delight, and gave him one of his courtly compliments: "Sir, I will not tell you what I shall tell others, how 1 approve you.'" TTe opened for the evangelist his chapel at Bretby ITall, and several of his noble relatives were claimed by Whito- (ield as his spiritual trophies ; his wife and her sister, the Countess Delitz, died in the faith. Horace Walpolc heard him with admiration, though his rampant wit trilled with him behind his back. Hume listened with wonder, ami > Lady Huntingdon Portrayed, chap. 8. Glazebrook became one of Lady Huntingdon's preachers, and subsequently, by the aid of Fletcher &nd the countess, obtained ordination in the Established Church. He died vicar of Belton, Leicestershire. He was distu gnished foi his piety and usefulness, and also for his satirical humor. Works from his pen on extemporary preaching, uifant baptism, and other .subjects,^ as also a posthumous volume of sermons, were published. A memoir of him appeared in the Evangeliciil Eegister (England) in 1836. 'I It is siguifioout, however, that Doddridge, Watts, and other great P\sscutcrs in the early times of Methodism, showed publicly but little sympathy with "^VTiitefield, though they acknowledged much privately. i liey forfeited their right to an honorable place in the historj' of the new movement. T!ie rcison of the fact may be seen in Philip's " Life and THE CALVINISTIC METHODISTS 171 ner preachers, was strongly attached to the Church of England. They wished not to be classed with Dissenters ; but in order to protect her chapels from suppression, or appropriation by the Established Church, she had to avail herself, in 1779, of the "Toleration Act," a law by which all religious societies that would not be subject to the established ecclesiastical power, could control their own chapels by an avowal, direct or virtual, of Dissent. Her " Connection " thus took its place among the Dissenting Churches, and Romaine, Townsend, Venn, and many others of her most influential colaborers belonging to the Establishment, ceased to preach in her chapels. At the extreme age of eighty-four this remarkable woman died, uttering with her last breath : " My work is done. I have nothing tc do but to go to my Father." She left twenty thousand dollars for charities, and the residue of her fortune for the support of sixty-four chapels which she had helped to build in various parts of the kingdom. No one of her sex, perhaps, in the history of the Church, cer tainly none of modern times, has done more by direct labors and liberality for the promotion of genuine religion. Times of Whiteflcld," chap. 10. They were cudcavoring to repeat the Boheme of " comprohension " which Bates, Manton, and Baxter iiad attempted in vain with Bishop Stillingfleet. Sympathy toward Method- ism might have oomproniiscd them with the Estabhwlimont, whose favor tliey were seeking. The facts, as given by Philip, though nnfortunate for fJieso great and good men, are irrefbtable. 12 172 HISTORY OF METHODISM. CHAPTER V. TRAVELS AND LABORS OF THE WESLEY8 FROM 1741 TO 1744. Lay Preaching — Thomas Maxfield — Susanna Wesley — Her Death — Wesley itinerating — Introduction of Class-Meetings — Jonn Nelson — His History — Wesley \isit8 him in Yorkshire — Wesley in the North of England — Newcastle — Its degraded Poor — Wesley preaching on the Tombstone of his Father — General Kules of the United Societies — Their Catholicity — Physical Phenomena of the Excitement at New- castle — Wesley considers them Demoniacal — Charles Wesley mobbed at Sheffield — He goes to Cornwall — Is mobbed at St. Ives — John Wesley and John Nelson in Cornwall — Their Privations — Wesley mobbed at Wednesbury — Charles Wesley at Wedncsbury — Progress of Methodism. We have followed Whitefield in his ministerial travels from the date of his separation from Wesley in 1741, to his embarkation for America in 1744. This interval was filled with extraordinary itinerant labors by the Wesleys and their coadjutors, and was followed by a memorable event, the first session of the Wesleyan Methodist Con- ference. Notwithstanding the disturbances occasioned by the CaJ- vinistic dispute, and the separation of Whitefield, the year 1742 was attended with increased success. It was, however, a period of severer ti-ials than the Methodist evangelists had hitherto encotmtered. Methodism had achieved moral miracles among the degraded colliers of Kingswood. It could point for its noblest demonstrsr tion to such abysses of popular degradation, into which it had borne the cross, as almost into the gates of htll. its satirists were compelled to acknowledge its mar- velous and salutary power over classes which had been PROGRESS: 1741-1744. 178 o«">nsidered hopelessly beyond the reach of any moral influ- ence that either the Church or the Dissenters could then exert. But the lower classes of England generally were sunk in scarcely less degradation, and there were espe cially other mhiing regions of the kingdom, as Newcastle and Cornwall, whose demoralization was notoriously ex- treme. Wesley and his colaborers resolved to invade them at any risk. They knew that in the condition of these districts, at the time, violent opposition must be ex- pected. The magistrates would probably be hostOe; the clergy, incapable in their stately churches and formalism of reaching the wretched multitudes, would probably de- nounce the intruders, a probability which was found to be too true; but what were all such consequences, compared with the results of the continued moral neglect of these perishing masses 1 The evangelical itinerants directed their course, therefore, toward the mining populations of the north and west, prepared for mobs, and, if need be, for martyrdom. We shall see that they recoiled not from either, but steadily pushed forward their conquests, amid scenes which sometimes resembled the tumults of battle- fields. Hitherto Wesley's lay "helpers" had been but "exhort ers," and readers and " expounders" of the Scriptures; but **lay preaching" was now formally begun. Thomas Max- field, occupying the desk of the Foundry in Wesley's absence, had been led to deviate from these restrictions. Wesley received a letter at Bristol informing him of the fact. Hi8 prejudices for "church order" were still strong, and he hastened to London, with no little alarm, to check the new irregularity. His mother was still at hand, however, to guide him. Retired in the parsonage of the Foundry, linger- ing at the verge of the grave, and watching unto prayer over the marvelous developments which were occurring in the religious world around her, through the instrumentality of her family^ she read the indications of the times with a wiser •sagacity than her son, and w>e now to accomplish her lust 174 HISTORY OP METHODISM. oontroHiiio- agency in iIk; Methodist niovenieut, and to intro ducc un innovation hy which, more than hy any other fact in its ministerial economy, it has been sustained and extended ni the world. She perceived on his arrival that liis counte- nance expressed dissatisfaction and anxiety, and inquhed the Ciiuse, " Tliomas Maxfield," he replied, with unusual abrupt- ness, " has turned preacher, I find." She reminded him of her own sentiments agamst lay preaching, and that he could not suspect her of favoring anything of the kind. But take care, she added, what you do respecting that young man ; he is as surely called of God to preach as you are. She counseled him to ascertain what had been the fruits of Max- field's preachhig, and to hear him also himself He heard him : " It is the Lord, let Ilim do what seemeth to Him good," was all he could further say, and Thomas Maxfield became the first of that host of itinerant lay preachers which has since carried the standard of the Gospel more triumph- antly over the world than any other class of the modern Christian ministry. Maxfield was not the first of Wesley's lay assistants, but the first of his lay preachers. John Cennick and others probably preceded him in the former capacity. Wesley, in his last Journal, mentions Joseph Humphrys as being the first lay preacher that assisted him " in England, in the year 1738," but doubtless refers to him as an exhorter and expounder, for his scruples in the case of Maxfield prove that he would not have tolerated formal preaching by Humphrys at that earlier date ; and in the Conference Minutes of 1766, he names Maxfield as the first layman who desired to help him " as a son in the Gospel." " Soon after," he adds, "there came a second, Thomas Richards, and a third, Thomas Westall." Lady Huntingdon, also, had the good sense to encourage this important innovation. She heard Maxfield, and wrote to Wesley in the warmest terms respiting him. " He is," she said, " one of the greatest instances of God's peculiar favor that I know. He has raised from the stones one to sit PROGEESS: 1741-1744. 175 among the princes of his people ; he is my astonishment, j how is God's power shown in weakness!"^ Having lingered till her seventy-third year, counseling and encouraging her sons, and having at last aided in secur- Ing the prospects of Methodism indefinitely, if not for all time, by the introduction of a lay ministry. Susanna Wes- ley died this year on the premises of the Foundry, within sound of the voices of prayer and praise which were ascend- big almost daily from that memorable edifice — the first Methodist chapel opened in the world, the scene of the organ i zation of the first of the "United Societies," and of the first session of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. It was a befitting place for the departure of the mother of the Wes- leys from the church on earth to the church in heaven. She had, says Wesley, no doubt, or fear, or any desire but to depart and be with Christ.^ He and five of her daughters stood around her bed when she expired, on the 23d of July, 1742. When no longer able to speak, but apparently still conscious, her look, calm and serene, was fixed upward, while they commended her to God in prayer. She died without pain, and at the moment of her departure her children, gathering close around her, sung as she had requested with her last words, " a psalm of praise to God." Followed by an innumerable concourse of people, Wesley committed her remains to the grave, among the many illustrious dead of Bunhill-fields. Wesley's lay ministry comprised during the year no less than twenty-three itinerants, besides several lociil preachers.' They were distributed among his increasing societies, and traveled and preached continually in the adjacent towns and villages, he himself affording them in his incessant labors an example which none of them could exceed. He niinJe a > Moore's Life of Wesley, IV, 3. Life and Times of Lady Ihiutingdon, vol. i, chap. 3. ThiB writer intimates that she induced Maxlield to take tliis new step. " Journul, .July, 1742. 3 Smith's History of Methodism. II, 2. Mylcs's Chronological Eianarf ol the Methodists, ehup. 11. 176 HISTORY OF METHODISM. rapid tour in Wales during the early part of the year, preach- ing often in the op'^n air, and assailed by mobs,, but was successful in Imilding up and multiplying the societies. He visited Bristol repeatedly, and formed there the first " Metho- dist clHss-meeting," and, on returning to London, introduced the same improvement into the metropolitan societies. ■* This," he says, " was the origin of our classes in London, for which I can never sufficiently praise God. The unspeak able usefulness of the institution has ever since been more and more manifest." The Watchnight was also held this year for the first time in the London congregations. Under Wesley's first sermon in Moorfields John Nelson, an honest Yorkshire mason, of extraordinary character and powers of mind, had received the truth, and having returned to his home in Birstal, was now producing no little sensation by his a\hortations and prayers among his rustic neighbors. Wesley set out in May for Yorkshire, to visit and direct him. Nelson had led an upright life from his youth, being trained in steady habits of morality if not piety, by religious parents. His faculties were strong, and marked not only by good common sense, but an aptitude to grapple with those agonizing problems respecting the soul and its destiny, evil and good, which the greatest minds can neither solve nor evade. He had a humble but a happy home, a good wife, good wages, good health, and a stout English heart; but though addicted to no immoralities, he was distressed by the sense of moral wants, which his life failed to meet. " Surely," he said, " God never made man to be such a rid- dle to himself, and to leave him so."* Something he be- lieved there must be in true religion to meet these wants of the soul, otherwise man is more unfortimate than the brute that perishes. Absorbed in such meditations, this imtutored mechanic wandered in the fields after the work of the day, discussing to himself questions which had employed and en- nobled the thoughts of Plato in the groves of the Cephissus, * Nelsou'a Journal, p. 12, American edition. PKOGliESS: 1741-1744. 177 and agitated by the anxieties that liad stirred the souls of Wesley and his studious associates at Oxford. His con- duct was a mystery to his less thoughtful fellow-workmen. He refused to share in their gross indulgences ; they cursed him because he would not drink as they did. He bore their insults with a calm philosophy; but havuig as "brave a neart as ever Englishman was blessed with,"^ he would not allow them to infringe on his rights ; and when they took away his tools, determined that if he would not drink with them he should not work while they were carousing, he fought with several of them untU they were content to let him alone in his inexplicable gravity and courage. He went also from church to church, for he was still a faithful Churchman, but met no answer to his profound questions. He visited the chapels of all classes of Dissenters, but the quiet of the Quaker worship could not quiet the voice that spoke thi'ough his conscience, and the splendor of the Ro- man ritual soon became but irksome pomp to him. Ha tried, he tells us, all but the Jews, and hoping for nothing from them, resolved to adhere steadily to the Church, re- gulating his life with strictness, spending his leisure in read- ing and prayer, and leaving his final (ate unsolved. White- field's eloquence at Moorfields, however, attracted him thither, but it did not meet his wants. He loved the great orator, he tells us, and was willing to fight for him against the mob, but his mind only sunk deeper into perplexity. He became morbidly despondent ; he slept little, and