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John Wesley - Evangelist
Chapter 7 - A Decade of Evangelistic Toil (1741-1750)
THE MORAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY
BEFORE entering more fully upon the record of Wesley, s evangelistic career, it is needful briefly to consider the moral and religious state of the country, which called so loudly for the work he was raised up to accomplish. The story of the nation's degeneracy has been so often told, that it tends almost to weariness to repeat it. But it has been well observed that justice to a reformer can never be done until the tendencies against which his effects are directed are well understood. It is not difficult to fix upon definite conditions of the national life of the time, which made reformation an absolute necessity, if the nation was not to suffer from those consequences which take the form of judgment, and which so frequently follow upon gross degenerations of human society. There is a common consensus of testimony that, in the earlier decades of the eighteenth century, England presented the appearance of a deplorable degradation in the national manners, affecting not only one but all sections of society; and showing itself, not merely in a few details of national life, but in many, the results of a process of decline which had been stealthily advancing.
With almost unvarying voice our best historians of the last century represent the preceding one as having reached the lowest conditions of civilized corruption, and their testimony is supported by innumerable contemporary records. Wesley was himself a credible witness, and his account, written at this time in the first part of his, Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, is fully corroborated by many contemporary and subsequent Writers. Many incidents in his history, as we have already seen, and as we shall further see in the course of this narrative, throw into strong relief the ignorance and gross sinfulness of the manses of the people.
It is not possible under the imperative limitations of these pages to enter minutely into the details of the national degeneracy; but this is the less necessary, as full accounts are to be found in all the histories of the time. A few examples must suffice.
The authorized teachers of religion were many of them deplorably deficient in either good principles or loftiness and purity of character' Within the Church heresy was rife, and moral conviction was lacking, or where not lacking was feeble; and even amongst the best of her sons the principles of the Reformation were widely departed from. Alas l the fountains of moral influence were not pure. One of the bishops of the time says: 'I cannot look on without the deepest concern, when I see the imminent ruin hanging over the Church, and, by consequence, over the whole Reformation. The outward state of things is black enough, God knows; but that which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward state into which we are unhappily fallen.' He deplores the condition alike of the clergy and the candidates for Holy Orders. 'The case is not much better,' he says, ' in many who, having got into Orders, come for institution, and cannot make it appear that they have read the Scriptures, or any other good book, since they were ordained.'
Less surprise will be excited by the above statement when it is remembered that, as Justin McCarthy affirms, in those days, 'Men took Orders with no thought of the sanctity of their calling, of the solemn service it exacted, of its awful duties and inexorable demands. They wished merely to keep famine from the door, to have food and fire and shelter, and they took Orders as under other conditions they would have taken the King's shilling, with no more feelings of reverence for the black cassock than for the scarlet coat.' With this the testimony of a late bishop painfully coincides:—' All over England, country livings were often filled by hunting, shooting, gambling, drinking, card-playing, swearing, ignorant clergymen, who cared neither for law nor gospel, and utterly neglected their parishes. When they did preach, they either preached to empty benches, or else the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed.'
An acute observer on the side of orthodoxy noticed that there was at this time little sceptical speculation in England, because there was but little interest in any theological question; and a great sceptic described the nation as settled into the most cool indifference with regard to religious matters that was to be found in any nation in the world. Latitudinarianism had spread widely, but almost silently, through all religious bodies, and dogmatic teaching was almost excluded from the pulpit. In spite of occasional outbursts of popular fanaticism, a religious languor fell over England, as it had fallen over the Continent.
William Law describes the country as 'a Christian kingdom of pagan vices, along with a mouth-belief of an Holy Catholic Church and Communion of Saints.' Canon Overton says, 'This description very accurately portrayed the state of England. It was a Christian kingdom, inasmuch as it had not rejected Christianity as an historical faith; on the contrary, I imagine that at few periods has belief, in one sense, been more general than it was at this time, just after the utter collapse of Deism. But it was full of pagan vices. Law hardly drew too dark a picture when he said, "There is not a corruption or depravity of human nature, no kinds of pride, wrath, envy, malice, and self-love, no sorts of hypocrisy and cheating, no wantonness of lust in every kind of debauchery, but are as common all over Christendom as towns and villages."' 'As a proof of this,' he adds, in a note, 'see Rapin, Smollett, Horace Walpole, Secker's Charges, Wesley's Journals, etc., passim. In fact, the almost unanimous voice of all contemporary writers echoes the dreary wail.'
Lecky, who has given minute consideration to the national history of the eighteenth century, has portrayed with painful minuteness the condition of the manners of the age, and his dark details are confirmed by many concurrent testimonies.
That the opening years of the century witnessed the greatest inactivity and degradation of the two Universities is made obvious by many writers, and, as the subject has been already referred to, it need not be further considered. But is it any wonder that the moral condition and the intellectual attainments of the bulk of the clergy were so low when the state of college life was so deplorable?
Moreover, in the Presbyterian seminaries Arianism was slowly deepening into Socinianism, and the religious societies which, in the previous century, had promised to exert a widely beneficial influence had unhappily sunk into comparative insignificance.
A latent scepticism and widespread indifference prevailed everywhere amongst the more educated classes. The old religion seemed everywhere loosening its hold upon the minds of men, and it had often no great influence even on its defenders. Butler, in the preface to his Analogy, declared that 'it had come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious.' He speaks elsewhere of 'the general decay of religion in this nation, which is now observed by every one, and has been for some time the complaint of all serious persons.'
The Court, which is always so influential for good or evil upon the conduct and manners of the people generally, was, in the time now under review, in a grievously immoral condition; its coarse corruption during the reign of the two Georges is matter of common notoriety. And down through the several grades into which human society is necessarily divided the fatal evils: of immoral living were prevalent.
Amongst the ruling classes there was a low standard of political honour; political Corruption, indeed, was perhaps the most glaring vice of English society. It is said that only some half a dozen of the members of Parliament attended public worship, The manners and tastes of the country gentry were often to the lowest degree coarse and illiterate; the bulk of the country squires Vegetated on their estates, cut off from communion with the world, without an occupation but that of hunting, or an ambition but that of being the deepest sot of the quorum.
If such was the condition of the gentry, no wonder that the lower orders, stimulated by the example of their 'betters,' and unrestrained by either religious principles or moral training, should so far descend as to warrant the period being described as one of social barbarism.
The drama has always exerted a powerful influence in moulding the taste and manners of the people. The profligacy of the stage, during the generation that followed the Restoration, can hardly be exaggerated. The theatres were sources of great corruption, the English stage being far inferior to the French in decorum, modesty, and morality.
The prevailing coarseness of fashionable life and sentiment was but little mitigated by the Press. The writings of Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Coventry, and Smollett are sufficient to illustrate the great difference which, in this respect, separated the first half of the eighteenth century from our own day.
One of our recent historians remarks, 'The Church was absolutely out of touch with the great bulk of the people. The poor and the ignorant were left quietly to their own resources. The clergymen were not, indeed, by any means a body of men wanting in personal morality, or even in religious feeling; but they had little or no religious activity, because they had little or no religious zeal. They performed perfunctorily their perfunctory duties, and that, as a rule, was all they did .... Atterbury, Burner, Swift, all manner of writers who were themselves ministering to the Church of England, unite in bearing testimony to the torpid condition into which the Church had fallen .... Things were still worse in the Church of Ireland. Hardly a pastor of that Church could spell three words of the language of the Irish people.'
Turn where we will in our survey of the nation, we encounter a state of things the most deplorable, and at the same time the most portentous. From the highest estates in the land—the Court, the Parliament, the Church, the schools of learning, the rich landed proprietors—down to the traders and the great populace, all present features which Call loudly for the advent of the religious reformer. It is Painful even to imagine what might have been the issue had not an arrest been put upon this process of moral decay.
Honourable exceptions were to be found among both clergy and laity in the Establishment, and amongst the Dissenters — the faithful ones who mourned over the national debasement, but were powerless to grapple with it. They shone like stars in a dark night; but what the nation needed was the bright light of a morning's sun. Now, when the darkness was the deepest, that light arose. When the moral condition of the country seemed to be nearing its lowest ebb, and the people to be approaching the utmost limit of degradation, it was then that it pleased Divine Providence to raise up suitable agents, fitted to arrest the downward tendency, and to inaugurate a new era. By a most remarkable process of preparation, as the previous pages will have shown, were the servants of the Divine will made ready for their high calling. Individual endowment, high culture or peculiar gifts, a personal regeneration, a severe religious discipline, habits of self-denial approaching austerity, a fearless intrepidity, indomitable zeal, and fervent enthusiasm, together with an utter unworldliness and the most deeply rooted faith in their mission, in their truth, and in the Divine co-operation—God working with them—were amongst the high qualities which fitted these devoted men to be suitable instruments for the accomplishment of a great moral and spiritual reformation.
Attention is arrested by the wonderful work of reclamation which Wesley and his fellow-labourers began, and to so surprising an extent carried out, but of which work he must ever be considered the chief leader and the chief actor. And that, not merely because his career was longer than theirs, nor that he was endowed in a higher degree than they ,with the qualifications needed for the head of a great work; but mainly because of his gigantic and varied labours, his irrepressible activity, and his unswerving persistence in the use of the most effective measures. He was not 0nly the chief leader of the movement; he was the soul of it. In doing honour to Wesley, however, it is not needful to hide from view his coadjutors, or to throw their work into the shade. A fragile instrument in the Divine hand, fitted, called, and used by a Divine power, his work was very great. But others also were called and qualified; and right gladly did he welcome them, one and all, whoever could render the smallest aid. Never was a leader in a great enterprise freer from jealousy of any honour which his co-workers gained. Whitefield, with his spiritualized dramatic power, his self-consuming labour, and his brilliant success; Charles Wesley, not only the chosen hymnist for them all, but a far mightier preacher than he is generally supposed to have been—perhaps in his earlier course not a whit behind either of the other two; Fletcher, later on, with his seraphic spirit, his powerful pen, and his fervant labour; the gradually widening circle of sympathetic clergymen and others who aided him in the work; and not least the itinerating 'lay helpers,' a noble band of men, toiling in heroic service, and often penetrating where the almost ubiquitous chief could not go ever ready to do his bidding, as he, with a general's skill, disposed them over the wide field of conflict; those of the lay preachers who were not set apart for the work, but who, as they were able, followed their trades and preached their sermons in their own neighbourhood, and hence were called' local preachers ;' the needful leaders of the 'classes' of believers, among whom were many godly, useful, and honoured women; the stewards who took charge of all financial affairs; and many others, each contributing according to his ability to the carrying on of the great campaign—all were welcomed, all were duly recognized and honoured, and even loved, for their work's sake.
But Wesley was the leader. He was acknowledged as such, even at Oxford, immediately on his joining the 'godly club,' and his position was never disputed; and he was the chief worker. None did so much as he. He travelled more, he preached more, he wrote more than any of them. It is his work that these pages are designed to illustrate. He stands before us as the great champion in this holy campaign, with his unparalleled labours, his great powers of endurance, his unwavering fidelity, and with the conviction deepening and settling in his soul that he was the messenger of God to a benighted people. To this work he devoted his entire strength and time without hasting, and equally Without resting. Like many of his co-workers, he endured 'hardship, fatigue, calumny, and brutal treatment at the hands of fierce mobs. Like a brave captain, he was in the thickest of the fight, never hesitating to take the place of the greatest danger or of the greatest toil. He preached from early morning till the shades of night began to fall; I he pressed on to his preaching stations in all weathers and at all hours, having his plans in his pocket, his books and papers in his saddle-bags, or on the shelves fitted up in his chaise—his travelling 'machine.' His pen was as ready as his tongue, astonishing all who know the extent of his writings; his letters were innumerable. The originals or copies of upwards of two thousand of these fugitive leaves have been preserved to this day.
Amongst the many qualities that distinguished him, not the least was his indomitable steadfastness of purpose. It will have been observable to the readers of the previous pages how many and how great obstacles presented themselves in his path; but they were powerless to divert him from it. It is still more observable how many causes for discouragement seemed to be continually arising around him. But it is equally surprislng that they had so little effect upon him. He did not abate his labours in the slightest degree on account of them. The relapse of converts, in the very unfavourable circumstances in which they were placed, seemed but to spur him to fresh endeavours to reclaim the ones add to defend the faithful, The defection of friends', no more than the open antagonism of his enemies, diverted his steps from his course—no, not for an hour. He was content to standalone, sustained by the deep and immovable conviction that, as he was called to his work by a Divine authority', so he would be upheld by a Divine support.'
It is not hour power to trace his steps through the long years, and to keep pace with him in his rapid passage from town to town and from village to village, along the 250,000 miles that careful estimates give as the extent of his travelling over these isles, in the one great service of calling upon a slumbering people to awake and arise, that Christ might give them light. So minute a record is impossible, though the materials are to a large extent at hand. To some degree this has been done hitherto, in order to give an idea of the multiplicity and variety of his occupations, and of his ceaseless devotion to the great work he had in hand. Subsequent statements must be more general, noting only the more striking incidents and whatever may specially indicate the development of what Wesley was accustomed to call 'the Work of God,' for how interesting soever the individual incidents may be it would weary us to peruse the account of them. What was it, then, patiently to accomplish them!
This year, with the exception of about a month at Oxford, three weeks in Wales, and one week in the Midlands, Wesley divided his time in almost equal proportions between London and Bristol. Charles Wesley alternated with him though he preached more at Bristol than in London.
In the closing days of 1740, we saw the first streaks of cloud in the partial defection of Wesley's valuable lay helper at Kingswood—John Cennick. The following year opened amidst alternations of joyous exultation at the manifested power of God, and sorrowful indications of the frailty of man. Assembling all the Bands of both Bristol and Kingswood, Wesley related what God had done for them by him, and what return they had made for several months past by their continual disputes, divisions, and offences, causing him to go heavily all the day long. But other scenes gladdened him. Many were receiving benefit from his labours in preaching and expounding, so that he writes, in the joy of his heart, 'In the evening our souls were so filled with the spirit of prayer and thanksgiving that I could scarce tell how to expound, till I found where it was written, "My song shall be always of the loving kindness of the Lord. With my mouth will I ever be showing Thy truth, from one generation to another."'
Returning to London, he met the Society at the Foundery. 'Here,' he says, January 22, 'I began expounding where my brother left off, viz. 1 John iv. He had not preached the morning before [i.e. at the five-o'clock service], nor intended to do it any more.'
This points to a defection on Charles Wesley's part that demands a brief consideration. Charles himself evidently alludes to his danger of being drawn aside, and, as it would seem, to his escape, as far back as June 22 of the previous year, when he Writes, 'I concluded the day at the men's love-feast [at Bristol]. Peace, unity, and love are here. We did not forget our poor distracted brethren that were, till the Moravians came, How ought I to rejoice at my deliverance out of their hands and spirit! My soul is escaped out of the snare of the fowler. Abii, erupi, evasi. And did I not love the lambs of Christ [a Moravian term], indeed, the grievous wolves, I would see your face no more. I am no longer a debtor of the gospel to you. Me ye have fairly discharged; but if you reject my testimony, others receive it gladly.' Three days before this he had described to the Society at Oxford, 'The stillness of the first Christians Acts ii. 42); who continued in the Apostles' doctrine, and in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and /n prayers.' And in April of that year he wrote the hymn entitled, The Means of Grace, which, he says, he' printed as an antidote to stillness.'
In the first three months of this year there is an entire blank in Charles Wesley's Journal; but it is evident that much of this time was spent by him in London, and it is probable that while there he came again under the influence of the Moravians, and particularly of his friends Mr. Hutchins, Mr. Stonehouse, Vicar of Islington, Mr. Chapman, and of his brother-in-law, Mr. Westley Hall, who kept aloof from the Foundery, associated with the Moravians, reached for them, and appeared to .be inclined to join with them.
However, on February 12, Wesley wrote, 'My brother returned from Oxford, and preached on the true way of waiting for God: thereby dispelling at once the fears of some, and the vain hopes of others, who had confidently affirmed that Mr. Charles Wesley was still already, and would come to London no more.' But in this Wesley appears to have been too sanguine, for on April 21, soon after Charles had returned to Bristol, Wesley wrote to him from London a letter, in which, after referring to several matters, he gives full and abundant reasons why he could 'in nowise join with the Moravians,' and adds what may further explain his earnest repudiation of them:
'0 my brother, my soul is grieved for you: the poison is in you: fair words have stolen away your heart. "No English man or woman is like the Moravians I" So the matter is come to a fair issue. Five of us did still stand together a few months since; but two are gone to the right hand, Hutchins and Cennick; and two more to the left, Mr. Hall and you. Lord, if it be Thy gospel which I preach, arise and maintain thine own cause [ Adieu!]'
This letter is endorsed by Charles, 'When I inclined to the Germans.'
Whether Charles Wesley was at once delivered out of the snare is not apparent; but on Sunday, July 20, he writes, ' Our hope was much confirmed by those words; which I enforced at Kingswood, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord;" or, as it is afterwards expressed," Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." I discoursed in the afternoon on the same subject from Isa. lxiv. 5: "Thou meetest those that remember Thee in Thy ways," etc. Hence I magnified the law of Christian ordinances, exhorting those who wait for salvation, to be as clay in the hand of the potter, by stirring themselves up to lay hold on the Lord. God gave me much freedom to explain; that most active, vigorous, restless thing, true stillness'
The entire episode may be closed by the following extract from a letter addressed by the Countess of Huntingdon to John Wesley, which shows alike the danger into which Charles had fallen and his indebtedness to her ladyship for his rescue:
'October 24, 1741.
'Wisdom is justified of her children. Your answer to the former part of mine has quite silenced me on that subject. But I believe your brother's Journal will clear up my meaning more fully w you, for I should labour very much to have as few snares in his way as possible. Since you left us, the small ones are not without their attacks. I fear much more for him than for myself, as the conquest of the one would be nothing to the other. They have by one of their agents reviled me very much, but I have taken no sort of notice, as if I had never heard it. I comfort myself very much that you will approve a step, with respect to them, your brother and I have taken. No less than his declaring open war with them. He seemed under some difficulty about it at first, fill he had free liberty given him to use my name, as the instrument in God's hand that had delivered him from them. I rejoiced much at it, hoping it might be a means of working my deliverance from them. I have desired him to enclose to them yours on Christian Perfection. The doctrine therein contained I hope to live and die by; it is absolutely the most complete thing I know. God hath helped your infirmities; His Spirit was with you of a truth. You cannot guess how I in Spirit rejoice over it.
'Your brother is also to give his reasons for quite separating; and I am to have a copy of the letter he sends them to keep by me. I have great faith God will not let him fall; He will surely have mercy on him, and not on him only, for many would fall with him. I feel he would make me stagger through his fall; but I fly from them as far as pole from pole; for I will be sound in my obedience. His natural parts, his judgment, and the improvement he has made, are so far above the very highest of them, that I should imagine nothing but frenzy had seized upon him; but when I consider him, with so many advocates for the flesh about him, having the form of angels of light, my flesh trembleth for fear of him, and I should have no comfort did I not know assuredly, that He that is for him is greater than he that is against him.
'When you receive his Journal, you will rejoice much when you come to Thursday, October 15 ....'
Had Charles Wesley been drawn away from his steadfastness to the truth, and from his faithful alliance with his brother, the consequences would have been irreparable. Happily, that calamity was averted, and his service in the great evangelistic enterprise was exceeded only by that of Wesley himself; while by his unparalleled evangelical hymns he renders an ever-enduring ministry to the Church of Christ on the earth.
Fresh outbreaks of popular violence now appeared, as, for instance, at Deptford, 'where many poor wretches were got together, utterly void both of common sense and common decency. They cried aloud as if just come from the tombs. But the word was with power; and many of them were altogether confounded.' Before he could begin to preach on Shrove Tuesday, 'many men of the baser sort, having mixed themselves with the women, behaved so indecently, as occasioned much disturbance. A constable commanded them to keep the peace. For which they knocked him down.' A few days afterwards, while he was preaching in Long Lane, Southwark, 'the host of the aliens gathered together, and one large stone went just over his shoulder.'
All things being settled according to his wish, he left London, February 17. He found a painful state of affairs in Kingswood and the neighbourhood, mainly caused by the attitude assumed by Cennick, who, with fifteen or twenty others, came and told him he 'preached up man's faithfulness, but not the faithfulness of God.' There was trouble also at Bristol, where he inquired, as fully as he could, concerning the divisions and offences, which, notwithstanding the earnest cautions he had given, began afresh to break out.
He spent an unhappy month in striving to reconcile the now fluctuating Society at Kingswood, but without effect. Cennick declared, 'We are willing to join with you. But we will also meet apart from you. For we meet to confirm one another in those truths which you speak against.' The inevitable division took place; fifty-two sympathizers with Cennick withdrew, whilst upwards of ninety were left. Wesley occupied much of his time in visiting many sick persons, and in regulating the Bristol Society, which had been much injured by these sad disputes.
He then, having arranged matters better than he expected to do, returned at, his brother's request to London, where he set apart four hours every day except Saturday for speaking with any who desired it, and an hour every day to examine the 'Bands,' that no disorderly or careless or contentious person might remain amongst them. Sickness being very prevalent, he settled a regular method of visiting, eight or ten persons having offered themselves for the work, 'who,' he says, writing to his brother, 'are likely to have full employment; for more and more are taken ill every day.' This work was very greatly extended afterwards.
On May 1, Wesley writes, 'In the evening I went to a little love-feast which Peter Böhler made for those ten who joined together on this day three years, "to confess our faults one to another." Seven of us were present; one being sick, and two unwilling to come. Surely the time will return, when there shall be again
He is compelled to separate from them; notwithstanding he sighs for union.
On the following day he had a conversation of several hours with Peter Böhler and Spangenberg. The subject of conversation was, 'a new creature;' Spangenberg's account of which was thus given: 'The moment we aim, justified, a new creature is put into us. This is otherwise termed, the new man.
'But, notwithstanding, the old creature, or the old man, remains in us till the day of our death.
'And in this old man there remains an old heart, corrupt and abominable. For inward corruption remains in the soul as long as the soul remains in the body.
'But the heart which is in the new man is clean. And the new man is stronger than the old; so that though corruption continually strips, yet, while we look to Christ it cannot prevail'
But Wesley did not believe in the necessary abiding of this corruption till death. He taught his people earnestly to seek its entire destruction. This his friends, the Fetter Lane people, called his doctrine of ' sinless perfection '—a term which he entirely repudiated. He preached a 'Christian Perfection,' justifying the use of the term not only from Scripture, but also from the Collect in the Communion Service, 'Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy Holy Name,' The elevation of the ideal of the Christian life was one of the great services rendered by Wesley to the Church.
In the following week he records, 'We agreed to meet for prayer and humbling our souls before God, if haply He might show us His will concerning our re-union with our brethren of Fetter Lane. And to this intent all the men and women Bands met at one in the afternoon. Nor did our Lord cast out our prayer, or leave Himself without witness among us. But it was clear to all, even those who were before the most eagerly desirous of it, that the time was not come.'
One of the prominent events of the year 1739 had been the preaching and publication of the sermon on Free Grace, to which was appended a hymn of thirty-six stanzas, on Universal Redemption, by Charles Wesley. It is a remarkable discourse—one of Wesley's ablest—a thoughtful and vigorous treatment of the subject, clear in statement and conclusive in argument. No effective reply to it has ever been written. Wesley seems to have felt it necessary to make an early and strong pronouncement upon the question. He was alive to the fact that erroneous doctrine was being circulated amongst the Societies, causing division, and seducing some of the members from their steadfastness. Tyerman describes the sermon as in some respects the most important one Wesley ever issued. He says, 'It led to the division which Whitefield [not more than Wesley] deprecates, and also to the organization of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, and to the founding of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales; and finally culminated in the fierce controversy of 1770, and the publication of Fletcher's unequalled Checks to Antinomianism, which so effectually silenced the Calvinian heresy, that its voice has scarcely been heard from that time to this.' Perhaps this is ascribing too much to the influence of this single sermon. It was the avowal of the doctrine, rather than any particular discussion of it, that led to the results just named. But the sermon marks the beginning of the controversy, the course of which Tyerman has indicated.
During Whitefield's first visit to America, there was no sign of Calvinistic teaching; nor even during the time he spent in England after his return, until immediately before his second embarkation, when in a sermon on Gen. iii. 15, preached at Stoke Newington a fortnight before he set sail, and afterwards published in a volume of sermons, he made three references to 'the elect,' affirming in one of them that, 'The truth is this: God, as a reward of Christ's sufferings, promised to give the elect faith and repentance, in order to bring them to eternal life; and both these, and everything else necessary for their everlasting happiness, are infallibly secured to them in this promise, as Mr. Boston, an excellent Scotch divine, sweetly and clearly shows, in a book entitled, A Covenant of Grace;' thus disclosing one source of his views.
Tyerman thinks that Whitefield imbibed these sentiments from the sermons of the Brothers Erskine, with which he had declared himself much pleased and edified, recommending them and Bishop Hall's Christ Mystical, and Boehme's Sermon, to all. Tyerman is therefore correct in saying that Whitefield's Calvinism was ' born in England about the month of June, 1739, but was cradled and greatly strengthened in America in 1740.'
Although both Wesley and Whitefield were fervent and resolute in preaching each his own view of the truth, yet they were sincerely desirous that the difference in their opinions should not lead to any diminution of their brotherly regard and affection. Their correspondence during Whitefield's second stay in America amply testifies to this. Some of Whitefieid's letters, while affirming his growing belief in the doctrines of electing love, were most tenderly pathetic in their asseverations of affection and regard for his old friends. Wesley, on his part, carefully avoided anything that was likely to disturb their happy fellowship. Whitefield, however, assisted, it is said, by some of the ministers in America, prepared a reply to Wesley's sermon on Free Grace, and published it in Charlestown and Boston. During his voyage home he wrote a letter to his friend Charles Wesley, dated February 1, 1741, in which he says, 'My dear brethren, why did you throw out the bone of contention? Why did you print that sermon against predestination? Why did you, in particular, my dear brother Charles, affix your-hymn, and join in putting out your late hymn-book? How can you say you will not dispute with me about election, and yet print such hymns, and your brother send his sermon over, against election, to Mr. Garden and others, in America? Do not you think, my dear brethren, I must be as much concerned for truth, or what I think truth, as you? God is my Judge, I always was, and hope I always shall be, desirous that you may be preferred before me. But I must preach the Gospel of Christ; and that I cannot now do without speaking of election.' Referring, to his answer, he adds, 'If it occasion a strangeness us, it shall not be my fault. There is nothing in my answer exciting to it that I know of. 0, my dear brethren, my heart almost bleeds within reel Me. thinks I could be willing to tarry here on the waters for ever, rather than come to England to oppose you.'
Arriving in London in the month of March, Whitefield submitted his answer to Charles Wesley, who returned it endorsed with the words, 'Put up again thy sword into its place;' and this led to the postponement of its publication for a time.
Towards the close of the month Wesley writes, 'Having heard much of Mr. Whitefietd's unkind behaviour since his return from Georgia, I went to him to hear him speak for himself, that I might know how to judge. I much approved of his plainness of speech. He told me, he and I preached two different Gospels; and therefore he not. only would not join with, or give me the right hand of fellowship, but was resolved publicly to preach against me and my brother, wherever he preached at all. Mr. Hall, who went with me, put him in mind of the promise he had made but a few days before, that, whatever his private opinion was, he would never publicly preach against us. He said that promise was only an effect of human weakness, and he was now of another mind.' Accordingly he did preach against the Wesleys by name both in Moorfields and elsewhere, And even when invited to occupy-the pulpit at the Foundery, before some thousands of people, and with Charles Wesley sitting at his side, 'he preached the absolute decrees in the most peremptory and offensive manner.'
Whitefield was thus betrayed into a course of action that brought him even more pain than it gave to others. He was the victim at the time of many untoward and conflicting circumstances. His strained relations with the Wesleys had become an underlying, if unacknowledged, source of sorrow to him. His profound love and regard for them did not harmonize with his actions towards them, so that his heart was divided. His pecuniary responsibilities in connection with the Orphan House at Georgia were very great. He was also being severely handled by various critics for his injudicious letters on Archbishop Tillotson's Whole Duty of Man. For a time his popularity waned. It is said that the twenty thousand who used to assemble at his preaching services had dwindled down to two or three hundred. He himself tells that, instead of there being thousands to attend him, scarce one of his spiritual children came to see him from morning to night; and that on one occasion, when he was preaching on Kennington Common, scarcely a hundred persons were present to hear him. Wesley's withering exhibitions of election and reprobation were not likely to add to the attractiveness of the teacher of them. But, above all, imprudent sympathizers with his views goaded him on to actions which he would probably never have committed, had he been left to the impulses of his own generous nature. There were not wanting unwise persons who sought to foment a quarrel, as when, in the beginning of February of this year, a private letter from Whitefield to Wesley having been surreptitiously printed, great numbers of copies were distributed both at the door and in the Foundery itself. Fortunately Wesley procured one, and, after preaching, related the naked fact to the congregation, and told them, 'I will do just what I believe Mr. Whitefield would, were he here himself,' and tore it in pieces before them all, every one who had received it doing the same; so that in two minutes there was not a whole copy left among them. Wesley some time afterwards wrote, 'In March, 1741, Mr. Whitefield, being returned to England, entirely separated from Mr. Wesley and his friends, because he did not hold the decrees. Here was the first breach, which warm men persuaded Mr. Whitefield to make merely for a difference of opinion. Those who believed universal redemption had no desire to separate; but those who held particular redemption would not hear of any accommodation, being determined to have no fellowship with men that were "in such dangerous errors." So there were now two sorts of Methodists: those for particular, and those for general, redemption.'
This separation must be looked upon as a peculiarly painful and lamentable occurrence in the early morning of the great Revival. What seemed to be the opening of a bright day was overcast with clouds. But after a short time had elapsed, the old fellowship was restored, and suffered no further interruption to the day of Whitefield's death.
Whitefield speedily recovered his popularity. He preached much in England, and towards the close of the year had a most hearty reception in Scotland; and in the following year the remarkable revival at Cambuslang took place. He sailed again for America in August, 1744. Early in 1766 Wesley wrote, 'Mr. Whitefield called upon me. He breathes nothing but peace and love. Bigotry cannot stand before him, but hides its head wherever he comes;' and White. head, in confirmation of the perfect restoration of affection and friendship, refers to the fact that Whitefield in his last will written with his own hand, about six months before his death, says,' I leave a mourning-ring to my honoured and dear friends, and disinterested fellow-labourers, the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley, in token of my indissoluble union with them, in heart and Christian affection, notwithstanding our difference in judgment about some particular points of doctrine.' And Whitehead further mentions the oft-repeated desire of Whitefield that Wesley should preach his funeral sermon. This melancholy service Wesley performed in the year 1770, both at the chapel in Tottenham Court Road, and at the Tabernacle, Moorfields, and bore most ample testimony to the many excellent qualities, the life-consuming zeal, the almost unparalleled labours, the overpowering eloquence, the wonderful success of his dear friend.
Although at this time Wesley suffered much from pain and weakness, he did not abate his labour. To his spirit, at once charitable and methodical, a fresh outlet for energy now appeared.
Many of the Society lacking food and clothing, and being without employment, while others were sick and ready to perish, and he being unable alone to meet their necessities, he called on the United Society to bring what clothes they could spare, and to give weekly contributions of a penny or more, as they could afford, for the relief of the poor. He then arranged to employ the needy women in knitting, giving the common price for their work, and adding to it as they required. Over these he appointed twelve inspectors, whose duty embraced the visitation and relief, every other day, of all the sick in their several districts, and the provision of such things as were needful for them. They met together once a week to give an account of their work, and to consult what further could be done.
At the pressing instance of his brother, he repaired on May 18 to Bristol. As he entered the room at the close of his brother's sermon, some wept aloud, some clapped their hands, some shouted, and the rest sang praise, with whom all presently joined.
Here he spent a week, during which he found abundant employment in examining the new members of the Society, visiting the sick—not one of whom he found either fearing or repining-preaching, and adjusting the pecuniary affairs of the Society and of the school at Kingswood. He then set out early to return to London. On the following day he rejoiced with a little society at Windsor, and in the evening preached at the Foundery. Finding his friend Mr. Piers, of Bexley, 'much shaken by the "still" brethren,' he spoke plainly to him; the snare was broken, and he left him rejoicing in hope and praising God for. The consolation. Little wonder that many of the simple-minded and ignorant of the people embraced the 'still' delusion, when even clergymen were the victims of it. He exhorted a crowded congregation not to receive the grace of God in vain, and enforced the same on the Society, which now numbered about nine hundred persons.
The gradual extension of his work now begins by his taking a week's tour into the country, at the earnest persuasion of Lady Huntingdon. During the two days of his outward journey into Leicestershire, he made an experiment which he had been often and earnestly pressed to do, viz. 'speaking to none concerning the things of God, unless his heart was free to it,' with the result that he spoke to none at all for fourscore miles together; that he had no cross either to bear or to take up, and commonly in an hour or two fell fast asleep; that he had much respect shown to him as a civil, good-natured gentleman; and he adds, '0 how pleasing is all this to flesh and blood! need ye compass sea and land, to make proselytes to this?' He passed through Northampton to Markfield, where there had been a great awakening, but a 'still' preacher had been there, and three parts in four were as fast asleep as ever. He passed on to Ogbrook, where the ' still' teacher was instructing the people, if they would believe, to be still; not to pretend to do good (which they could not till they believed); and to leave off what they called the means of grace, such as prayer, and running to church and Sacrament.] Being offered the use of the church by his friend Mr. Caspar Greaves, Wesley explained the true gospel stillness, and on the following morning preached to a large congregation. He then rode on to Nottingham, where a society had been formed, but he found it withered: the room half full that was formerly crowded within and without; none used any prayer, nor knelt when prayer was offered; and the hymnbook [one of those published by the Wesleys, and which had been sent for use in the congregation] and the Bible had vanished, 'supplanted by the Moravian hymns and the Count's sermons!' He expounded, but 'with a heavy heart,' and again the next morning; and in the evening at Markfield, where the church was quite full. After the early morning service he set out for Melbourne, where, the house being too small for the company, he stood under a large tree and preached; and again at Hemington, where the people had to stand about the door and windows. Tyerman thinks it was probably in this journey that he formed the acquaintance of the Countess of Huntingdon, who lived in the neighbourhood, at Castle Donington. In this particular he is in error, her ladyship having been for some time well known to the Wesleys, and already a member of the Fetter Lane Methodist Society. The following day being Sunday, he rode into Nottingham, and at eight o'clock preached in the marketplace to 'an immense multitude of people,' returning to Markfield in the afternoon, where the crowded church was so hot that he had difficulty in reading the service. Finding 'abundance of people' could not get in, he went out to them and preached; and again in the evening in the church. On his way to London the next day, he 'read over, in the way, that celebrated book, Martin Luther's Comment on the Epistle to the Galatians,' when he declared himself utterly ashamed that he had so esteemed this book merely because he had heard it commended by others, or had only read excellent extracts from it. Now he declares that the author 'makes nothing out, clears not up one considerable difficulty, is shallow on many passages, muddy and confused on almost all; that he is deeply tinctured with mysticism throughout, and hence often dangerously wrong.' He apprehends the real spring of the grand error of the Moravians, as then taught, was following Luther for better for worse. Coming to London in the evening of the next day, he preached on Gal. v. I5, and, quoting Luther's comment, openly warned the congregation against the treatise, and publicly withdrew whatever recommendation he had ignorantly given of it. Some portions of Luther's comment had however been very helpful at an earlier period, especially to Charles Wesley, on the subjects of faith and justification.
The next day he rode to Oxford, and found there remained among the poor only two of the twenty-five or thirty weekly communicants. Not one attended the daily prayers of the Church, and the once united company was torn asunder and scattered. Here he remained a week, during which time he consulted Mr. Gambold concerning the subject of his University Sermon. Mr. Gambold told him it was of no moment, For, said he, 'all are so prejudiced they will mind nothing you say.' At this time he inquired 'concerning the exercises previous to the degree of Bachelor in Divinity.' Some days after he again met Mr. Gambold, who honestly told him that he was ashamed of his company, and; therefore must be excused from going with him to the Society.
Returning to London, he preached in Short's Gardens, and on the: following Sunday at Charles' Square, when the rabble brought an ox, which they strove, but vainly, to drive amongst the people; for the beast wheeled round and round, one way and the other, and at length broke through the midst and made clear away. Being in Bristol, he went over to Abingdon, at the earnest request of some that were there; but records, ' so stupid, senseless a people, both in a spiritual and natural sense, I scarce ever saw before. Yet God is able of these stones to raise up Children to Abraham.'
On July 25 he preached before the University to a numerous Congregation, on The Almost Christian, and set out in the afternoon to preach the following day at the Foundery. He is engaged every hour in preaching, visiting the sick, or the members of the Society, and expounding. The latter does not appear to have been a hurried exercise, for, in one case, when the ninth chapter of Romans came in turn, he continued 'an hour longer than usual, and was persuaded that most, if not all, who were present saw that this chapter has no more to do with irrespective predestination than the ninth of Genesis.' He also began a course of addresses on the Book of Common Prayer.
On September 3 he held a prolonged conversation with Zinzendorf, in Latin, which he records in his Journal, appending a letter to the Moravian Church written a short time before. In these he declared, he says, in the plainest manner he could, the real controversy between himself and the Moravians, an unpleasing task, which he had delayed as long as he could with a clear conscience.
At the desire of Mr. Deleznot, a French clergyman, for whom he had already preached,' after having been long importuned,' Wesley officiated in the Hermitage-street Chapel, Wapping, where he administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to about two hundred members of the Society, as many as the place would well contain. The same number attended on the following Sunday, and so on each Lord's day, until the whole Society, numbering about a thousand, had attended; those who had the Sacrament at their own parish churches being advised to attend there.
Repairing to Bristol, he met his brother, with Mr. Jones, of Fonmon Castle, who was now convinced of the truth as it is in Jesus. At Kingswood the house was filled from end to end, and they continued ministering the Word of God, and in prayer and praise, until the morning. He paid two brief visits to Wales, preaching wherever he went. On his meeting with Howel Harris, Humphreys, and Seward—all now distinctively of the Calvinistic party—they 'fell upon their favourite subject.' Wesley begged for prayer instead of controversy, and Harris gave up some points and strove earnestly to secure peace.
Arriving at Bristol, he found sickness very rife, and was fully engaged in visiting the sufferers. As he was riding to Kingswood, his horse fell, and attempting to rise fell again upon his rider. Wesley was helped into a house, where, ever keeping his one business before him, he found three persons who 'did run well, but Satan had hindered them.' Before he left they resolved to set out again. He reached Kingswood in the afternoon, and preached, and returning to Bristol preached again; then spoke at a meeting of the Society, and afterwards attended a love-feast. He writes,' I remember nothing like it for many months; a cry was heard from one end of the congregation to the other, not of grief but of overflowing joy and love.'
In the early part of November, Wesley rejoiced much in the comfort that he found both in public and in private. This was, however, soon followed by
a very severe attack of illness, which continued for a month.
Not being suffered to go to church as yet, he communicated at home. He was advised to remain indoors some time longer, but, not apprehending it necessary, he went to the New Room, and expounded for half an hour. He preached every day during the following week without inconvenience; then, thinking he might go a little further, he preached on one day both at Kingswood and at Bristol, and afterwards spent an hour with the Society, and about two hours at the love-feast. His body, however, could not keep pace with his mind, and the next day he had another attack of fever; but it did not last long, and he gradually recovered, and entered again fully upon his labours.
He now felt obliged to exercise discipline upon more than thirty of the little company at Bristol, whom he found to be not adorning the gospel. He returned to London in time to preach on Christmas Eve, and to meet the Society afterwards; 'when,' he Says, 'we scarcely knew how to part, our hearts were so enlarged towards each other.'
On the last clay of the year he was again attacked by the fever, but he attended a funeral, as he had promised to do, and 'could not refrain from exhorting the almost innumerable multitude' that gathered round the grave. He afterwards preached, and met the Society, when 'many cried with a loud and bitter cry.' About ten o'clock he left them and retired to rest.
Many particulars of Wesley's labours have already been given, but it is impossible to chronicle all. Every hour, literally every moment, from four o'clock in the morning, was bought up for devotion' to his Work. If an interval occurred between his public services, his meetings of the Societies, his visitations to the sick, he seized it for writing or for close reading. For the latter even the time spent on horseback was utilized, as we have seen.
On the morning of the new year Wesley awoke in a strong fever, but consented to keep his bed on condition that every ;one who desired it should have liberty to speak with him. Fifty or sixty people did so. That night he slept well, to the astonishment of all, the apothecary in particular, who said he had never seen such a fever in his life.
Two days after; he met the leaders of the Bands morning and afternoon, and joined with a little company in 'the great sacrifice of thanksgiving.' In the evening, it being the men's love-feast, he desired they would come up; and those whom the room would not contain stood without, while with one mouth they praised God.
On the 4th he, 'waked in perfect health,' and preached morning and evening every day during the week. On the Saturday, while he was preaching,' a rude rout lift up their voice on high.' He 'fell upon them without delay. Some pulled off their hats, and opened their months no more; the rest stole out one after another.'
He wrote, 'While I Was explaining at Long Lane "He that committeth sin is of the devil," his servants were above measure enraged. They not only made all possible noise (although, as I had desired before, no man stirred from his place, or answered them a word), but violently thrust many persons to and fro, struck others, and brake clown part of the house. At length they began throwing large stones upon the house, which, forcing their way wherever they came, fell down, together with the tiles, among the people, so that they were in danger of their lives. I then told them, "You must not go on thus; I am ordered by the magistrate, who is, in this respect, to us the minister of God, to inform him of those who break the laws of God and the King; and I must do it if you persist herein; otherwise I am a partaker of your sin." When I ceased speaking they' were more outrageous than before. Upon this I said, "Let three or four calm men take hold of the foremost, and charge a constable with him, that the law may take its course." They did so, and brought him into the house, cursing and blaspheming in a dreadful manner. I desired five or six to go with him to Justice Copeland, to whom they nakedly related the fact. The Justice bound him over to the next sessions at Guildford. I observed that when the man was brought into the house, many of his companions were loudly calling out, "Richard Smith, Richard Smith," who, as it afterwards appeared, was one of their stoutest champions. But Richard Smith answered not; he was fallen into the hands of One higher than they; as also a woman who was speaking words not fit to be repeated, and throwing whatever came to hand, whom He overtook in the very act. She came into the house with Richard Smith, fell upon her knees before us all, and strongly exhorted him never to turn back, never to forget the mercy which God had shown to his soul.' A good instance of what Wesley called 'the lion becoming a lamb.' They had no more disturbance at Long Lane; and they withdrew their prosecution on the offender promising better behaviour.
On the following day he preached at Chelsea on the faith which worketh by love. He was very weak, he tells us, when he entered the room; ' but the more "the beasts of the people" increased in madness and rage, the more was I strengthened, both in body and soul; so that I believe few in the house, which was exceeding full, lost one sentence of what I spoke. Indeed, they could not see me, nor one another at a few yards' distance, by reason of the exceeding thick smoke, which was occasioned by the wildfire and things of that kind, continually thrown into the room, But they who could praise God in the midst of the fires were not to be affrighted by a little smoke.'
After the exclusion of some who did not walk according to the gospel, he found that the London Society comprised eleven hundred members.
An interesting subject at this point claims our attention.
From the time Wesley began to preach to his fellow-countrymen, after his return from Georgia, there gradually opened before him the grand idea of spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land, which he presently discerned to be the purpose of Divine Providence in raising up Methodism. This idea gave shape to all his plans and organizations. If this was not attained, the aim of Methodism was not fulfilled; and all agencies were welcomed only as they promised to aid in this one purpose. Whatever was not contributory to it was beside the mark. The first step towards this end was, of course, the preaching of the gospel, and that to all. But before he could make the experiment of preaching the Word, and leaving it, and those who accepted it, to the contingencies of individual fidelity, he had been trained in the Moravian school to guard and culture the spiritual life of the believer. This was the lesson overlooked by Whitefield; and, although it is impossible adequately to estimate the great benefits of his extraordinary labours yet it must be acknowledged that it lacked the continuity and discernible permanence which characterized Wesley's work from the beginning.
Wesley had the covert of the Society, and every convert to the truth was encouraged to enter within the protection of its fellowship, and was, after due probation, enrolled as a member. But why enter the Society? Was this the sum of all things? Certainly not. It was a means to an end. We have seen that within the Society were little companies called 'Bands,' each several 'Band' meeting under the care of a senior, sometimes called a 'leader,' for purposes of mutual encouragement and help. Special, even frequent meetings of the Society', apart from the congregations, were held, where the Scriptures were expounded, Christian duties enforced, and unfaithfulness checked. But beyond this, each member of the Society was personally visited, and his individual life watched over and cared for by Wesley himself. He carried in his pocket, written out by himself, and renewed from time to time, the name and address of every one, even when the Society was numbered by several hundreds. By almost superhuman effort he visited them in their homes, as frequently as his strength and astounding activity enabled him, even when their residences extended 'from Westminster to Wapping '—from one end of London to the other.
This was the earlier condition of things: we now witness the development of the Society, from its imperfect to its complete organization, and the establishment of the Methodist class-meeting.
Setting out from London by way of Chippenham (which he reached with difficulty, the weather being so exceedingly rough and boisterous that he had much ado to keep on his horse), he came to Kingswood, Bath, and Bristol. Here he spent some days with all those who desired to remain in the United Society; and Ion the 15th of February took a step which was fraught with the utmost importance to the whole framework and the future history of Methodism. The incident in itself was comparatively trifling. Wesley thus relates it: 'I was talking with several of the Society :in Bristol concerning the means of paying the debts remaining on the Horsefair Room, when one, a Captain Foy, stood up and said, "Let every member of the Society give a penny a week till all are paid." Another answered, "But many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it." "Then," said he, "put eleven of the poorest with me; and if they can give anything, well. I will call on them weekly; and if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as myself." It was done. In a while some of these informed me, they found such and such an one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, "This is the thing; the very thing we have wanted so long."' In it he saw at a glance a means of relief from what was becoming too gigantic a task even for him — his personal visitation of the Society at their own homes. 'I called all the leaders of the classes (so we used to term them and their companies), and desired that each would make a particular inquiry into the behaviour of those whom he saw weekly. They did so. Many disorderly walkers were detected. Some turned from the evil of their ways. Some were put away from us. Many saw it with fear, and rejoiced unto God with reverence. As soon as possible, the same method was used in London and all other places.'
He goes on to say, 'It was the business of a leader — (1) To see each person in his class, once a week at the least, in order to inquire how their souls prosper; to advise, reprove, comfort, or exhort, as occasion may require; to receive what they are willing to give toward the relief of the poor. (2) To meet the minister and stewards of the Society, in order to inform the minister of any that are sick, or of any that are disorderly and will not be reproved; to pay to the stewards what they have received of their several classes in the week preceding.
'At first they visited each person at his own house; but this was soon found not so expedient. And that on many accounts—(1) It took up more time than most of the leaders had to spare. (2) Many persons lived with masters, mistresses, or relations, who would not suffer them to be thus visited. (3) At the houses of those who were not so averse, they often had no opportunity of speaking to them but in company, etc. Upon all these considerations, it was agreed that those of each class should meet all together.' Thus all the ends designed could be secured. 'After an hour or two spent in this labour of love, they concluded with prayer and thanksgiving.' The class-meeting thus became a distinguishing characteristic of the Methodist Society, and has continued to be such to the present day.
By the meeting together of the members for prayer and praise and spiritual intercourse, the class was raised from being a mere convenient arrangement for the oversight of individual members, into a means of Christian fellowship and mutual spiritual ministering, in which the scriptural idea of communion is realized in the most practical and serviceable manner; the aim being to help each member to save his own soul, and to aid him in the saving of the souls of his brethren. This has ever since been the nature of the Methodist class-meeting; and to its influence must be traced the compactness and effective organization of the Methodist Church.
Subsequently, with a view to the further consolidation of the Society, 'I determined,' he says, 'at least once in three months to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouths, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ .... To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I found no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose; every ticket implying ,as strong a recommendation of the person to whom it Was given as if I had wrote at length, "I believe the bearer hereof to be one that fears God and works righteousness."'
These tickets were: renewed quarterly; and so supplied a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any unworthy member by simply withholding the ticket. When meetings of the Society apart from the congregation were held, the tickets were: required to be shown. Wesley found his precedent for the use of these tickets in the commendatory letters mentioned in 2 Cor; iii. 1.
In the following year Wesley published the Nature, Design, and General Rules of the United Societies in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dated February 22, 1742-43, and signed by himself alone; all subsequent editions bearing the signatures of both the brothers.
After relating the particulars given above, it is added:
4. There is only one condition previously required in those who desire admission into these Societies; viz., a desire to flee from the wrath to come, to be saved from their sins.' But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of all who continue therein, that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
5. It is expected of all who continue in these Societies, that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation.
Secondly, By doing good, by being in every kind merciful after; their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as is possible, to all men:
By doing good especially to them that are of the household of faith, or groaning so to be;
employing them preferably to others,
buying one of another,
helping each other in business; and so much the more, because the world will love its own, and them only.
By all possible diligence and frugality, that the gospel be not blamed.
By running with patience the race that is set before them, denying themselves, and taking up their cross daily; submitting to bear the reproach of Christ; to be as the filth and offscouring of the world; and looking that men should say all manner of evil of them falsely, for the Lord's sake.
'6. It is expected of all who desire to continue in these Societies, that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
'7. These are the General Rules of our Societies: all which we are taught of God to observe, even in His written word, the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of our faith and practice. And all these we know His Spirit writes on every truly awakened heart. If there be any among us who observe them not, who habitually break any of them, let it be made known unto them who watch over that soul, as they that must give an account. We will admonish him of the error of his ways: we will bear with him for a season. But then if he repent not, he hath no more place among us. We have delivered our own souls.
John Wesley
Charles Wesley.'
May 1, 1743.
At the end of the month he set out for Wales. At Cardiff he met Mr. Jones of Fonmon; at Wenvo the church was thoroughly filled. In the evening, though in weakness and pain, he preached at Fonmon; the next morning at eight o'clock at Bonvilstone four miles away. At Lantrissent [Llantrisant] the clergyman declared himself willing to allow him the use of the church, but 'the Bishop had forbidden him.' Preaching at Lanissan [Llanishen], he was much refreshed in meeting there ' the little earnest Society.'
While taking part, after his return from Wales, in a 'watch-night' service at Kingswood, his voice was lost in the cries of the people. About a hundred of them walked home together, rejoicing and praising God. A week after, he rode to Pensford, at the earnest request of several residents. But he had no sooner begun to preach than a great company of rabble, hired, as was afterwards found, for that purpose, came furiously upon the company, bringing a bull which they had been baiting, and now strove to drive in among the people. But the beast was wiser than his drivers, and continually ran, either on one side or the other, while the company quietly sang praise to God, and prayed for about an hour. 'The poor wretches,' says Wesley, 'finding themselves disappointed, at length seized upon the bull, now weak and tired, after having been so long torn and beaten both by dogs and men, and by main strength partly dragged and partly thrust him in among the people. When they had forced their way to the little table on which I stood, they strove several times to throw it down, by thrusting the helpless beast against it, who of himself stirred no more than a log of wood. I once or twice put aside his head with my hand, that the blood might not drop upon my clothes, intending to go on, as soon as the hurry should be a little over. But the table falling down, some of our friends caught me in their arms, and carried me right away on their shoulders, while the rabble wreaked their vengeance on the table, which they tore bit from bit. We went a little way off, where I finished my discourse, without any noise or interruption.'
Returning to London, he preached in the French chapel at Wapping. The next day he met by appointment several 'earnest and sensible men,' to whom he showed the difficulty he had long found of knowing the people who desired to be under his care. After much consideration they all agreed there was no better way to meet the difficulty, and to come to a sure, thorough knowledge of each person, than to copy the Bristol plan, and divide the whole into classes under the inspection of suitable persons in whom he could confide. 'This,' he says, 'was the origin of our classes in London, for which I can never sufficiently praise God; the unspeakable usefulness of the institution having ever since been more and more manifest.'
On Friday, April 9, they held the first watch-night in London (similar meetings had previously been held in Kingswood); on which he says,' We commonly choose, for this solemn service, the Friday night nearest the full moon, either before or after, that those of the congregation who live at a distance may have light to their several homes. The service begins at half an hour past eight, and continues till a little after midnight. We have often found a peculiar blessing at these seasons. There is generally a deep awe, upon the congregation, perhaps in some measure owing to the silence of the night; particularly in singing the hymn with which we commonly conclude:
'Hearken to the solemn voice!
The awful midnight cry!
Waiting souls rejoice, rejoice,
And feel the Bridegroom nigh!'
For a long time past the watch-nights have been confined to an annual service held in the last hours of the old year and the first moments of the new a practice now general in most of the churches. For these services Charles Wesley composed a number of hymns, which were published in a pamphlet entitled, Hymns for the Watch-night. But the popular hymn, beginning:
'Come, let us anew,
Our journey pursue,
Roll round with the year,
And never stand, still till the Master appear,'
which for a century and a half has been sung by tens of thousands at the opening of each new year, was not then written. It was published some years afterwards in a pamphlet of Hymns for the New Year. There was not a single unusual step taken by Wesley to which objection was not made. But he seldom acted without previous consideration. When the watch-nights were first observed at Kingswood, some advised him to put an end to them. He says, 'Upon weighing the thing thoroughly, and comparing it with the practice of the ancient Christians, I could see no cause to forbid it. Rather, I believe it might be of more general use;' and he joined them at the next meeting. In reply to a clergyman he after, wards wrote,' You charge me with holding "midnight assemblies." Sir, did you ever see the word vigil in your Common Prayer-book? Do you know what it means? If not, permit me to tell you, that it was customary with the ancient Christians to spend whole nights in prayer; and that these nights were termed vigiliae, or vigils. Therefore, for spending a part of some nights in this manner, in public and solemn prayer, we have not only the authority of our own Church, but of the universal Church, in the earnest ages.'
He met his old friend Whitefield again, and was persuaded of his sincerity in declaring, his earnest desire to join hand in hand with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was on the point of setting out for Bristol, when, receiving an earnest request from the Countess of Huntingdon to hurry to Leicestershire to see a lady, Miss Cowper, who was at Donnington Park lying at the point of death, he repaired thither. On the way he was overtaken by a serious man, who, he says, 'was quite uneasy to know "whether I held the doctrine of the decrees as he did." But I told him over and over, "We had better keep to practical things, lest we should be angry at one another." And so we did for two miles, until he caught me unawares, and dragged me into the dispute before I knew where I was. He then grew warmer and warmer; told me, "I was rotten at heart, and supposed I was one of John Wesley's followers." I told him, "No; I am John Wesley himself." Upon which,
'Improvisum aspris veluti qui sentibus anguem Pressit;
he would gladly have run away outright. But, being the better mounted of the two, I kept close to his side, and endeavoured to show him his heart, until he came into the street of Northampton.' He passed on from Donnington to Birstal, where he received from the well-known John Nelson the account of the strange manner in which he had been led.
Nelson, a Yorkshire mason, while working in London, heard Whitefield preach in Moorfields, and was deeply impressed. The preaching was pleasant to him, Nelson says, and he loved the man; so that, if any one offered to disturb him, he was ready to fight for him; but, he adds, 'I did not understand him, though I might hear him twenty times, for aught I know . . . I was like a wandering bird, cast out of the nest, till Mr. John Wesley came to preach his first sermon in Moorfields. Oh, that was a blessed morning to my soul! As soon as he got upon the stand, he stroked back his hair, and turned his face toward where I stood, and, I thought, fixed his eyes on me; his countenance struck such an awful dread upon me, before I heard him speak, that it made my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock.' After his conversion, Nelson returned to his home in Birstal. Here many pressed him with questions concerning the 'new faith.' He acknowledged himself to be a believer, and that he was 'as sure his sins were forgiven as he could be of the shining of the sun.' This being noised abroad, more and more came to inquire. Unawares he began to quote, explain, and enforce portions of Scripture. This he did at first in his house, but, the company greatly increasing, he was compelled, on returning from his day's work, to stand at his door and speak to the people. Many accepted his word, and a society was established in Birstal. Here Wesley preached 'to several hundreds of plain people, and spent the afternoon in talking severally with those who had tasted of the Word of God.' From Birstal he went to Newcastle, reading by the way Xenophon's Memorabilia, and, as was his wont, recording his judgment upon it.
Wesley was now entering upon the extension of his work beyond the spheres to which hitherto he had been confined. In going to Birstal and Newcastle, which were entirely new scenes of labour to him, he believed that he was following the leading of Divine Providence, for indications of which he watched and patiently waited, and was ever ready to respond to them when they were made known. These two places stand out prominently in all Wesley's future operations, and in all the subsequent chronicles of the revival. For students of the history of Methodism they have a kind of classical interest.
He reached Newcastle in the evening of Friday, May 28. After a short refreshment he walked into the town, of which he writes:
'I was surprised: so much drunkenness, cursing, and swearing (even from the mouths of little children}, do I never remember to have seen and heard before in so small a compass of time. Surely this place is ripe for him who "came not to call the right, us, but sinners 60 repentance." . . . At seven o'clock on Sunday morning I walked down to Sandgate, the poorest and most contemptible part of the town; and, standing at the end of the street with John Taylor, began to stag the hundredth psalm. Three or four people came out to see What was the matter; who soon increased to four or five hundred. I suppose there might be twelve or fifteen hundred before I had done preaching; to whom I applied those solemn words, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His stripes we are healed."
'Observing the people, when I had done, to stand gaping and staring upon me, with 'the most profound astonishment, I told them, "If you desire to know who I am, my name is John Wesley. At five in the evening, with God's help I design to preach here again."
'At five, the bill on which 'I designed to preach was covered, from the top to the bottom. I never saw So large a number of people together, either in Moorfields, or at Kennington Common. I knew it was not possible for the one half to hear, although my voice was then strong and clear; and I stood so as to have them all in view, as they were ranged on the side of the hill. The word of God which I set before them was," I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely." After preaching, the poor people were ready to tread me underfoot, out of pure love and kindness. It was some time before I could possibly get out of the press. I then went back another way than I came; but several were got to our inn before me; by whom I was vehemently importuned to stay with them, at least, a few days; or, however, one day more. But I could not consent; having given my word to be at Birstal, with God's leave, on Tuesday night.'
Leaving Newcastle, he rode to Boroughbridge; and thence to Birstal, where a multitude of people had gathered. He began to speak to them about seven o'clock, and could not conclude till half-past nine.
He also preached near Halifax, and near Dewsbury Moor, twice; at Mirfield; at Adwalton, in a broad part of the highway; again at Birstal, where 'all the hearers were deeply attentive;' at Beeston, where he read Jacob Behmen's Mysterium Magnum, and pronounced it to be ' most sublime nonsense; inimitable bombast; fustian not to be paralleled.' Riding for Epworth, he finished Madame Guyon's Short Method of Prayer and 1;es Torrents Spirituals, in which he found that the still brethren 'only retailed from this poor quietist.'
Returning thus to Epworth, after an interval of some years, he was soon discovered by two or three poor women; one of them was an old servant of his father's. He inquired if they knew any in Epworth who were in earnest to be saved. ' I am, by the grace of God,' said one of them, ' and I know I am saved through faith; and many here can say the same' thing.' The next day being Sunday, his companion, John Taylor, after the service, stood in the churchyard and gave notice, 'Mr. Wesley, not being permitted to preach in the church, designs to preach here at six o'clock.' At which time Wesley stood on his father's tombstone and preached to such a congregation as he believed Epworth never slaw before. Being earnestly pressed by many, not only of Epworth but of several adjoining villages, and finding the still brethren had been here also, he remained for some days, preaching and speaking severally with those, in every place, who had found or waited for salvation; each evening taking his stand on his father's tomb. We learn that a whole waggon-load of these new heretics had been brought by their angry neighbours before a justice of the peace, Mr. George Stovin, of Crowle, a town near by, who inquired what they had done; at which there was a deep silence. At length one said, 'Why, they pretend to be better than other people; and besides, they pray from morning to night.' 'But have they done nothing besides?' 'Yes, sir,' said an old man; ' an't please your worship, they have convarted my wife. Till she went among them, she had such a tongue! And now she is as quiet as a lamb.' 'Carry them back, carry them back,' replied the justice, 'and let them convert all the scolds of the town.'
At Epworth 'striking effects accompanied the preaching. One evening on every side, as with one accord, the people lifted up their voices and wept; the following evening several dropped clown as dead, and amongst the' rest was such a cry as almost drowned the voice of the preacher. But their mourning was turned into joy and their cries into songs of praise.
A gentleman was present at one service who pretended not to be of any religion at all, and who had not attended worship of any kind for thirty years. Wesley, observing him to be standing motionless as a statue, said, 'Sir, are you a sinner?' He replied in a deep and broken voice, ' Sinner enough ;' and continued staring upwards till his wife and a servant or two, who were all in tears, put him into his chaise and carried him home. Calling upon him some years after, Wesley was agreeably surprised to find him strong in faith, though weak in body, and able to bear testimony that for a long time he had been rejoicing in God, without either doubt or fear; and was now waiting for the welcome hour, when he should depart and be with Christ.
On Sunday, Wesley preached at Haxey at seven; morning and afternoon at Wroot, where the church, which had been offered to him, could not contain the people; at six he preached in Epworth church, yard,' to a vast multitude,' when, he says, 'I continued with them for near three hours; and yet we scarce knew how to part'—and this: was[ the fourth service in the day! He makes the following reflection: 'O let none think his labour of love is lost because the fruit does not immediately appear. Near forty years did my father labour here; but he saw little fruit of all his labour. I took some pains among this people too; and my strength seemed to be spent in vain. But now the fruit appeared. There were scarce any in the town on whom either my father or I had taken any pains formerly, but the seed sown so long since now sprang up, bringing forth repentance and remission of sins.'
On the following day he set out for Sheffield, to seek one David Taylor, 'whom God had made an instrument of good to many souls.' Not finding him, he was minded to go forward, but the people constrained him to stay and preach both morning and evening. Taylor arriving, Wesley learned from him; and recorded, for his own future guidance, that he (Taylor)had-occasionally exhorted multitudes of people in various parts; but after that, he had taken no thought about them, so that the greater part were fallen asleep again. A confirming testimony to the prudence of that defensive care which Wesley was striving to exert over his converts.
Passing on from Sheffield, he preached at Barley Hall, subsequently ,the scene of many hallowed services, where many were melted down and filled with love to their Saviour. The next morning he began preaching about five, but was compelled to break off in the middle of his discourse; for, he says, 'their hearts were so filled with a sense of the love of God, and our mouths with prayer and thanksgiving,' after a time he resumed his sermon.
Leaving Sheffield, he passed on to Ripley, Donnington Park, Ogbrook, Melbourne, Markfield, Coventry, and Evesham; preaching whereever he came, and. gathering together the little Society in every place where one had: been established: which, at least, meant almost every town through which he had previously passed. In each Society he corrected such errors or evils as had troubled them. He passed on to Stroud, preaching in the market-place at noon, where 'there would probably have been more disturbance, but that a drunken man began too soon, and was so senselessly impertinent that even his comrades were quite ashamed of him.' In the evening he preaching on Minchin-Hampton Common, where were' many of Mr. Whitefield's Society.'
On the following day, Sunday, June 27, he preached at Painswick at seven; at ten attended the church; in the afternoon at Runwick, at the close of the afternoon service, he addressed 'a vast multitude of people;' and concluded the day by another service on Minchin-Hampton Common. The next day he rode to Bristol, where he found disputing had done much mischief. As he was coming out of Newgate, one poured out such a flood of cursing and bitterness as he 'scarce thought was to be found out of hell.' So the spirit of evil, whose territory was being assailed, found expression through its agents. He was occupied for fully four days in composing the little differences which had arisen amongst his Bristol people.
Riding to Cardiff, he found much peace and love in the little Society there. On the following day (July 7)he returned, preaching to a small attentive congregation near Henbury, and before eight reaching Bristol, where he had 'a comfortable meeting with many who knew in whom they believed.' 'Now, at length,' he says, 'I spent a week in peace, all disputes being laid aside.' He returned to London on July 20.
Thus ended Wesley's first extended evangelistic tour, in which it may be noticed that he always awaits the indications of circumstances he would, perhaps more correctly, say the indications of Providence—-before proceeding to preach and establish societies in fresh places. It will also be observed that little sporadic societies sprang up in different parts of the country from various causes, without his direct intervention. It may further be noticed that he begins to travel in company, if possible, and it soon became the practice for one or other of his helpers to join him in his excursions.
Various circumstances prepared the way for Wesley's visits. In Wales, for example, Howel Harris, a preacher of great power, of whom it was said, 'He tears all before him like a large harrow,' had laboured since 1735, and had organized thirty societies, called ' Private Experience Societies,' before either Whitefield or Wesley visited the Principality.
On his return to London, Wesley found his mother on the borders of eternity; but she had no doubt or fear, nor any desire but (as soon as God should call) to depart and be with Christ.' Three days afterwards she passed away. He thus describes the scene, and the burial: 'Friday, July 23.—About three in the afternoon I went to my mother, and found her change was near. I sat down on the bedside. She was in her last conflict; unable to speak, but I believe quite sensible. Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed Upward, while we commended her soul to God. From three to four the silver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern; and then, without any struggle, or sigh, or groan, the soul was set at liberty. We stood round the bed, and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech: "Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God."' On the following Sunday, he says, 'Almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon, I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see on this side eternity.' Thus closed the chequered earthly life of this saintly woman, who had gained for herself an almost peerless position among the wives and mothers of England.
'August 8, I cried aloud in Radcliff Square, Why will ye die, 0 house of Israel? Only one poor man was exceeding noisy and turbulent. But in a moment God touched his heart. He hung down his head; tears covered his face; and his voice was heard no more. I was constrained this evening to separate from the believers, some who did not show their faith by their works. One of these was deeply displeased, spoke many very bitter words, and went abruptly away. In a day or two afterwards he sent a note, demanding the payment of one hundred pounds, which he had lent about a year before, to pay the workmen at the Foundery. Two days afterwards he came and said he wanted his money, and could stay no longer. I told him I would endeavour to borrow it; and desired him to call in the evening. But he said he could not stay so long, and must have it at twelve o'clock. Where to get it, I knew not.' Wesley adds,' Between nine and ten, one came and offered me the use of an hundred pounds for a year; but two others had been with me before, to make the same offer. I accepted the banknote which one of them brought; and saw that God is over all'
On the way to Bristol he read over ' that surprising book, The Life of Ignatius Loyola, surely one of the greatest men that ever was engaged in the support of so bad a cause! I wonder any man should judge him to be an enthusiast. No, but he knew the people with whom he had to do. And setting out (like Count Z———) with a full persuasion that he might use guile to promote the glory of God or (which he thought the same thing) the interest of His Church, he acted in all things consistently with his principles.'
At Oxford he met his brother and Mr. Charles Caspar Graves. Mr. Graves, formerly a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, was converted under Charles Wesley's ministry, and became one of the Oxford Methodists after the Wesleys had left. His friends, believing him to be ' stark mad,' removed him from his college. Almost coerced by them into compliance, he addressed a document to the fellows of his college, renouncing the principles and practices of the Methodists, declaring his sorrow that he had given offence and scandal by attending their meetings, and promising to offend no more. Two years afterwards, under a deep conviction of his error, he wrote again, confessing that he had acted under the influence of a sinful fear of man, and in deference to the judgment of those whom he held to be wiser than himself; and he now openly retracted his former assertion, and declared that he knew no principles of the Methodists (so-called) which were contrary to the Word of God, nor any practices but what were agreeable both to Scripture and the laws of the Church. He became a very useful clergyman, and a friend and fellow-labourer of the Wesleys.
Having 'regulated' the Society here and at Kingswood, he returned to London, reading on the way 'that excellent tract, Mr, Middleton's Essay on Church Government,' and 'once more the Life of that good and wise (though mistaken) man, Gregory Lopez.'
Being pressed to visit a poor murderer in Newgate, he objected that the turnkeys, as well as the keeper, hated the Methodists, and had refused to admit him even to one who earnestly begged it the morning he was to die. However, he went, and to his surprise found all the doors open to him. While he was exhorting the sick malefactor to call upon God, the rest of the felons flocked round, to whom he spoke 'strong words concerning the Friend of Sinners, which they received with as great signs of amazement as if it had been a voice from heaven.' When he came into the common hall, one of the prisoners, asking him a question, gave him occasion to speak among them, more and more still running together, while he declared God was not willing any of them should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Going by desire, on Sunday, September 12, to preach in an open place commonly called the Great Gardens, lying between Whitechapel and Coverlet-Fields, he found a vast multitude gathered, and called upon them to repent and believe the Gospel. 'Many of the beasts of the people,' he writes, 'laboured to disturb those of a better mind. They endeavoured to drive in a herd of cows among them; but the brutes were wiser than their masters. They then threw whole showers of stones, one of which struck me just between the eyes. But I felt no pain at all, and when I had wiped away the blood, went on testifying with a loud voice that God hath given to them that believe, not the spirit of fear, but of power and love, and of a sound mind. And by the spirit which now appeared through the whole congregation, I plainly saw what a blessing it is, when it is given us, even in the least degree, to suffer for His name's sake.' He carried the scar on his forehead to the end of life.
On the day following the incident just related, he set out after the early service, preached at nine at Windsor, and the next evening came to Bristol, where he spent a fortnight in examining the Society, and in speaking severally to each member. The next two months were spent alternately at London and Bristol, where he daily pursued his evangelistic work and watched over his societies.
On Monday, November 8, at four, he set out from London for Newcastle, and preaching at various towns on the way, he arrived on Saturday, and at once met the wild, staring, loving Society. His brother had been labouring here for some weeks, but had just returned to London.
On Sunday he began preaching at five o'clock ('a thing never heard of before in these parts'), when ' the victorious sweetness of the grace of God was present with His word.' At ten he went to All Saints, where was such a number of communicants as he had scarce seen but in London or Bristol. At four he preached in the square of the Keelmen's Hospital, and met the Society at six. On Monday morning he began, at five, expounding the Acts of the Apostles.
Each afternoon he spoke severally with the members of the Society. On Tuesday evenings he expounded the Epistle to the Romans, and after the sermon met the Society.
Struck by the different manner in which God is pleased to work in different places, he says, 'The grace of God flows here with a wider stream than it did at first either in Bristol or Kingswood; but it does not sink so deep. Few are thoroughly convinced of sin, and scarce any can witness that the Lamb of God has taken away their sins.' He adds, ' I never saw a work of God in any other place so evenly and gradually carried on. It continually rises, step by step. Not so much seems to be done at any one time as hath frequently been at Bristol and London, but something at every time. It is the same with particular souls. I saw none in that triumph of faith, which has been so common in other places. But the believers go on calm and steady. Let God do as seemeth Him good.' He began to visit the surrounding places. On Sunday, 28th, after preaching in the room at five, and in the hospital at eight, he walked about seven miles to Tanfield Leigh, where a large congregation was gathered from all the country round about, but 'so dead, senseless, unaffected a congregation' he had scarce seen. His experience here, as at many other places, led him to determine not to strike one stroke in any place where he could not follow the blow.
In Newcastle he secured a piece of ground on which to build a room for the Society, and removed into a lodging adjoining. The extreme cold prevented the building from being at once begun, but on Monday, December so, the first stone of the new house was laid. This was afterwards known as the Orphan House, it being used, amongst other purposes, as a school for orphans. The building was computed to cost £700, towards which Wesley had twenty-six shillings in hand. Many were positive it would never be finished, or that he would not live to see it covered. But he was of another mind, nothing doubting that, as it was begun for God's sake, He would provide what was needful for the finishing. Tyerman says: 'It was hallowed by associations far too sacred to be easily forgotten. Here one of the first Sunday Schools in the kingdom was established, and had not fewer than a thousand children in attendance. Here a Bible society existed before the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed. Here was one of the best choirs in England; and here, among the singers, were the sons of Mr. Scott, afterwards the celebrated Lords Eldon and Stowell. Here was the resting-place of John Wesley's first itinerants; and here colliers and keelmen, from all parts of the surrounding country, would assemble, and after the evening service, would throw themselves upon the benches, and sleep the few remaining hours till Wesley preached at five next morning. It became the northern home of Wesley and his helpers, and the centre of northern Methodism for many years.
While he was preaching on the site in the evening, he had frequently to stop, while the people prayed and gave thanks to God.
At Horseley, the house being too small, he preached in the open air, though a furious storm began. 'The wind,' he says, 'drove upon us like a torrent, coming by turns from east, west, north, and south. The straw and thatch flew round our heads, so that one would have imagined it could not be long before the house must follow; but scarce any one stirred, much less went away, until I dismissed them with the peace of God.' The next day he preached at Swalwell, when again the wind was high and extremely sharp, but none went away. The following day, after preaching as usual in the Square, he took horse for Tanfield, being more than once nearly blown off his horse. At three he preached to a multitude of people, and afterwards met the Society in a large upper room, which rocked to and fro with the violence of the storm.
As he took his farewell before the largest company he had seen in Newcastle, they hung upon him, so that he could with difficulty disengage himself; as it was, 'a muckle woman' kept her hold, and ran by the horse's side to the Sandgate. He and his companion, Jonathan Reeves, reached Darlington that night, and Boroughbridge the last day of the year, and spent the first day of the new year at Epworth.
'In this year,' Wesley writes, 'many societies were formed in Somersetshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, and Nottinghamshire, as well as the southern parts of Yorkshire. And those in London, Bristol, and Kingswood were much increased.' And every society became a centre of religious light and Christian activity and influence, and prepared the way for the extension of the evangelist's visits.
Wesley commenced the year at Epworth, where he preached at five o'clock, and on his father's tomb at eight; but he was denied the Sacrament by the curate. 'Pray tell Mr. Wesley,' said he, 'I shall not give him the Sacrament; for he is not fit.' At Birstal he found many had been turned aside by C the Germans.' He arrived in Sheffield wet and weary, then pressed on to the poor colliers at Wednesbury, where his brother had preceded him. He preached in the Town Hall morning and evening, and in the open air. Many were deeply affected, and about a hundred desired to join together. In two or three months they were increased to between three and four hundred. Passing through Evesham, he came to Stratford-on-Avon, where 'most of the hearers stood like posts; but some mocked, others blasphemed, and a few believed.' The remainder of the month was spent in and near Bristol. Returning to London, he and his brother visited the whole of the Society, which occupied them for some days, from six in the morning till six in the evening.
About the middle of February he set out for Newcastle, where he found that the good impressions made on the minds of some of the people were not deep, and that it was necessary to put away more than sixty of them for various gross offences. He was led to conclude, from the unhappy instances that he had met with in all parts of England, that it was a great evil for people to be half-wakened, and then left to themselves, to fall asleep again; and he resolved not to attempt to deepen an impression which had no evidence of being permanent.
He preached in the shell of the new preaching house, then in course of erection; when a great multitude gathered, most of whom kept watch far into the night.
He visited Placey, a small colliery village about ten miles north of Newcastle, the inhabitants of which had always been in the first rank for savage ignorance and wickedness of every kind. He tells us that he felt great compassion for these poor creatures, from the time he first heard of them, and the more because all men seemed to despair of them. He set out with a guide, an unusually high north wind driving the sleet in their faces, which froze as it fell, so that they could barely stand when they arrived. He stood and declared Him who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The poor sinners, he says, quickly gathered together, and gave earnest heed to the things which were spoken; as they did again in the afternoon, in spite of the wind and snow, He visited them again and again, and had occasion greatly to rejoice over his labours.
Returning from Newcastle through Knaresborough, Leeds, Birstal, and Sheffield, he came to Wednesbury, where he found comparative quiet. On the Sunday afternoon he attended service in the church, and 'never heard so wicked a sermon, and delivered with such bitterness of voice and manner.' Knowing what ill effects would be produced by it, he endeavoured to fortify the minds of the people. While he was speaking, a neighbouring clergyman in a very drunken state rode up and, after many 'unseemly and bitter words, laboured much to ride over the people.' All this bore its fruit in a short time, as we shall see.
After a week's rest and peace at Bristol, being refreshed in mind and body, he made a tour through part of Wales; and all went well except at Cowbridge, where a mob, 'headed by one or two wretches called gentlemen, continued shouting, cursing, blaspheming, and throwing showers of stones almost without intermission.' So, after some time spent in prayer for them, he dismissed the congregation. He returned to Bristol, and after a fortnight's work there repaired to London.
On Trinity Sunday he began services in a chapel in West Street, Seven Dials, built some sixty years before by the French Protestants. This was for years afterwards the scene of many remarkable Methodist services. It was the custom of the Wesleys, when in London, to administer the Lord's Supper every Sunday. The first service in West Street was a sacramental service, which lasted no less than five hours, so great was the concourse of communicants. Wesley was afraid his strength would not hold out for his other work; but says,' God looked to that; so I must think, and they that will call it enthusiasm, may.' In the evening he preached at the Great Gardens to an 'immense congregation;' then met the leaders of the classes, and after them the Bands. 'At ten at night,' he says, 'I was less weary than at six in the morning.' The following Sunday the service lasted six hours, so he divided the communicants into three companies that there might not be more than 60o at one time. He was gladdened to find that few out of the 1950 members, to which the Society had grown, had lapsed from their steadfastness.
Charles had been itinerating northwards, and his labours and successes had kept pace with his brother's. In Wednesbury a society of above three hundred members had been formed. Here a piece of ground having been given on which to build a preaching-house, he 'consecrated it by an hymn'; and then walked with many of the brethren to Walsall singing. He was received with noisy greetings by the rough people. Standing on the steps of the market-house, he opened his Bible to preach. He says, 'An host of men was laid against us. The street was full of fierce Ephesian beasts (the principal man setting them on), who roared and shouted and threw stones incessantly. Many struck without hurting me. I besought them in calm love to be reconciled to God in Christ. While I was departing, a stream of ruffians was suffered to bear me from the steps. I rose, and having given the blessing, was beat down again. So the third time, when we had returned thanks to the God of our salvation. I then from the steps bade them depart in peace, and walked quietly back through the thickest rioters. They reviled us, but had no commission to touch a hair of our heads.' After endeavouring to confirm the faith of the converts, he left for the north, there to meet with yet more violent treatment.
Wesley was not surprised at the news from Staffordshire; 'nor should I have wondered,' said he, 'if after the advices they had so often heard from the pulpit, as well as from the episcopal chair, the zealous, high-minded Churchmen had risen and cut all the Methodists in pieces.' Consulting a legal authority, he was assured he might have an easy remedy, if he resolutely prosecuted 'those rebels against. God and the King.'
He then started for the north. At Newcastle he found that, though some had fallen away, about six hundred continued faithful together for the hope of the gospel. Having been moved, ever since his first visit to Newcastle, at the crowds who every Sunday sauntered to and fro on the Sandhills, he resolved to find them a better employ, and walked straight from the church thither, and gave out a verse of a psalm. 'In a few minutes,' he says, 'I had company enough, thousands upon thousands crowding together.' He had proof that the very mob of Newcastle in the height of their rudeness had some humanity left, for though they made so great a noise that his voice could scarcely be heard, yet they did not throw anything, nor did he receive any personal harm. He had a similar congregation in the High Street at Sunderland. At Lower Spen, one of his people, John Brown, by his rough and strong, though ar |
