CHAPTER IX
THE MORAVIAN AND CALVINIST CONTROVERSIES
UP to this
time the Wesleys, who had been shut out of the churches, had
preached in the open air, or “expounded” at the
Society in Fetter Lane and other similar Societies. Some better
arrangements were now essential. Wesley says, “On Sunday,
November 11th 1739, I preached at eight o’clock to five
or six thousand, on the spirit of bondage and the Spirit of
adoption, and at five in the evening to seven or eight thousand,
in the place which had been the King’s foundery for cannon.*
Oh, hasten Thou the time when nation shall not rise up against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This foundery
became the head-quarters of Methodism until City Road Chapel
was built in 1778. In 1716, when the damaged cannon taken by
Marlborough from the French were being recast there, a tremendous
explosion tore off part of the roof, and broke down the galleries,
killing several of the Workmen, and injuring others. A young
Swiss called Schalch had foreseen the danger and warned the
Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. All who would take warning
left the place and thus escaped. Schalch Was appointed Master
Founder, and directed to choose another locality for casting
the King’s cannon. He chose the rabbit-warren at Woolwich.
The old building was thus left in ruins. It stood, about fifty
feet from Providence Row, on the east side of Windmill Hill,
now Tabernacle Street, parallel with City Road, and a few yards
to the east of it, just above Finsbury Square. The building
had a frontage of forty yards, with a depth of about thirty-three.
It was in
November, 1739, that two gentlemen, who up to that time were
entire strangers to Wesley, asked him to preach here. Wesley
consented. He was afterwards pressed to buy it. The purchase
money was a hundred and fifteen pounds, but heavy repairs and
necessary alterations raised the expense to about eight hundred
pounds. Galleries had to be erected for men and women, the Society-room
had to be enlarged, and the whole structure thoroughly repaired.
Some friends, including Mr. Ball and Mr. Watkins, lent Wesley
the purchase money; and subscriptions were raised. The first
year two hundred pounds was contributed, the next a hundred
and forty pounds, but the people were so poor that five years
after the opening there was still a debt of three hundred pounds.
There were two entrances, one leading to the chapel, the other
to the preachers’ house, the school, and the band-room.
The chapel would seat about fifteen hundred people on its plain
benches. Men and women sat apart, and no one was allowed to
claim any place as his own: those who came first sat down first.
The women sat in the front gallery and under it, the men in
the side galleries and in the seats below them. About a dozen
benches, with rails at the back, were provided for women in
front of the pulpit. In the band-room, behind the chapel, classes
and prayer-meetings were held. One end of it was fitted up as
a schoolroom; the other became Wesley’s “Book Room,”
where Methodist literature was sold. Above the band-room were
Wesley’s apartments; at the end of the chapel stood the
house for the preachers. A coach-house and stable completed
the accommodation.
The Foundery
was closed for repairs in the early part of 1740. Silas Told,
who afterwards became Wesley’s schoolmaster there, attended
the five o’clock service one morning in June, 1740. He
found it a ruinous place, with an old pantile covering, decayed
timbers, and a pulpit made of a few rough boards. Exactly at
five o’clock a whisper ran through the congregation, “Here
he comes! here he comes I” Wesley stepped forward in his
robes, and gave out a hymn. The singing enraptured the stranger,
but he did not like the extempore prayer, because he thought
it savoured too much of Dissent. His prejudice quickly abated
when Wesley began to preach from the words, “I write unto
you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you.”
The friend who had brought Told to the Foundery asked him how
he liked Mr. Wesley. He replied, “As long as I live I
will never part from him.”
The time had
now come when the importance of having a Methodist centre became
clear. A month after Silas Told’s visit to the Foundery
the final breach at Fetter Lane occurred. We have seen that
Wesley was recalled from Bristol in June, 1739, by the grave
disorders which had sprung up. He was able to restore peace;
but the mischief was not at an end. At Oxford in December he
received disquieting accounts from London. Scarcely one in ten
retained his first love; most of the rest were in the utmost
confusion, biting and devouring one another. Wesley had a long
and particular conversation with Mr. Molther, a Moravian minister,
who had come to England on October i 8th, on his way to Pennsylvania.
He became very popular, and remained in London till September,
1740, when he was summoned to Germany. Molther soon caused trouble
by teaching that no man had any degree of faith unless he enjoyed
the full assurance of faith and the abiding witness of the Spirit.
He maintained that the gift of God which many had received through
Peter BOhier’s labours was not justifying faith. Wesley
could not accept doctrines which were opposed to all his own
experience and to the plain teaching of the New Testament. Molther
also held that the way to find faith was to be “still.”
Those who desired the blessing were to give up the public means
of grace. They were not even to pray or to read the Scriptures,
nor to attempt to do any good works.
On New Year’s
Day, 1740, Wesley tried to teach the Society the true Scriptural
doctrine of stillness from the words, “Be still, and know
that I am God.” Two days later such a spirit of love and
peace as they had not known for months rested upon the Society.
Before February closed he found, however, that some of the members,
not content with neglecting the means of grace, were constantly
disputing with those who were of a better spirit. At the end
of April the trouble became more serious. Wesley at once returned
to London when he heard of the confusion. His brother Charles
had suffered much during the previous weeks. Mr. Stonehouse
and Charles Delamotte had both been led astray. Charles Wesley
foresaw that a separation was now inevitable. He was not the
man to make any truce with those who dishonoured the ordinances
of God, but he was exposed to no small annoyance in consequence
of his firmness. One of the fanatics declared that there were
only two ministers in London—Molther and Bell— who
were true believers. John Bray asserted that it was impossible
for any one to be a true Christian out of the Moravian Church.
When Wesley
came to London he and his brother had an interview with Molther,
who still defended his erroneous views. Wesley was utterly at
a loss what to do. More than fifty persons, who had been greatly
troubled by this new gospel, spoke to him. “Vain janglings”
sounded in his ears wherever he went. At Fetter Lane one evening
the question of ordinances was broached. Wesley begged, however,
that they might not be always disputing, but might rather give
themselves to prayer. During his ten days’ stay Wesley
laboured, both by his public addresses and his visits, to undo
the mischief and save the erring; but the difficulty was only
postponed. When he returned to London in the beginning of June
he began to expound the Epistle of St. James as an antidote
to the temptation to leave off good works. Poor Stonehouse said
that he was going to sell his living, because “no honest
man could officiate as a minister in the Church of England.”
At one meeting in Fetter Lane Mr. Ingham bore noble testimony
for the ordinances of God and the reality of weak faith. But
they would neither receive his saying nor Wesley’s.
On Sunday, June 22nd, Wesley says, “Finding
there was no time to delay without utterly destroying the cause
of God, I began to execute what I had long designed,—to
strike at the root of the grand delusion.” From the words,
“Stand ye in the way; ask for the old paths,” he
gave an account of the manner in which God has worked two years
before, and showed how tares had recently been sown among the
wheat. During the following week he laboured every day to guard
the members at the Foundery against the errors that were rife.
On July i6th the Fetter Lane Society resolved that Wesley should
not be allowed to preach there. “This place,” they
said, “is taken for the Germans.” When some asked
if the Germans had converted any soul in England, whether they
had not done more harm than good by raising a spirit of division,
and whether God had not many times used Mr. Wesley to heal their
divisions when all were in confusion, some of the agitators
even ventured to assert that they were never in any confusion
at all. At eleven o’clock Wesley withdrew from this useless
debate.
Two days later
he received the Sacrament, with his mother and a few of his
friends. They afterwards consulted as to the course they should
adopt. All saw that matters had reached a crisis, and were of
one mind as to the course to be pursued. The following Sunday
evening, July 20th, Wesley went, with Mr. Seward, afterwards
one of the leading Calvinists, to the lovefeast in Fetter Lane.
He said nothing till the conclusion of the meeting; then he
read a paper which in a few sentences summed up the controversy,
and gave expression to his conviction that their teaching about
weak faith and the ordinances was flatly contrary to the Word
of God. “I have warned you hereof again and again, and
besought you to turn back to the law and the testimony. I have
borne with you long, hoping you would turn. But as I find you
more and more confirmed in the error of your ways, nothing now
remains but that I should give you up to God. You that are of
the same judgment, follow me.” Without another word he
withdrew, eighteen or nineteen others accompanying him.
The Methodist company, thus separated from the
rest, now met at the Foundery. Twenty-five men joined it. All
but two or three of the fifty women in band at Fetter Lane desired
to cast in their lot with the Wesleys. Some weeks before—on
June 10th—the Wesleys and Ingham bad succeeded in remodelling
the bands at Fetter Lane, so that those who still observed “the
ordinances” might not be scattered one or two in a band
of disputers and be harassed and sawn asunder, as they had so
long been. Charles Wesley summed up the result in his journal:
"We gathered
up our wreck,-' raros * nantes in gurgite vasto,' for nine out
of ten are swallowed up in the dead sea of stillness. Oh, why
was this not done six months ago? How fatal was our delay and
false moderation!" t The step then taken did something to preserve
the faithful remnant who now met at the Foundery. This breach
at Fetter Lane is a painful subject. But every one must share
Charles Wesley's regret that the separation was not made earlier.
His brother hoped against hope. His patience and longsuffering
were characteristic. At last he was forced to take some step.
The Fetter Lane Society had virtually expelled him on the Wednesday
before he read his paper. He had no other course but to enter
his protest and withdraw, with any whom he could save from the
perilous snare of these teachers.
The Evangelical
Revival now began to bear precious fruit in London. Up to this
time the controversies and errors of Fetter Lane had been fatal
to growth. In a letter to Zinzendorf on March 14th, 1740, James
Hutton says that “John Wesley, being resolved to do all
things himself, and having told many souls that they were justified
who have since discovered themselves to be otherwise, and having
mixed the works of the Law with the Gospel as means of grace,
is at enmity against the Brethren. Envy is not extinct in him.
His heroes falling every day into poor sinners frightens him;
but at London the spirit of the Brethren prevails against him.
I desired him simply to keep to his office in the body of Christ,
se., to awaken souls in preaching, but not to pretend to lead
them to Christ. But he will have the glory of doing all things.”
The latter sentence explains the former. Wesley was to gather
in converts; the Brethren were to stamp their own likeness upon
them. It was no wonder that Wesley was “resolved to do
all things himself.” If he had neglected that, his labour
would soon have been undone. We have seen how calmly and patiently
he treated the Moravians. His heroes were turned into poor sinners,
Hutton says; that is, they were led to deny the work of grace
which had been wrought in their hearts. James Hutton’s
feelings were far different from those he once cherished towards
the man who led him to Christ.
Molther and
the disturbers at Fetter Lane were teaching doctrines opposed
to the spirit of their own Church. On September 29th, 1740,
Wesley earnestly called upon the Moravian Church, and Count
Zinzendorf in particular, to correct him if he had misunderstood
their tenets. He had learnt from them, as well as from the English
Church, that a man might have a degree of justifying faith before
he is wholly freed from doubt and fear, and might use the ordinances
of God before he gained the full assurance of faith. Molther
and his supporters entirely denied this. Wesley’s Society
soon outstripped the Moravian Church. In 1743, when the Methodists
in London numbered 1,950 members, the Moravians of the metropolis
were only about seventy-two.
On his return
from Hernhuth in 1738, Wesley began a letter to his friends
there in which he says, “But of some things I stand in
doubt, which I will mention in love and meekness. . . . Is not
the Count all in all among you? Do you not magnify your own
Church too much? Do you riot use guile and dissimulation in
many cases? Are you not of a close, dark, reserved temper and
behaviour?”
The letter
was not sent, but it shows that Wesley had already detected
some germs of that spirit which afterwards led to the separation.
In September, 1741, Wesley and Zinzendorf had an interview at
Gray’s Inn Walk; but it led to no practical result. When
Mr. Stonehouse read the conversation, he remarked, “The
Count is a clever fellow; but the genius of Methodism is too
strong for him.” t Four years later Zinzendorf inserted
an advertisement in the Daily Advertiser to the effect that
the Moravians had no connection with the Wesleys. A prophecy
was added that the brothers would “soon run their heads
against the wall.” “We will not if we can help it,”
was Wesley’s comment The Count’s later life fully
justified Wesley’s position. His influence on the Moravian
Church was singularly unhealthy, and Antinomianism spread among
the English members of the community. Wesley’s painful
experience did not prevent him from paying a high tribute to
his old friends. “Next to the members of the Church of
England,” he says, “the body of the Moravian Church,
however mistaken some of them are, are in the main, of all whom
I have seen, the best Christians in the world.” §
Before the
breach with the Society at Fetter Lane, signs of a still more
painful struggle had appeared. The Calvinist controversy separated
the Wesleys from George Whitefield, who had long been as their
own soul, and divided Methodism into two camps. Grave and long
was the strife of opinion. No other subject has so profoundly
stirred Latin Christianity as the question of free-will and
Divine sovereignty. From the days of St. Augustine this has
been the great theological battle-ground of the West. Even in
Reformation times, when the struggle with Rome assumed its most
terrible proportions, this controversy rent Protestantism into
two hostile sections, and turned Lutheran and Calvinist into
deadly foes. It is no wonder, therefore, that such a controversy
divided the workers of the Evangelical Revival into two parties.
As early as 1725 Wesley had corresponded with his mother on
this subject, and had taken up his own position. He was not,
therefore, likely to abandon his views nor even to keep them
to himself, as Whitefield suggested that he should do.
In 1740 Wesley
published his sermon on “Free Grace.” He sums up
the doctrine of “election, preterition, predestination,
or reprobation” in one sentence: “The sense of all
is plainly this—by virtue of an eternal, unchangeable,
irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly
saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that
any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter
should be saved.” Mrs. Wesley, in a striking letter on
election in 1725, tells her son, “I think you reason well
and justly against it.” Then she expresses her own views.
“I firmly believe that God from eternity has elected some
to eternal life; but then I humbly conceive that this election
is founded on His foreknowledge, according to Romans viii.
29, 30. Whom, in His eternal prescience, God saw would make
a right use of their powers, and accept of offered mercy, He
did predestinate and adopt for His children.” Such were
substantially the views Wesley held in his famous sermon. So
early as July 2nd. 1739, Whitefield had urged him to “keep
in” his “sermon on predestination.” He went
to America soon afterwards, whence he wrote several letters
to his friend on the subject in controversy. In the States he
found himself among ministers who were zealous for Calvinism.
He read the books which they recommended, so that his own convictions
became stronger. When Wesley published his sermon on “Free
Grace” in 1740, he told his readers in a brief “
Address” that nothing save the strongest conviction that
he was indispensably obliged to declare this truth to all the
world could have induced him to oppose the sentiments of those
whom he esteemed so highly for their works’ sake. He begged
any. one who might feel bound to contest his views to do so
in love and meekness. Charles Wesley was perfectly in accord
with his brother. He wrote a hymn of thirty-six verses which
was printed at the end of the sermon.
And shall
I, Lord, confine Thy
As not to
others free?
And may not
every sinner prove
The grace
that found out me?
Doom them
an endless death to die,
From which
they could not flee
O Lord, Thine
inmost bowels cry
Against the
dire decree I
Whitefield
was much disturbed by the publication of this sermon. During
his voyage to England, in an affectionate letter to Charles
Wesley, dated February 1st, 1741, he says, “My dear, 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 to Mr. Garden and
others in America?” The answer was simple. The Wesleys
felt it their duty to speak plainly. They mentioned no names,
but quietly set forth their own views. All must allow that the
leaders of the greatest popular revival ever known in this country
were not at liberty to be silent. Whitefield might argue that
he did not know the elect, and was therefore bound to offer
the Gospel to all. But such an argument would not satisfy the
Wesleys. Calvinism was spreading. Antinomianism was creeping
into their Societies. There was no time to lose in coping with
the growing mischief.
Whitefield
brought with him from America an answer he had prepared to Wesley’s
sermon. This manuscript letter he submitted to Charles Wesley,
asking his advice whether he should print it or not. Charles
returned it endorsed, “Put up again thy sword into its
place.” Whitefield, however, did not take this advice,
but published his letter. John Wesley had no objection to fair
argument; but he considered Whitefield’s letter a burlesque
upon an answer. He also greatly regretted that Whitefield should
have mentioned him and his brother by name, so that it seemed
like a public attack upon his old friends. Whitefield began
to preach against the Wesleys by name in Moor.. fields and other
places. Once, when invited to the Foundery, he preached the
absolute decrees in the most peremptory and offensive manner.
Some thousands of people were present, and Charles Wesley sat
beside him. The rupture was soon complete. Whitefield refused
to hold any connection with those who believed in free grace.
The Society at Kingswood was rent asunder by this controversy,
so that it did not look up again for years. John Cennick, the
schoolmaster there, was one of Wesley’s lay-preachers,
and owed his position entirely to his kindness. ~1et Cennick
did not scruple to use all his influence to spread dissension.
When two women publicly railed against Charles Wesley, he did
not even attempt to interpose. One day in May, 1741, when Charles
Wesley was passing the Bowling Green in Bristol, a woman cried
out, “The curse of God light upon you,” with such
uncommon bitterness that he turned to speak to her. He stayed
heaping coals of fire upon her head, till at last she said,
“God bless you all.” When he visited Wales one man
publicly left the room because he would not reprove Howel Harris
for his Calvinism. Such facts show the bitterness of feeling
that was aroused by this painful controversy.
The brothers
were now left alone. Whitefield refused to work with them; their
companions in Georgia— Ingham and Charles Delamotte—had
become Moravians. Stonehouse, Gambold, Westley Hall, Hutton,
and others also joined the Germans. For a time Wesley feared
that his brother would follow their example. Charles had said,
“No English man or woman is like the Moraviâns.”
John tells him, “The poison is in you: fair words have
stolen away your heart.” Charles seemed to have forgotten
the struggle against stillness, in the bitterness of the more
recent controversy, and drew comparisons favourable to the
Germans. Whatever his danger, may have been, his preaching soon
showed that he was as much opposed to their doctrine of “stillness”
as ever. About this time a reunion with the Moravians was discussed,
but when the “bands” met together to consider the
matter, all agreed that the time had not come. The erroneous
doctrines were not renounced, and the Fetter Lane Society spoke
with such guile that scarcely any one could tell what ~hey really
believed. Wesley did not give up hope of a reconciliation. In
August, 1743, he summoned his brother Charles in haste from
Cornwall to a conference with Whitefield and the Moravians.
He was even willing to make unjustifiable concessions for the
sake of peace; but as neither Whitefield nor the Moravians would
take part in the conference, the whole matter fell through.
