WESLEY’S CHURCHMANSHIP

WESLEY’S Churchmanship has been much debated. At Oxford and in Georgia he was undoubtedly a stiff High Churchman. What he afterwards described as the “vehement prejudice of my education “ had sunk deep into his mind. No one was more scrupulously exact in his obedience to all the rubrics and customs of the Church of England. Both his father and his mother were converts to that Church from the ranks of the Nonconformists, and his elder brother Samuel was a strong Churchman. With such home influence and a long residence at Oxford, we are not surprised to find that both John and Charles Wesley brought trouble on themselves by their conduct in Georgia. Charles insisted on trifle immersion as the only proper form of infant baptism. Parents were not quite willing to have their children thus plunged three times into the water. John Wesley pursued the same method. The second magistrate of Savannah had his child baptised by another clergyman because he would not allow Wesley to treat it in this fashion.

Dr. Rigg says,t “The resemblance of his practices to those of modern high Anglicans is, in most points, exceedingly striking. He had early and also forenoon service every day; he divided the morning service, taking the Litany as a separate service; he inculcated fasting and confession and weekly communion; he refused the Lord’s Supper to all who had not been baptised by a minister episcopally ordained; he insisted on baptism by immersion; he rebaptised the children of Dissenters; and he refused to bury all who had not received episcopal baptism. One thing only was wanting to make the parallel with our moderns complete: there is no evidence that he believed in the ‘conversion of the elements’ by consecration, or in their doctrine of the Real Presence.”

In 1749 Wesley received a letter from John Martin Boizius, which he inserted in his journal. Bolzius assures him that “the sincere love to his worthy person and faithful performance of his holy office which he had felt in Georgia was not abated, but increased.” Wesley adds, “What a truly Christian piety and simplicity breathe in these lines! And yet this very man, when I was at Savannah, did I refuse to admit to the Lord’s Table, because he was not baptised; that is, not baptised by a minister who had been episcopally ordained. Can any one carry High Church zeal higher than this And how well have I been since beaten with my own staff!"

Wesley’s voyage home from Georgia in 1738 was a time of great heart-searching. “I, who went to America to convert others,” he wrote, “was never myself converted to God.” Peter Bohler, whom he met in London, led him into the way of faith. The great change which he then experienced in his temper and views almost justifies Miss Wedgwood’s words, “Wesley’s homeward Voyage in 1738 marks the conclusion of his High Church period.” This was certainly the beginning of a “new dispensation.” The course of events still further modi. fled Wesley’s position. He and his friends found themselves shut out of the pulpits of the Church just when they were fully prepared to preach the Gospel. In his sermon preached on laying the foundation of City Road Chapel, Wesley states, that on his return from America he was in haste to retire to Oxford and bury himself in his beloved obscurity, but he was detained in London week after week by the trustees of the colony of Georgia. Meanwhile he was urged to preach in various churches, where “vast multitudes flocked” to hear him. After a time he was shut out of church after church. The reason given was usually, “Because you preach such doctrines.” Wesley had therefore to choose between silence and irregularity. Hence arose the first field-preaching. Wesley could scarce reconcile himself to this strange method when he stood in Whitefield’s congregation at Bristol, “having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.” His feeling about lay-preaching and his hurried journey to London to stop Thomas Maxfleld’s sermons have been already referred to.

At the end of December, 1745, to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, who was urging the Wesleys to leave the Church of England, he wrote as follows: “We believe it would not be right for us to administer either Baptism or the Lord’s Supper unless we had a commission so to do from those bishops whom we apprehend to be in a succession from the Apostles.” He holds that field-preaching is contrary to no law, and though he is not clear about the legality of lay-preaching, he maintains that, even if illegal, it is an exempt case in which he cannot obey with a good conscience. One point has special interest. Wesley expresses his belief that the threefold order of ministers—bishops, priests, and deacons—is not only authorised by its Apostolical institution, but also by the written Word.

"Yet," he adds, "we are willing to hear and weigh whatever reasons induce you to believe to the contrary."*

Mr. Hall may have referred him to a book on the subject. At any rate, he writes three weeks later, “I set out for Bristol On the road I read over Lord King’s ‘Account of the Primitive Church.’ In spite of the vehement prejudice of my education, I was ready to believe that this was a fair and impartial draft; but if so, it would follow that bishops and presbyters are (essentially) of one order, and that originally every Christian congregation was a Church independent of all others!” t Lord King, the writer who thus influenced Wesley, died in 1734, having been Lord Chancellor for eighteen years. From the position then taken Wesley never withdrew.

In the year 1755 there was a crisis in Methodism. Some of the “preachers” were accustomed to absent themselves from the services of the Church, and went so far as to administer the Lord’s Supper to those who held that close relationship with the Church of England could not be maintained or who felt unable to go to the Lord’s Table at church with comfort or profit. The two sons of Mr. Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham (whom Charles Wesley used to call the Archbishop of Methodism), Joseph Cownley, a preacher of remarkable ability, and Thomas Walsh were at the head of this movement. The Wesleys spent some time together at Birstal before the Leeds Conference of 1755 reading a book on Dissent written by a Dissenter. Thus prepared, they went to its session. After three days’ careful discussion, all fully agreed “that whether it was lawful or not to separate, it was no ways expedient.” • Charles Wesley, full of painful forebodings, rode off to London the morning after the debate, and before the end of the month printed a poetical “epistle” to his brother on the subject which was uppermost in his mind and heart. He read it two nights in succession to large congregations in London.

Wesley did not share his brother’s forebodings. He was perfectly satisfied with the concessions made by his preachers, and found wherever he went that the Societies were far more firmly and rationally attached to the Church than ever they were before. In 1758 he published his twelve “Reasons against a Separation from the Church of England.” The conciliatory spirit which breathes in this pamphlet shows how careful he was to interfere with no man’s liberty. “It would be well,” he says, “for every Methodist preacher, who has no scruple concerning it, to attend the service of the Church as often as he conveniently can.” Charles Wesley added a postscript, in which he expressed his approval, and declared his intention to live and die in communion with the Church of England. Two years later three preachers stationed in Norwich began to administer the Sacraments in that city. This step was taken entirely on their own responsibility. Charles Wesley was greatly excited. He sent a letter to his brother beginning with the ominous words, “We are come to the Rubicon.” He also wrote to various preachers entreating them to discountenance and oppose the conduct of their brethren at Norwich. John Wesley went quietly on his way, and this cloud soon passed.

The ordinations for America in 1784 roused all Charles Wesley’s fears. Lord Mansfield told him that ordination was separation. Charles at first felt that the life-long partnership between himself and his brother was dissolved, and wrote several earnest letters of expostulation to Wesley. In his brother’s reply occurs the famous sentence, “I firmly believe I am a Scriptural ejpiskopo~, as much as any man in England or in Europe; for the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man ever did or can prove.” Four years before he had expressed his conviction that he had as much right to ordain as to administer the Sacrament. Holding such views, Wesley took the step which his brother deplored, and ordained Dr. Coke as Superintendent of American Methodism. When Coke reached the States, he was instructed to ordain Asbury as his Co-Superintendent. We have seen that other ordinations to the ordinary work of the ministry in America, Scotland, and even in England * followed. In 1789 he requested his assistant, William Myles, an unordained preacher, to assist him in giving the cup to the communicants at Dublin. Such facts effectually disprove the statement that Wesley was a High Churchman, in the modem sense of that term, to the end of his life. Within seven years after his evangelical conversion the prejudices of his education had been thoroughly shaken, and in many respects entirely removed.

The step Wesley took in 1784 was the natural outgrowth of the conviction reached on reading Lord Chancellor King’s book in 1746. He had carefully abstained for nearly forty years from taking action, but the destitute condition of his American Societies at length drove him to make provision for the administration of the Sacraments. It is desirable to add that in a letter written to Lord North on behalf of the American colonists, Wesley describes himself as “a High Churchman, and the son of a High Churchman,” but this refers to his political attitude as a clergyman, not to his doctrinal position.

Another question has great interest. Did Wesley intend his Societies to separate from the Church He must have been strangely wanting in sagacity if he did not discern the drift of Methodist thought and feeling. The Wesleys had done all they could to bind their Societies to the Church. Their members at Bristol were at first constant communicants at St. James’s Church, near the preaching-place in the Horse Fair. That was “our parish church” in Bristol. In London St. Luke’s was the parish church for the Foundery Methodists. Even so late as December, 1789, eleven years after the opening of City Road Chapel, Wesley gives it this name. The connexion had been little more than a name, however, for many years. Wesley was at a very early date compelled to administer the Lord’s Supper to his own people in London and Bristol. On Sunday, April 12th, 1741, after the “bands” of Kingswood had been denied the Sacrament at Temple Church, Bristol, Charles Wesley, who had himself been repelled, with many others, administered the Lord’s Supper in Kingswood Schoolroom. “Had we wanted an house,” he says, “I would justify doing it in the midst of the wood.” When Wesley opened his West Street Chapel on May 29th, 1743, the Lord’s Supper was regularly administered there every week to the London Methodists. In October, 1770, after Charles Wesley left Bristol, and there was some fear of an interruption of the arrangements which had been in force for many years, the brothers, at the request of their friends, arranged to administer the Lord’s Supper at Bristol every other Sunday.

Bristol and London were, however, favoured Societies. The country Methodists fared badly. Sometimes they were repelled from the Lord’s Table; not seldom they were compelled to receive the Sacrament from a minister who either persecuted them or lived a life utterly unworthy of his profession. Wesley did his utmost to keep his members to the parish churches. He took care to attend himself, and earnestly exhorted the Societies to be regular in their attendance. But he found many difficulties. When he examined one Society in Cornwall, he discovered that out of ninety-eight persons all but three or four had forsaken the Lord’s Table. “I told them my thoughts very plain; they seemed convinced, and promised no more to give place to the devil.” t

Wesley’s journals show what pains he took to promote good feeling between the clergy and the Methodists. He visited the clergy to clear up any misunderstandings, and rejoiced over every manifestation of friendliness on their part. Sometimes he refers to the devout and practical preaching he heard when he went to church with his people. In later years he was often asked to take the pulpit himself. After one such service in Wales he writes, “The bigots of all sides seemed ashamed before God, and, I trust, will not soon forget this day.” Some of the sermons he heard at church grieved him deeply. A preacher at Birmingham in the Old Church, on July 14th, 1782, spoke with great vehemence against these “harebrained itinerant enthusiasts.” “But,” adds Wesley, “he totally missed the mark, having not the least conception of the persons whom he undertook to describe.” In one church he heard part of Bishop Lavington’s “Papists and Methodists Compared” read for a sermon, but that did not lessen his own congregation in the afternoon.

During the last years of Wesley’s life, the clergy generally learned to regard him as a friend. In January, 1783, after referring to two sermons preached in London, at St. Thomas’s and St Swithin’s, he says, “The tide is now turned; so that I have more invitations to preach in churches than I can accept of.” In December, 1789, he makes the same remark. His ordinations led some of his people to suppose that he was about to separate from the Church. Finding a report of this kind spread abroad in Bristol, in September, 1785, he openly declared on the Sunday evening that he had no more thought of separating from the Church than he had forty years ago.

Wesley’s Deed of Declaration, his ordinations, and the licensing of his chapels and preachers under the provisions of the Toleration Act show, however, that he was more careful for the continuance of the work than for any formal connection with the Church of England. He did not allow that he separated from the Church, and told the Deptford Society in January, 1787, that if they had their service in church hours, they should see his face no more. Next year, however, general liberty was given to hold services at such times wherever people did not object, except only on the Sacrament Sunday. Wesley took all possible care that Methodism should not perish with his death. The principles which eventually led to separation were extending and taking deeper root. The connection with the Church was gradually becoming slighter, and the united Societies were gaining step by step a complete organisation of their own. Wesley’s death removed the last barrier to complete independence. It was surely better, in the interests of religion, that Methodism should have the Sacraments duly administered by her own preachers than that the unsatisfactory arrangement existing at the close of Wesley’s life should be maintained in order to avoid separation.

Wesley found many true helpers in the Church of England. The Rev. William Grimshaw, curate of Haworth, in Yorkshire, deserves the first place in the list of his clerical coadjutors. He became one of Wesley’s assistants in 1745. Grimshaw took charge of two large Methodist circuits. In addition to his own parish duties, he met classes, conducted lovefeasts, and preached with awakening power, sometimes as many as thirty sermons a week. Wesley’s itinerants always found his house their home. Sometimes he would give up his own bed and sleep in the barn because his Methodist friends had filled all his rooms. Grimshaw died in 1762, after sixteen years of unceasing devotion.

Wesley told Dr. Byrom in 1761 that he divided his assistants into regulars, half-regulars, and irregulars. Midan and Romaine, he said, belonged to the second class. At that time Wesley was surrounded by a band of active workers among the clergy. In March, 1757, John Fletcher had sought holy orders, at Wesley’s suggestion. After his ordination he became Vicar of Madeley, but to the end of his life he was the most valuable of all Wesley’s helpers in the Church of England. He relieved him of the burden of the Calvinistic controversy in 1771 by his “Checks to Antinornianism,” travelled with him to encourage the Societies, and kindled anew the fire of devotion as often as he appeared among the preachers at their annual Conference. Wesley hoped that Fletcher would have in some measure filled his place after his death. But all such hopes were frustrated by the death of the Vicar of Madeley in 1785. Fletcher owed his con— version to Methodism. The service which he rendered to its Societies and preachers was invaluable. Wesley wrote his friend’s life. “Within fourscore years,” he says, “I have known many excellent men, holy in heart and life, but one equal to him I have not known, one so uniformly and deeply devoted to God. So unblamable a man in every respect I have not found either in Europe or America, nor do I expect to find another such on this side eternity.” *

The year after Fletcher’s ordination the Rev. John Berridge, Vicar of Everton, invited Wesley to visit him. He soon became an earnest ally. His church was crowded with people who came ten, twenty, or thirty miles to hear the awakened clergyman, and he laboured as an itinerant evangelist with great success. Sometimes he travelled a hundred miles, and preached ten or twelve sermons a week. Scenes like those which broke out under Wesley’s preaching at Bristol and Newcastle became frequent under his ministry. Scores fell on the ground, and were carried to the Vicarage. Romaine, then lecturer at St. Dunstan’s in-the-West, was also a firm friend, and suffered much in consequence. He often had to address the crowds at St. Dunstan’s Church with a lighted taper in his hand, because the churchwardens refused to light the building for the Methodist clergyman. Martin Madan, a witty young lawyer, went to hear Wesley that he might afterwards mimic him among his friends. When he returned to the coffee-house, they asked him if he had “taken off the old Methodist.” “No, gentlemen,” was the reply, “but he has taken me off.” He became a popular evangelical clergyman, and travelled with Romaine, Wesley, Lady Huntingdon, and Henry Venn, then curate of Clapham, who afterwards became Vicar of Huddersfield, and laboured with great success in the surrounding district. Berridge and Madan took the Calvinistic side in the controversy of 1771. Berridge did himself little credit by his grotesque writing. Madan did not publish anything on that controversy, but revised Rowland Hill’s writings and supported the Calvinistic party.

Vincent Perronet, the Vicar of Shoreham, who died in 1785, at the ripe age of ninety-two, was for thirty-nine years the intimate friend and adviser of the Wesleys. Two of his Sons became Methodist preachers. Their father retained his parish, but made it a model Methodist circuit. The Wesleys and their itinerants often visited Shoreham, where they were greatly cheered by his unwavering faith and constant kindness. The great awakening spread rapidly among the clergy. When Romaine began to preach evangelical truth, he could only reckon up six or seven clergymen of evangelical views, but before his death lfl 1795 there were more than five hundred.*

The most notable figure in Wesley’s staff of clerical helpers in the last years of his life was Dr. Coke. Expelled from his curacy because of his zeal and fervour, Coke boldly cast in his lot with Methodism in 1777. Wesley often said that Coke was a second Thomas Walsh to him.t The people flocked from all parts to hear the man whom persecution had driven into the Methodist ranks. He relieved Wesley of many burdens in his old age, and devoted himself with unwearying zeal to the care of the Societies. Coke is best known as the Missionary Bishop of Methodism. He made many voyages across the Atlantic, and died in May, 1814, on his way to Ceylon with a band of missionaries.