Editor's Introductory Notes: 1748

[1] <William Holland was a painter in a large way of business in Basinghall Street, London. He was a member of the Church of England, but was the first 'Congregational Elder' in the Moravian Church. He had taken Luther's Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians to Charles Wesley (who was sick at John Bray's), and had found rest for his soul as Charles read the Preface aloud to him and Bray. It is not unlikely that Holland read Luther's Romans at Aldersgate Street when John Wesley found his heart strangely warmed. Holland settled in Yorkshire, and left the Moravians because he did not wish to separate from the Church of England. He died in 1761 These facts give peculiar interest to Wesley's tribute to his brother, whom Holland knew so intimately. See Journal, i. 475-6n.

Thomas Williams had railed at the Wesleys as Papists, tyrants, enemies of the Church, and scattered firebrands wherever he could. Wesley told the London Society on August 2, 1744, that he was 'no longer in connexion with us.' Williams afterwards acknowledged the wrong he had done, and was again employed as a preacher. See Journal, iii. 144; C. Wesley's Journal, i. 365-6; end headings to letters of August 13, 1747, and March 14, 1748.>

 

[2] <Wesley wrote this letter (probably to Thomas Whitehead) in reply to one received from 'a person lately joined with the people called Quakers.' See letter of July 2, 1739.

Robert Barclay of Ury (1648-90) joined the Friends in 1667, and in 1676 published An Apology for the True Christian Divinity as the same is held forth and preached by the people, in scorn, called Quakers, which is the standard exposition of their tenets. He was several times imprisoned; but in 1679 was enjoying favour at Court. See letter of January 1, 1791.]

 

[3] <This letter is dated the 12th; but Wesley did not arrive in Bristol till the next day. He reached Dublin on March 8, and on his return 'breakfasted at Fonmon, dined at Wenvoe, and preached at Cardiff in the evening' on May 24. Kingswood School was opened on June 24, when Wesley preached from 'Train up a child, &c.' He and Charles administered the Lord's Supper, and agreed on the General Rules of the School, which were afterwards published. See Journal, iii. 356. On August 18, 1745, Charles Wesley preached at Wenvoe, where John Hodges was Rector (see letter of June 18 of that year). He says, 'My brothers Thomas and Hodges administered the sacrament.' Mr. Thomas and Mr. Wells had gone with him on September II, 1741, to visit some condemned prisoners at Cardiff, and next day Mr. Thomas and Charles Wesley rode in the cart with them to the place of execution. On April 3, 1749, Thomas met Charles Wesley as he rode to Garth for his marriage. The separation had not taken place.>

 

[4] <Wesley reached Holyhead on February 24, but found all the ships on the other side. On the 26th the Rev. Thomas Ellis came in towards the close of a service Wesley was holding and spoke warmly to the landlord, when Robert Swindells interposed and went with Ellis to his house. He told Wesley next day that Mr. Ellis would take it as a favour if Wesley would write some little thing advising the Methodists not to leave the Church and not to rail at their ministers. He sat down immediately and wrote A Word to a Methodist, which Ellis translated into Welsh and printed. The best Welsh authorities agree that the English copy was not published, but that the Welsh translation was issued in Dublin in 1748 (8 pages); a second edition appeared in 1752. See Journal, iii. 335; Green's Bibliography, No. 109.>

 

[5] <Several circumstances made the Marlborough Street premises unpleasant, and after three months the landlord turned them out. A weaver's shop was then acquired in Cork Street, which was fitted up for services with a room above it for the preacher's lodgings. On September 29, 1747, while seeking for other accommodation, Charles Wesley and Thomas Williams met Samuel Edwards, a schoolmaster of Golden Lane, who, on behalf of the Baptist trustees, offered them the room in Skinner's Alley, which was used as a Moravian chapel, where Cennick preached in 1746. 'He told us he quite disliked his tenants, was resolved to raise the rent, and asked if we should be willing to take the room if they refused it. We answered, " If they had the first offer, and did not accept of it, we should be glad of the next refusal."' On February 5, 1748, Cennick informed Charles Wesley that 'he believed the trustees would never let it them again '; and Charles Wesley told him that he could have the use of it whenever he pleased. Cennick acknowledged his kindness, and said that he had acted fairly throughout. The room remained in the hands of the Methodists until the Whitefriar Street Chapel was built in 1752. The correspondence in connexion with the Skinner's Alley Room, which was recently discovered by Mr. Charles Keating, the Archivist of the Dublin Moravian Congregation, who kindly permitted the Rev. R. Lee Cole, M.A., to copy it, is given in the W.H.S. Proceedings, xvii. 36-50. See Journal, iii. 339; C. Wesley's Journal, i. 461-2, ii. 2; the next letter and that of February 6; and for Cennick, heading to letter of April 27, 1741, to Whitefield.>

 

[6] <Cennick replied that he would take over the lease of the room and pay Wesley's expenses. Wesley sent the following letter the same day. See previous letter and that of March 26 to him; also March 15 and 16.>

 

[7] <Cennick's reply closed with the sentence, 'Our dear brother Toltschig salutes you affectionately, and so does your loving and tender brother J. Cennick.' see next letter and that of March 14.>

 

[8] <Cennick had left for England. Wesley wrote to Toltschig, who replied that Cennick had given him no instructions, and Wesley had better send to him in London. See previous letter and the following one.>

 

[9] <This letter called forth an unfriendly answer from Jonathan Binns and William Mondet the same day, to which Wesley replied on April 16. He preached in the room on March 29. See previous letter and that of April 16 to Toltschig.>

 

[10] <Charles Wesley was in London, having reached there on April 9 from Garth, where he had been ill for ten days. Wesley himself arrived on June I, the time mentioned; and the Conference met the next day. John Meriton was Wesley's travelling companion. He copied a part of Wesley's Journal which was sent to Charles Wesley. Wesley added this letter (now imperfect), and wrote on the inner side, 'Mr. Meriton will transcribe and send the letters next week.' See Journal, iii. 337; W.H.S. in. 46; and letter of December 22, 1748.>

 

[11] <On April 14 Toltschig forwarded a letter from Cennick, dated 'London, April 2,' who told Wesley that William Horne had come to Dublin and would act in the matter. See letters of March 29 and April 22.>

 

[12] <On April 20 Horne reported that two of the Moravian members had waited on Samuel Edwards about an arbitration as to expenses and to suggest a meeting with Wesley. See letters of April 16 and 27.>

[13] <Horne wrote on the 27th complaining of the delay in making an assignment of the lease and of the action of Thomas Williams, which he said had led the Baptists to double the rent. See previous letter and that of May 14.>

 

[14] <Wesley quotes this letter, in writing to the Rev. George L. Fleury, of Waterford, on May 18, 1771. He says he will answer his objection to lay preachers, 'not by anything new--that is utterly needless; but barely by repeating the answer which convinced a serious clergyman many years ago.' It was printed as A Letter to a Clergyman (Dublin: S. Powell, 1748, 8 pages), and is a convincing argument 'that every Christian, if he is able to do it, has authority to save a dying soul.' It was not a letter to Fleury, as Myles says in his Chronological History (4th ed.), p. 62.>

 

[15] <Mondet complained on May 13 of Wesley's action, and announced that Cennick had now returned and could himself deal with the matter. See next letter and that of April 27.>

 

[16] <Cennick wrote on May 14 that the Moravians were not willing to be under obligations to Samuel Edwards; 'and if only upon these conditions you are willing to give us again the house, I am entirely contented to be without it.' See previous letter.>

 

[17] <Wesley wrote from Bristol, but put London as his head-quarters address. After Haime was discharged from the Army, he became one of Wesley's preachers. He travelled with Wesley, who knew how sorely he was tempted. 'When I was absent he comforted me by his letters, which were a means under God of saving me from utter despair.' See Wesley's Veterans, i. 50.>

 

[18] The first volume of A Christian Library was printed by Felix Farley at Bristol in 1749. Fifty duodecimo volumes were published between that date and 1755. On November 6, 1752, Wesley reckons his loss on the work at above £200, and says, 'Perhaps the next generation may know the value of it.' From 1819 to 1827 an octavo edition of thirty volumes was issued and had a wide sale. See Green's Bibliography, No. 131.

 

[19] <Wesley reached London on September 4. Dr. Whitehead says (Life, ii. 242) this letter was written to a friend. Dr. Doddridge helped him by sending a list of suitable books for his Christian Library. See previous letter.>

 

[20] <It was thought that this letter was written to George White, Curate of Colne and Marsden (Journal, iii. 370n), who had preached a sermon against the Methodists on July 24 and August 7, which he afterwards issued with a dedication to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Grimshaw replied to this in a sermon published the following year. The letter, however, as preserved by John Bennet, shows that it was addressed to James Hargrave, the Constable at Barrowford, as indeed certain passages in the letter indicate. White issued a proclamation calling on any who would enlist for the defence of the Church of England under himself as commander-in-chief. He was a drunkard, and was buried in April 1751. See Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon, i. 261; Laycock's Great Haworth Round, pp. 61-3.>

 

[21] <William Grimshaw, who was born in Lancashire in 1708 and educated at Cambridge, was made perpetual curate of Haworth in 1742. In 1745 he became closely connected with Wesley, who said 'he carries fire wherever he goes.' Colne was part of the Haworth Round, which was under Grimshaw's charge till his death on April 7, 1763. He was a natural orator, and an earnest and popular preacher. He preached twenty and sometimes more than thirty times a week. He used to say, 'I love my God first and best, but not enough. Next to Him I love my dear brothers Wesley, with whom I am heartily joined, and hope never to be parted in time or in eternity.' Next to them came 'my dear brother Whitefield,' and then all the labourers for Christ. See Laycock's Great Haworth Round, p. 244; and previous letter.>

 

[22] <Bennet wrote from Woodley in Cheshire on April 20, 1749, stating that the action pending between the Halifax brethren and the rioters of Sowerby Bridge was more expensive than they could bear, and the Quarterly Meeting at Woodley had unanimously agreed to make collections throughout the Cheshire Round to help them.>

 

[23] <A protest against the use of strong green tea. It bore the motto from Terence, Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum put. [Heut. I. i. 25: 'I am a man; nothing human is indifferent to me.'] Wesley abstained from tea for twelve years, till Dr. Fothergill ordered him to take it when threatened with consumption. See Works, x. 393; Tyerman's Wesley, i. 521-3.>

 

[24] <Wesley left London on February 14, and spent Lent at Kingswood, reading lectures to seventeen of his preachers as he had done with his pupils at Oxford. He preached at Fonmon on April 4, married his brother to Miss Gwynne on the 8th, and crossed from Holyhead to Ireland on the 15th See Telford's Wesley, p. 225.>

 

[25] Note from the digital editor: Telford placed the letter of December 1748 to Vincent Perronet, giving 'A Plain Account of the People called Methodists,' on pp. 292-311. For this edition it has been placed here with other letters of 1748.

[25a] Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham in Kent, to whom Wesley was introduced by Henry Piers on August 14, 1744, was for thirty-nine years his most intimate clerical friend and adviser. Charles Wesley called him the Archbishop of Methodism. He made his parish a model Methodist circuit, and welcomed Wesley and his preachers there. Two of his sons became Methodist preachers His daughter Elizabeth married William Briggs, and their daughter Elizabeth was the wife of Peard Dickinson, one of Wesley's clerical helpers in London. Perronet died on May 9, 1785, aged ninety-two. See letter of June 2, 1785. His writings prove that he was a scholar as well as a saint.

Wesley says that in this 'Plain Account' the whole plan of the people called Methodists may be seen; not only their practice, but the reasons whereon it is grounded, the occasion of every step taken, and the advantages reaped thereby. The footnotes marked by an asterisk were added by Wesley in the first edition of his Works, 1771-4.

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