The English Church in the Eighteenth Century Part 30

The same motive which led Wesley to dispute with Law actuated him in his separation from the Moravians. In justice to that exemplary body it must be remembered that they were not well represented in London when Wesley split from them. The mischievous notion that it was contrary to the Gospel for a man to search the Scriptures, to pray, to communicate--in fact, to use any ordinances--before he had faith, that it was his duty simply to sit still and wait till this was given him, would, if it had gained ground, have been absolutely fatal to Wesley's efforts. He could not even tacitly countenance those who held such tenets without grievous hindrance to his work.[720] One is thankful to learn that he resisted his besetting temptation, and did not send to the Herrnhut brethren a rude letter which he had written,[721] and thankful also to find that he did full justice to the good qualities of Count Zinzendorf.[722] But as to his separation from the London Moravians, Wesley could not have acted otherwise without seriously damaging the cause which he had at heart. His dispute with Whitefield will come under our notice in connexion with the Calvinistic controversy, which forms a painfully conspicuous feature in the Evangelical movement. It is sufficient in this place to remark that the Antinomianism which, as a plain matter of fact, admitted even by the Calvinists themselves, did result from the perversion of Calvinism, was, if possible, a more fatal hindrance to Wesley's work than the Moravian stillness itself. This was obviously the ground of Wesley's dislike of Calvinism,[723] but it did not separate him from Calvinists; so far as a separation did ensue the fault did not lie with Wesley.[724]

His misunderstanding with some of the Evangelical clergy of his day arose from the same cause as that which led him into other disputes. An overpowering sense of the paramount importance of the great work which he had to do made him set aside everything which he considered to be an obstacle to that work without the slightest hesitation. Now, much as Wesley loved the Church of England, he never appreciated one of her most marked features, the parochial system. Perhaps under any circ.u.mstances such a system would have found little favour in the eyes of one of Wesley's temperament. To a man impatient of immediate results the slowly but surely working influence of a pastor resident in the midst of his flock, preaching to them a silent sermon every day and almost every hour by his example among them, would naturally seem flat, tame and impalpable when compared with the more showy effects resulting from the rousing preaching of the itinerant. Such a life as that of the parish priest would have been to Wesley himself simply unbearable. He was of opinion--surely a most erroneous opinion--that if he were confined to one spot he should preach himself and his whole congregation to sleep in a twelvemonth. He never estimated at its proper value the real, solid work which others were doing in their respective parishes. He bitterly regretted that Fletcher would persist in wasting his sweetness on the desert air of Madeley. He had little faith in the permanency of the good which the apostolic Walker was doing at Truro. Much as he esteemed Venn of Huddersfield, he could not be content to leave the parish in his hands. He expressed himself very strongly to Adam of Winteringham on the futility of his work in his parish. He utterly rejected Walker's advice that he should induce some of his itinerant preachers to be ordained and to settle in country parishes. He thought that this would not only narrow their sphere of usefulness, but also cripple their energies even in that contracted sphere. Mistaken as we may believe him to have been in these opinions, we cannot doubt his thorough sincerity. In the slight collision into which he was necessarily brought with the Evangelical clergy by acting upon these views he was actuated by no vulgar desire to make himself a name by encroaching upon other men's labours, but solely by the conviction that he must do the work of G.o.d in the best way he could, no matter whom he might offend or alienate by so doing. Order and regularity were good things in their way, but better do the work of G.o.d irregularly than let it be half-done or undone in the regular way.[725]

He predicted that even the earnest parochial clergy of his day would prove a mere rope of sand--a prophecy which subsequent events will scarcely endorse.

Not that John Wesley ever desired to upset the parochial system. From first to last he consistently maintained his position that his work was not to supplant but to supplement the ordinary work of the Church. This supplementary agency formed so important a factor in the Evangelical revival, and its arrangement was so characteristic of John Wesley, that a few words on the subject seem necessary. It would fill too much s.p.a.ce to describe in detail the const.i.tution of the first Methodist societies.

It is now purposed to consider them simply in their relation to their founder. The most superficial sketch of the life and character of John Wesley would be imperfect if it did not touch upon this subject; for, after all, it is as the founder, and organiser, and ruler of these societies that John Wesley is best known. There were connected with the Evangelical revival other writers as able, other preachers as effective, other workers as indefatigable, as he was; but there were none who displayed anything like the administrative talent that he did. From first to last Wesley held over this large and ever-increasing agency an absolute supremacy. His word was literally law, and that law extended not only to strictly religious matters, but to the minutest details of daily life. It is most amusing to read his letters to his itinerant preachers, whom he addresses in the most familiar terms. 'Dear Tommy' is told that he is never to sit up later than ten. In general he (Mr.

Wesley) desires him to go to bed about a quarter after nine.[726] 'Dear Sammy' is reminded, 'You are called to obey _me_ as a son in the Gospel.

But who can prove that you are so called to obey any other person?'

Another helper is admonished, 'Scream no more, at the peril of your soul. Speak with all your heart, but with a moderate voice. It is said of our Lord, "He shall not cry"--literally, scream.' The helpers generally are commanded 'not to affect the gentleman. You have no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing-master.' And again, 'Do not mend our rules, but keep them,' with much more to the same effect. His preachers in Ireland are instructed how they are to avoid falling into the dirty habits of the country and the most minute and delicate rules about personal cleanliness are laid down for them.

The congregations are ruled in almost the same lordly fas.h.i.+on as the preachers. Of a certain congregation at Norwich Wesley writes, 'I told them in plain terms that they were the most ignorant, self-conceited, self-willed, fickle, untractable, disorderly, disjointed society that I knew in the three kingdoms. And G.o.d applied to their hearts, so that many were profited, but I do not find that one was offended.'[727] At one time he had an idea that tea was expensive and unwholesome, and his people are commanded to abstain from the deleterious beverage, and so to 'keep from sickness and pay their debts.' 'Many,' he writes, 'tell me to my face I can persuade this people to anything;' so he tried to persuade them to this. In the same year (1746) he determines to physic them all.

'I thought,' he says, 'of a kind of desperate experiment. I will prepare and give them physic myself.' This indefatigable man provided for their minds as well as for their souls and bodies. He furnished them with a 'Christian library,' writing, abridging, and condensing many books himself, and recommending and editing others; and few, probably, of the early Methodists read anything else.

As to the Conference, Wesley clearly gave its members to understand that his autocracy was to be in no way limited by their action. '_They_ did not,' he writes, 'desire the meeting, but _I_ did, knowing that in the mult.i.tude of counsellors there is safety. But,' he adds significantly, 'I sent for them to advise, not to govern me. Neither did I at any of those times divest myself of any part of that power which the providence of G.o.d cast upon me without any desire or design of mine. What is that power? It is a power of admitting into and excluding from the societies under my care; of choosing and removing stewards, of receiving or not receiving helpers: of appointing them where, when, and how to help me, and of desiring any of them to meet me when I see good.'[728] They never dreamt of disobeying him. So great was the awe which he inspired that when the Deed of Declaration was drawn up in 1784, and Wesley selected, somewhat arbitrarily, one hundred out of one hundred and ninety-two preachers to be members of the Conference, though several murmured and thought it hard that preachers of old standing should be rejected, yet when the time came none durst oppose him. 'Many,' writes one of the malcontents, 'were averse to the deed, but had not the courage to avow their sentiments in Conference. Mr. Wesley made a speech and invited all who were of his mind to stand up. They all rose to a man.'[729]

It certainly was an extraordinary power for one man to possess; but in its exercise there was not the slightest taint of selfishness, nor yet the slightest trace that he loved power for power's sake. His own account of its rise is perfectly sincere, and artless, and, it is honestly believed, perfectly true. 'The power I have,' he writes, 'I never sought; it was the unadvised, unexpected result of the work which G.o.d was pleased to work by me. I therefore suffer it till I can find some one to ease me of my burthen.' He used his power simply to promote his one great object--to make his followers better men and better citizens, happier in this life and thrice happier in the life to come.

If it was a despotism it was a singularly useful and benevolent despotism, a despotism which was founded wholly and solely upon the respect which his personal character commanded. Surely if this man had been, as his ablest biographer represents him,[730] an ambitious man, he would have used his power for some personal end. He would at least have yielded to the evident desire of some of his followers and have founded a separate sect, in which he might have held a place not much inferior to that which Mahomet held among the faithful. But he spoke the truth when he said, 'So far as I know myself, I have no more concern for the reputation of Methodism than for the reputation of Prester John.'[731]

When he heard of accusations being brought against him of 'shackling free-born Englishmen' and of 'doing no less than making himself a Pope,'

he defended his power with an artless simplicity which was very characteristic of the man. 'If,' he said, 'you mean by arbitrary power a power which I exercise singly, without any colleague therein, this is certainly true; but I see no harm in it. Arbitrary in this sense is a very harmless word. I bear this burden merely for your sakes.' It is a defence which one could fancy an Eastern tyrant making for the most rigorous of 'paternal governments.' But Wesley was no tyrant; he had no selfish end in view; it was literally 'for their sakes' that he ruled as he did; and since he was infinitely superior to the ma.s.s of his subjects (one can use no weaker term) in point of education, learning, and good judgment, it was to their advantage that he did so.

At any rate a Churchman may be pardoned for thinking this, for one effect of his unbounded influence was to prevent his followers from separating from the Church. His sentiments on this point were so constantly and so emphatically expressed that the only difficulty consists in selecting the most suitable specimens. Perhaps the best plan will be to quote a few pa.s.sages in chronological order, written at different periods of his life, to show how unalterable his opinions were on this point, however much he might alter them in others. At the very first Conference--in 1744, only six years after his conversion--we find him declaring (for of course the dicta of Conference were simply his own dicta), 'We believe the body of our hearers will even after our death remain in the Church, unless they are thrust out. They will either be thrust out or leaven the Church.' A few years later, 'In visiting cla.s.ses ask everyone, "Do you go to church as often as you did?" Set the example and immediately alter any plan that interfereth therewith. Are we not unawares, by little and little, tending to a separation from the Church? Oh, remove every tendency thereto with all diligence. Receive the Sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil; against calling our society a Church or the Church; against calling our preachers ministers and our houses meeting-houses: call them plain preaching-houses. Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a Dissenter, but as a Methodist preacher.' In 1766, 'We will not, we dare not, separate from the Church, for the reasons given several years ago. We are not seceders.... Some may say, "Our own service is public wors.h.i.+p." Yes, in a sense, but not such as to supersede the Church service. We never designed it should! If it were designed to be instead of the Church service it would be essentially defective, for it seldom has the four grand parts of public prayer--deprecation, pet.i.tion, intercession, and thanksgiving. Neither is it, even on the Lord's Day, concluded with the Lord's Supper. If the people put ours in the place of the Church service, we _hurt_ them that stay with us and _ruin_ them that leave us.' In 1768, 'We are, in truth, so far from being enemies to the Church that we are rather bigots to it. I dare not, like Mr. Venn, leave the parish church where I am, and go to an Independent meeting. I advise all over whom I have any influence to keep to the Church.' In 1777, in the remarkable sermon which he preached on laying the foundation of the City Road Chapel, after having given a succinct but graphic account of the rise and progress of Methodism, 'we,' he concludes, 'do not, will not, form any separate sect, but from principle remain, what we have always been, true members of the Church of England.'[732] In 1778, 'To speak freely, I myself find more life in the Church prayers than in any formal extempore prayers of Dissenters.' In 1780, 'Having had opportunity of seeing several Churches abroad, and having deeply considered the several sorts of Dissenters at home, I am fully convinced our own Church, with all her blemishes, is nearer the Scriptural plan than any other Church in Europe.' In 1783, 'In every possible way I have advised the Methodists to keep to the Church. They that do this most prosper best in their souls. I have observed it long. If ever the Methodists in general leave the Church, I must leave them.' In 1786, 'Wherever there is any Church service I do not approve of any appointment the same hour, because I love the Church of England, and would a.s.sist, not oppose it, all I can.' In 1788, 'Still, the more I reflect the more I am convinced that the Methodists ought not to leave the Church. I judge that to lose a thousand--yea, ten thousand--of our people would be a less evil than this. "But many had much comfort in this." So they would in any _new thing_. I believe Satan himself would give them comfort therein, for he knows what the end must be. Our glory has. .h.i.therto been not to be a separate body. "_Hoc Ithacus velit_."' And finally, within two years of his death, in his striking sermon on the ministerial office, 'In G.o.d's name stop!... Ye are a new phenomenon on the earth--a body of people who, being of no sect or party, are friends to all parties, and endeavour to forward all in heart-religion, in the knowledge and love of G.o.d and man. Ye yourselves were at first called in the Church of England; and though ye have and will have a thousand temptations to leave it, and set up for yourselves, regard them not; be Church of England men still; do not cast away the peculiar glory which G.o.d hath put upon you and frustrate the design of Providence, the very end for which G.o.d raised you up.'

But some years before John Wesley uttered these memorable words had he not himself done the very thing which he deprecated? Consciously and intentionally, No! a thousand times no; but virtually and as a matter of fact we must reluctantly answer, Yes. Lord Mansfield's famous dictum, 'Ordination is separation,' is unanswerable. When, in 1784, John Wesley ordained c.o.ke and Ashbury to be 'superintendents,' and Whatcoat and Vasey to be 'elders,' in America, he to all intents and purposes crossed the Rubicon. His brother Charles regarded the act in that light and bitterly regretted it. How a logical mind like John Wesley's could regard it in any other it is difficult to conceive. But that he had in all sincerity persuaded himself that there was no inconsistency in it with his strong Churchmans.h.i.+p there can be no manner of doubt.

The true explanation of John Wesley's conduct in this matter may perhaps be found in the intensely practical character of his mind. His work in America seemed likely to come to a deadlock for want of ordained ministers. Thus we come back to the old motive. Everything must be sacrificed for the sake of his work. Some may think this was doing evil that good might come; but no such notion ever entered into John Wesley's head; his rect.i.tude of purpose, if not the clearness of his judgment, is as conspicuous in this as in the other acts of his life.

It should also be remembered (for it serves to explain this, as well as many other apparent inconsistencies in his career) that Wesley attached very little value to the mere holding of right opinions. Orthodoxy, he thought, const.i.tuted but a very small part, if a part at all, of true religion. 'What,' he asks, 'is faith? Not an opinion nor any number of opinions, be they ever so true. A string of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness.' Opinions were 'feathers light as air, trifles not worth naming.' Controversy was his abhorrence; he thought 'G.o.d made practical divinity necessary, but the Devil controversial.' When he entered into controversy with Tucker in 1742, 'I now, he wrote, 'tread an untried path with fear and trembling--fear not of my adversary, but of myself.' Just twenty years later he records with evident satisfaction that he has entirely lost his taste for controversy and his readiness in disputing, and this he takes to be a providential discharge from it. 'I am sick,' he writes on another occasion, 'of opinions; I am weary to bear them: my soul loathes this frothy food. Give me solid, substantial religion. Give me an humble, gentle lover of G.o.d and man. Whosoever thus doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the same is brother, and sister, and mother.'

He was anxious to promote a union between all the Evangelical clergy, but it must be on the condition that the points of difference between them should not be discussed. He was quite ready to hand over his opponents to Fletcher, or Sellon, or Olivers, or anyone whom he judged strong enough to take them in hand. He prided himself on the fact that Methodism required no agreement on disputed points of doctrine among its members. 'Are you in earnest about your soul?' That was the one question that must be answered in the affirmative. 'Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart? If so, then give me thine hand.' Or, as he elsewhere expresses it, 'The sum is, One thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I see--an argument of which a peasant, a woman, a child, may feel all the force.'[733]

This almost supercilious disregard of mere orthodoxy was all very well in Wesley's days, but it would never have done in the earlier part of the century; for it tacitly a.s.sumed that the main truths of Christianity had been firmly established; and the a.s.sumption was justifiable. The work of the apologists had prepared the way for the work of the practical reformer. If the former had not done their work, the latter could not have afforded to think so lightly as he did of sound doctrine.

Feeling thus that opinions were a matter of quite secondary consideration, Wesley had no hesitation about modifying, or even totally abandoning, opinions which he found to be practically injurious.[734] He confessed, as we have seen, that he was quite wrong in his theory of the Divine origin of Episcopacy, and in his estimate of his own state of mind previous to his conversion in 1738. He very materially modified his doctrine of Christian perfection when he found it was liable to practical abuse, and appended notes to an edition of hymns in which that doctrine was too unguardedly stated.[735] He confessed his error on the subject of Christian a.s.surance in a characteristically outspoken fas.h.i.+on. 'When,' he wrote in old age, 'fifty years ago, my brother Charles and I, in the simplicity of our hearts, taught the people that unless they _knew_ their sins were forgiven they were under the wrath and curse of G.o.d, I marvel they did not stone us. The Methodists, I hope, know better now. We preach a.s.surance, as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of G.o.d, but we do not enforce it under pain of d.a.m.nation denounced on all who enjoy it not.' He thought it idle to discuss the question of regeneration in baptism when it was obvious that baptized persons had practically as much need as heathens to be born again.[736] It was quite as much their fondness for controversy as their rigid Calvinism which put him out of love with the Scotch and made him feel that he could do no good among them.[737]

In accounting for Wesley's repugnance to religious controversy it should not be forgotten that in the latter half of his life controversial divinity had sunk to a low ebb, at least among those with whom he would most naturally come into contact. A man of his logical mind, clear common sense, and extensive reading could hardly fail to be disgusted with much that pa.s.sed for religious literature. He shrunk with a horror which is almost amusing from the task of reviewing religious publications in the 'Arminian Magazine.' 'I would not,' he said, 'read all the religious books that are now published for the whole world.' He protested against 'what were vulgarly called Gospel sermons.' 'The term,' he says, 'has now become a mere cant word. I wish none of our Society would use it. It has no determinate meaning. Let but a pert, self-sufficient animal that has neither sense nor grace bawl out something about Christ and His blood, or justification by faith, and his hearers cry out, "What a fine Gospel sermon!"'[738]

In fact, Wesley in his later years was very much alienated from what was called 'the religious world.' He had received some of his severest wounds in the house of his friends. Not Warburton, nor Lavington, nor Gibson had spoken and written such hard things against him as many of the most decidedly Evangelical clergy. He clung to the poor and unlettered, not, as it has been a.s.serted, because he desired to be a sort of Pope among them, but because he really felt that his work was there less hampered by the disturbing influence of conflicting opinions, which were barren of practical effects upon the life. As usual, he made no secret whatever of his preference. A n.o.bleman accustomed to flattery on all sides must have been rather taken aback on the receipt of this very outspoken rebuff from plain John Wesley: 'To speak the rough truth, I do not desire any intercourse with any persons of quality in England. They can do me no good, and I fear I can do none to them.'[739]

One can fancy the amazement of Lady Huntingdon, who exacted and received no small amount of homage from her proteges, when she received a letter from John Wesley so different from those which were usually addressed to her. 'My Lady, for a considerable time I have had it in my mind to write a few lines to your ladys.h.i.+p, though I cannot learn that your ladys.h.i.+p has ever enquired whether I was living or dead. By the mercy of G.o.d I am still alive and following the work to which He has called me, although without any help, even in the most trying times, from those I might have expected it from. Their voice seemed to be rather, _Down with him! down, even to the ground!_ I mean (for I use no ceremony or circ.u.mlocution) Mr. Madan, Haweis, Berridge, and (I am sorry to say) Whitefield.' Had it been to an earl instead of a countess the letter would probably have been rougher still; but John Wesley was a thorough gentleman in every sense of the word, and could not insult a female--only if the female had been plain Sarah Ryan instead of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, she would have had more chance of being treated with deference; for Wesley positively disliked the rich and n.o.ble. 'In most genteel religious people,' he said, 'there is so strange a mixture that I have seldom much confidence in them. But I love the poor; in many of them I find pure, genuine grace, unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation.' And again, 'Tis well a few of the rich and n.o.ble are called. May G.o.d increase the number. But I should rejoice, were it the will of G.o.d, if it were done by the ministry of others. If I might choose, I would still, as. .h.i.therto, preach the Gospel to the poor.' He had the lowest opinion both of the intellectual and moral character of the higher cla.s.ses. 'Oh! how hard it is,' he once exclaimed, 'to be shallow enough for a polite audience!' And on another occasion he records with some bitterness of a rich congregation to which he had preached at Whitehaven, 'They all behaved with as much decency as if they had been colliers.' 'I have found,' he says again, 'some of the uneducated poor who have exquisite taste and sentiment, and many, very many, of the rich who have scarcely any at all.' He wrote to Fletcher, in what one must call an unprovoked strain of rudeness, on the danger of his conversing with the 'genteel Methodists.' Indeed, the leading members of the Evangelical school--Lady Huntingdon, Sir Richard and Rowland Hill, Venn, Romaine, and others--were, quite apart from their Calvinism, never cordially in harmony with John Wesley. As years went on Wesley must have felt himself more and more a lonely man so far as his equals were concerned, for in point of breeding and culture he was fully the equal of the very best.

It must not be supposed that Wesley did not feel this isolation. There is a sadness about the strain in which he wrote to Benson in 1770.

'Whatever I say, it will be all one. They will find fault because I say it. There is implicit envy at my power (so called) and jealousy therefrom.' Wesley was not demonstrative, but he was a man of strong affections and acute feelings, and he felt his loneliness, and more so than ever after the death of his brother Charles. There is a touching story that a fortnight after the death of the latter Wesley was giving out in chapel his dead brother's magnificent hymn,

Come, O thou traveller unknown,

and when he came to the lines,

My company before is gone, And I am left alone with thee,

the old man (then in his eighty-fourth year) burst into tears and hid his face in his hands.

One feature in Wesley's character must be carefully noted by all who would form a fair estimate of him. If it was a weakness, and one which frequently led him into serious practical mistakes, it was at any rate an amiable weakness--a fault which was very near akin to a virtue. A guileless trustfulness of his fellow-men, who often proved very unworthy of his confidence, and, akin to this, a credulity, a readiness to believe the marvellous, tinged his whole career. 'My brother,' said Charles Wesley, 'was, I think, born for the benefit of knaves.'[740] It is in the light of this quality that we must interpret many important events of his life. His relations with the other s.e.x were notoriously unfortunate; not a breath of scandal was ever uttered against him; and the mere fact that it was not is a convincing proof, if any were needed, of the spotless purity of his life; for it is difficult to conceive conduct more injudicious than his was. The story of his relations.h.i.+p with Sophia Causton, Grace Murray, Sarah Ryan, and last, but not least, the widow Vazeille, his termagant wife, need not here be repeated. In the case of any other man scandal would often have been busy; but Wesley was above suspicion. His conduct was put down to the right cause--viz. a perfect guilelessness and simplicity of nature. The same tone of mind led him to take men as well as women too much at their own estimates. He was quite ready to believe those who said that they had attained the summit of Christian perfection,[741] though, with characteristic humility, he never professed to have attained it himself.

He was far more ready than either his brother Charles or Whitefield to see in the physical symptoms which attended the early movement of Methodism the hand of G.o.d; but, in justice to him, it should be added that he was no less ready than they were to check them when in any case he was convinced of their imposture. The same spirit led him to attribute to the immediate interposition of Providence events which might have been more reasonably attributed to ordinary causes; this laid him open to the merciless attacks of Bishops Lavington and Warburton.

The same spirit led him to the superst.i.tious and objectionable practice of having recourse to the 'Sortes Biblicae,' by which folly he was more than once misled against his own better judgment; the same spirit tempted him to lend far too eager an ear to tales of witchcraft and magic.[742]

But, after all, these weaknesses detract but little from the greatness and nothing from the goodness of John Wesley. He stands pre-eminent among the worthies who originated and conducted the revival of practical religion which took place in the last century. In particular points he was surpa.s.sed by one or other of his fellow-workers. In preaching power he was not equal to Whitefield; in saintliness of character he was surpa.s.sed by Fletcher; in poetical talent he was inferior to his brother; in solid learning he was, perhaps, not equal to his friend and disciple Adam Clarke. But no one man combined _all_ these characteristics in so remarkable a degree as John Wesley; and he possessed others besides these which were all his own. He was a born ruler of men; the powers which under different conditions would have made him 'a heaven-born statesman' he dedicated to still n.o.bler and more useful purposes. Among the poor at least he was always appreciated at his full worth. And one is thankful to find that towards the end of his life his character began to be better understood and respected by worthy men who could not entirely identify themselves with the Evangelical movement. There is a pleasing story that Wesley met Bishop Lowth at dinner in 1777, when the learned Bishop refused to sit above Wesley at table, saying, 'Mr. Wesley, may I be found sitting at your feet in another world.' When Wesley declined to take precedence the Bishop asked him as a favour to sit above him, as he was deaf and desired not to lose a sentence of Mr. Wesley's conversation. Wesley, though, as we have seen, he had no partiality for the great, fully appreciated this courtesy, and recorded in his journal, 'Dined with Lowth, Bishop of London. His whole behaviour was worthy of a Christian bishop--easy, affable, and courteous--and yet all his conversation spoke the dignity which was suitable to his character.'[743] In 1782, at Exeter, Wesley dined with the Bishop in his palace, five other clergy being present.[744] In 1784, at Whitehaven, Wesley 'had all the Church ministers to hear him, and most of the gentry of the town.'[745]

Still to the last Wesley had the mortification of seeing his work occasionally thwarted by that Church which he loved so dearly. One of the last letters which he wrote was a manly appeal to the Bishop of Lincoln on the subject.

A few months later the n.o.ble old man was at rest from his labours. When the clergyman who officiated at his funeral came to the words, 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty G.o.d to take unto Himself the soul of our dear _brother_ here departed,' he subst.i.tuted the word 'father'

for 'brother,' and the vast mult.i.tude burst into tears. It remained for the present generation to do justice to his memory by giving a place in our Christian Walhalla among the great dead to one who was certainly among the greatest of his day.[746]

The next great leader of the early Evangelical movement who claims our attention is _George Whitefield_ (1714-1770). Whitefield, like Wesley, appears from first to last to have been actuated by one pure and disinterested motive--the desire to do as much good as he could in the world, and to bring as many souls as possible into the Redeemer's kingdom. But, except in this one grand point of resemblance, before which all points of difference sink into insignificance, it would be difficult to conceive two men whose characters and training were more different than those of Wesley and Whitefield.[747] Instead of the calm and cultured retirement of Epworth Rectory, Whitefield was brought up amidst the vulgar bustle of a country town inn. His position was not very much improved when he exchanged the drawer's ap.r.o.n at the 'Bell Inn,' Gloucester, for the degrading badge of a servitor at Pembroke College, Oxford. After two or three years' experience in this scarcely less menial capacity than that which he had filled at home, he was at once launched into the sea of life, and found himself, at the age of twenty-two, with hardly any intellectual or moral discipline, without having acquired any taste for study, without having ever had the benefit of a.s.sociating on anything like terms of equality with men of intellect or refinement, suddenly elevated to a degree of notoriety which few have attained. Scarcely one man in a thousand could have pa.s.sed through such a transformation without being spoiled. But Whitefield's was too n.o.ble a spirit to be easily spoiled. Nature had given him a loving, generous, unselfish disposition, and Divine grace had sanctified and elevated his naturally amiable qualities and given him others which nature can never bestow. He went forth into the world filled with one burning desire--the desire of doing good to his fellow-men and of extending the kingdom of his Divine Master.

It is needless here to repeat the story of the marvellous effects produced by his preaching. Nothing like it had ever been seen in England before. Ten thousand--twenty thousand--hearers hung breathless upon the preacher's words. Rough colliers, who had been a terror to their neighbourhood, wept until the tears made white gutters down their cheeks--black as they came from the colliery--and, what is still more to the purpose, changed their whole manner of life and became sober, G.o.d-fearing citizens in consequence of what they heard; sceptical philosophers listened respectfully, if not to much purpose, to one who hardly knew what philosophy meant; fine gentlemen came to hear one who, in the conventional sense of the term, had very little of the gentleman about him; shrewd statesmen, who had a very keen appreciation of the value of money, were induced by the orator to give first copper, then silver, then gold, and then to borrow from their friends when they had emptied their own pockets.

What was the secret of his fascination? His printed sermons which have come down to us are certainly disappointing.[748] They are meagre compositions enough, feeble in thought and badly expressed; and what is known of Whitefield's mental powers would hardly lead us to expect them to be anything else. But it is scarcely necessary to remark that to judge of the effects of any address delivered by the way in which it reads is misleading; and it should also be remembered that what would sound to us mere truisms were new truths to the majority of those to whom Whitefield preached. A man of simple, earnest, loving spirit, utterly devoid of self-consciousness and filled with only one thought--how best to recommend the religion which he loves--may produce a great effect without much theological learning. Such a spirit Whitefield had, if any man ever had. Moreover, if the first qualification of an orator be action, the second action, and the third action, Whitefield was undoubtedly an orator. A fine presence, attractive features, and a magnificent voice which could make itself heard at an almost incredible distance, and which he seems to have known perfectly well how to modulate, all tended to heighten the effect of his sermons. As to the matter of them, there was at least one point in which Whitefield was not deficient. He had the descriptive power in a very remarkable degree.

If it were not that the expression conveyed an idea of unreality--the very last idea that should be a.s.sociated with Whitefield's preaching--one might say that he had a good eye for dramatic effect. On a gra.s.sy knoll at Kingswood; in the midst of 'Vanity Fair' at Basingstoke or Moorfields, where the very contrast of all the surroundings would add impressiveness to the preacher's words; in Hyde Park at midnight, in darkness which might be felt, when men's hearts were panic-stricken at the prospect of the approaching earthquake, which was to be the precursor of the end of the world; on Hampton Common, surrounded by twelve thousand people, collected to see a man hung in chains--the scenery would all lend effect to the great preacher's utterances. Outdoor preaching was what he loved best. He felt 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' within any walls. 'Mounts,' he said, 'are the best pulpits, and the heavens the best sounding-boards.' 'I always find I have most power when I speak in the open air--a proof to me that G.o.d is pleased with this way of preaching.'[749] 'Every one hath his proper gift. Field-preaching is my plan. In this I am carried as on eagle's wings. G.o.d makes way for me everywhere.'[750]

In dwelling upon these secondary causes of Whitefield's success as a preacher it is by no means intended to lose sight of the great First Cause. G.o.d, who can make the weak things of this world to confound the mighty, could and did work for the revival of religion by this weak instrument. But G.o.d works through human agencies; and it is no derogation to the power of His grace, but simply tracing out the laws by which that grace works, when we note the human and natural agencies which all contributed to lend a charm to Whitefield's preaching. The difficulty of accounting for that charm is not so great as would at first sight appear. Indeed, immeasurably superior as Wesley's printed sermons are to Whitefield's in depth of thought, closeness of reasoning, and purity of diction, it is more difficult to explain the _excitement_ which the older and far abler man produced than to explain that which attended the younger man's oratory. For Wesley--if we may judge from his printed sermons--carefully eschewed everything that would be called in the present day 'sensational.' Plain, downright common sense, expressed in admirably chosen but studiously simple language, formed the staple of his preaching. One can quite well understand anyone being convinced and edified by such discourses, but there is nothing in them which is apparently calculated to produce the extraordinary excitement which, in a second degree only to Whitefield, Wesley did in fact arouse.

Preaching was Whitefield's great work in life,--and his work was also his pleasure. 'O that I could fly from pole to pole,' he exclaimed, 'preaching the everlasting Gospel.' When he is ill, he trusts that preaching will soon cure him again. 'This,' he says, 'is my grand Catholicon. O that I may drop and die in my blessed Master's work.' His wish was almost literally fulfilled. When his strength was failing him, when he was worn out before his time in his Master's work, he lamented that he was 'reduced to the short allowance of one sermon a day, and three on Sundays.'[751] He preached when he was literally a dying man.

His other work scarcely claims a pa.s.sing notice in a short sketch like the present, especially as his peculiar opinions and his relations.h.i.+p with the Wesleys and others will again come under our notice in connection with the Calvinistic controversy. With the exception of letters to his friends and followers, and the inevitable journal (almost every member of the Evangelical school in the last century kept a journal), he wrote comparatively little; and what he did write, certainly need not cause us to regret that he wrote no more. On one of his voyages from America, Whitefield employed his leisure in abridging and gospelising Law's 'Serious Call.' Happily the work does not appear to have been finished; at any rate, it was not given to the world. Law's great work would certainly bear 'gospelising,' but Whitefield was not the man to do it. William Law improved by George Whitefield would be something like William Shakspeare improved by Colley Gibber. But the incident suggests the very different qualities which are required for the preacher and the writer. What was the character of Law's preaching we do not know, except from one sermon preached in his youth; but we may safely a.s.sume that he could never have produced the effects which Whitefield did.[752] On the other hand, one trembles at the very thought of Whitefield meddling with Law's masterpiece, for he certainly could not have touched it without spoiling it.

Whitefield's Orphan House in Georgia was his hobby; it was only one out of a thousand instances of his benevolence; but his enthusiastic efforts in behalf of it hardly form a part of the Evangelical revival, and therefore need not be dwelt upon.

The individuality of _Charles Wesley_ (1708-1788), the sweet psalmist of Methodism, is perhaps in some danger of being merged in that of his more distinguished brother. And yet he had a very decided character of his own; he would have been singularly unlike the Wesley family if he had not. Charles Wesley was by no means the mere _fidus Achates_, or man Friday, of his brother John. Quite apart from his poetry, the effects of which upon the early Methodist movement it would be difficult to exaggerate, he played a most important part in the revival. As a preacher, he was almost as energetic as John; and before his marriage he was almost as effective an itinerant. His elder brother always spoke of the work which was being done as their joint work; 'my brother and I' is the expression he constantly used in describing it.[753]

As a general rule, the two brothers acted in complete harmony; but differences occurred sometimes, and, when they did, Charles Wesley showed that he had a very decided will of his own; and he could generally make it felt. For instance, in 1744, when the Wesleys were most unreasonably suspected of inclining to Popery, and of favouring the Pretender, John Wesley wrote an address to the king, 'in the name of the Methodists;' but it was laid aside because Charles Wesley objected to any act which would seem to const.i.tute them a sect, or at least would seem to allow that they were a body distinct from the National Church.

Again, from the first, Charles Wesley looked with great suspicion on the bodily excitement which attended his brother's preaching, and it is more than probable that he helped to modify John Wesley's opinions on this subject. On the ordination question, Charles Wesley felt very strongly; he never fell in with his brother's views, but vehemently disapproved of his whole conduct in the matter. He would probably have interfered still more actively, but for some years before the ordination question arose he had almost ceased to itinerate, partly, Mr. Tyerman thinks, because he was married, and partly because of the feeling in many societies, and especially among many preachers, against the Church. In 1753, when John Wesley was dangerously ill, Charles Wesley distinctly told the societies that he neither could nor would stand in his brother's place, if it pleased G.o.d to take him, for he had neither a body, nor a mind, nor talents, nor grace for it. In 1779, he wrote to his brother in terms as peremptory as John himself was wont to use, and such as few others would have dared to employ in addressing the founder of Methodism. 'The preachers,' he writes,[754] 'do not love the Church of England. When we are gone, a separation is inevitable. Do you not wish to keep as many good people in the Church as you can? Something might be done now to save the remainder, if only you had resolution, and would stand by me as firmly as I will stand by you. Consider what you are bound to do as a clergyman, and what you do, do quickly.' It has been already stated that Charles was, if possible, even more attached to the Church than John.

John, on his part, fully felt the need of his brother's help. In 1768, he wrote to him, 'I am at my wits' end with regard to two things: the Church and Christian perfection. Unless both you and I stand in the gap in good earnest, the Methodists will drop them both. Talking will not avail, we must _do_, or be borne away. "Age, vir esto! nervos intende tuos."' On another occasion, John rescued his brother from a dangerous tendency which he showed towards the stillness of the Moravians. He wrote to him, 'The poison is in you, fair words have stolen away your heart;' and made this characteristic entry in his journal:--'The Philistines are upon thee, Samson; but the Lord is not departed from thee; He shall strengthen thee yet again, and thou shalt be avenged for the loss of thine eyes.'

There is an interesting letter from Whitefield to Charles Wesley, dated December 22, 1752, from which it appears that there was a threatened rupture between the two brothers, the cause of which we do not know.[755] 'I have read and pondered your kind letter with a degree of solemnity of spirit. What shall I say? Really I can scarce tell. The connection between you and your brother hath been so close and continued, and your attachment so necessary to him to keep up his interest, that I could not willingly for the world do or say anything that may separate such friends. I cannot help thinking that he is still jealous of me and my proceedings; but I thank G.o.d I am quite easy about it.'[756] The last sentence is characteristically injudicious, if Whitefield desired, as undoubtedly he did, to heal the breach; but the letter is valuable as showing that, in the opinion of Whitefield, who must have known as much about the matter as anyone, the co-operation of the two brothers was essential to their joint work.

Indeed, if for no other reason, Charles Wesley occupies a most important place in the history of early Methodism, as forming the connecting link between John Wesley and Whitefield. In October, 1749, he wrote, 'George Whitefield and my brother and I are one; a threefold cord which shall no more be broken;' but he does not add, as he might have done, that he himself was the means by which the union was effected. The contrast between Whitefield and John Wesley, in character, tastes, culture, &c., was so very great that, quite apart from their doctrinal differences, there could probably never have been any real intimacy between them, had there not been some common friend who had in his character some points of contact with both. That common friend was Charles Wesley. Full of sterling common sense, highly cultured and refined, possessed of strong reasoning powers, and well read like his brother, he was impulsive, demonstrative in his feelings, and very tenderhearted like Whitefield.

Whitefield never quite appreciated John Wesley, but Charles he loved dearly, and so did John. As we have seen, the one solitary instance of the strong man's breaking down was on the death of his brother. And Charles Wesley was thoroughly worthy of every good man's love. His fame (except as a poet) has been somewhat overshadowed by the still greater renown of his brother, but he contributed his full share towards the success of the Evangelical Revival.

If John Wesley was the great leader and organiser, Charles Wesley the great poet, and George Whitefield the great preacher of Methodism, the highest type of saintliness which it produced was unquestionably _John Fletcher_ (1729-1785). Never, perhaps, since the rise of Christianity has the mind which was in Christ Jesus been more faithfully copied than it was in the Vicar of Madeley. To say that he was a good Christian is saying too little. He was more than Christian, he was Christlike. It is said that Voltaire, when challenged to produce a character as perfect as that of Jesus Christ, at once mentioned Fletcher of Madeley; and if the comparison between the G.o.d-man and any child of Adam were in any case admissible, it would be difficult to find one with whom it could be inst.i.tuted with less appearance of blasphemy than this excellent man.

Fletcher was a Swiss by birth and education; and to the last he showed traces of his foreign origin. But England can claim the credit of having formed his spiritual character. Soon after his settlement in England as tutor to the sons of Mr. Hill of Terne Hall, he became attracted by the Methodist movement, which had then (1752) become a force in the country, and in 1753 he was admitted into Holy Orders. The account of his appointment to the living of Madeley presents a very unusual phenomenon in the eighteenth century. His patron, Mr. Hill, offered him the living of Dunham, 'where the population was small, the income good, and the village situated in the midst of a fine sporting country.' These were no recommendations in the eyes of Fletcher, and he declined the living on the ground that the income was too large and the population too small.

Madeley had the advantage of having only half the income and double the population of Dunham. On being asked whether he would accept Madeley if the vicar of that parish would consent to exchange it for Dunham, Fletcher gladly embraced the offer. As the Vicar of Madeley had naturally no objection to so advantageous an exchange, Fletcher was inst.i.tuted to the cure of the large Shrops.h.i.+re village, in which he spent a quarter of a century. There is no need to record his apostolical labours in this humble sphere of duty. Madeley was a rough parish, full of colliers; but there was also a sprinkling of resident gentry. Like his friend John Wesley, Fletcher found more fruits of his work among the poor than among the gentry. But none, whether rich or poor, could resist the attractions of this saintly man. In 1772 he addressed to the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the Parish of Madeley 'An appeal to matter of fact and common sense,' the dedication of which is so characteristic that it is worth quoting in full. 'Gentlemen,' writes the vicar, 'you are no less ent.i.tled to my private labours than the inferior cla.s.s of my paris.h.i.+oners. As you do not choose to partake with them of my evening instructions, I take the liberty to present you with some of my morning meditations. May these well-meant efforts of my pen be more acceptable to you than those of my tongue! And may you carefully read in your closets what you have perhaps inattentively heard in the church! I appeal to the Searcher of hearts, that I had rather impart truth than receive t.i.thes. You kindly bestow the latter upon me; grant me the satisfaction of seeing you receive favourably the former from, gentlemen, your affectionate minister and obedient servant, J.

Fletcher.'

When Lady Huntingdon founded her college for the training of ministers at Trevecca, she invited Fletcher to undertake a sort of general superintendence over it. This Fletcher undertook without fee or reward--not, of course, with the intention of residing there, for he had no sympathy with the bad custom of non-residence which was only too common in his day. He was simply to visit the college as frequently as he could; 'and,' writes Dr. Benson, the first head-master, 'he was received as an angel of G.o.d.' 'It is not possible,' he adds, 'for me to describe the veneration in which we all held him. Like Elijah in the schools of the Prophets, he was revered, he was loved, he was almost adored. My heart kindles while I write. Here it was that I saw, shall I say an angel in human flesh?--I should not far exceed the truth if I said so'--and much more to the same effect. It was the same wherever Fletcher went; the impression he made was extraordinary; language seems to fail those who tried to describe it. 'I went,' said one who visited him in an illness (he was always delicate), 'to see a man that had one foot in the grave, but I found a man that had one foot in heaven.'[757]

'Sir,' said Mr. Venn to one who asked him his opinion of Fletcher, 'he was a _luminary_--a luminary did I say?--he was a _sun_! I have known all the great men for these fifty years, but none like him.' John Wesley was of the same opinion; in Fletcher he saw realised in the highest degree all that he meant by 'Christian Perfection.' For some time he hesitated to write a description of this 'great man,' 'judging that only an Apelles was proper to paint an Alexander;' but at length he published his well-known sermon on the significant text, 'Mark the perfect man,'

&c. (Ps. x.x.xvii. 37), which he concluded with this striking testimony to the unequalled character of his friend: 'I was intimately acquainted with him for above thirty years; I conversed with him morning, noon, and night without the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles; and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. To conclude; many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years, but one equal to him I have not known--one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to G.o.d. So unblamable a character in every respect I have not found either in Europe or America; and I scarce expect to find another such on this side of eternity.' Fletcher, on his part, was one of the few parish clergymen who to the end thoroughly appreciated John Wesley. He thought it 'shameful that no clergyman should join Wesley to keep in the Church the work G.o.d had enabled him to carry on therein;' and he was half-inclined to join him as his deacon, 'not,' he adds with genuine modesty, 'with any view of presiding over the Methodists after you, but to ease you a little in your old age, and to be in the way of receiving, perhaps doing, more good.' Wesley was very anxious that Fletcher should be his successor, and proposed it to him in a characteristic letter; but Fletcher declined the office, and had he accepted, the plan could never have been carried out, for the hale old man survived his younger friend several years. The last few years of Fletcher's life were cheered by the companions.h.i.+p of one to whom no higher praise can be awarded than to say that she was worthy of being Fletcher's wife. Next to Susanna Wesley herself, Mrs. Fletcher stands pre-eminent among the heroines of Methodism. In 1785 the saint entered into his everlasting rest, dying in harness at his beloved Madeley. His death-bed scene is too sacred to be transferred to these pages.

Indeed, there is something almost unearthly about the whole of this man's career. He is an object in some respects rather for admiration than for imitation. He could do and say things which other men could not without some sort of unreality. John Wesley, with his usual good sense, warns his readers of this in reference to one particular habit, viz.

'the facility of raising useful observations from the most trifling incidents.' 'In him,' he says, 'it partly resulted from nature, and was partly a supernatural gift. But what was becoming and graceful in Mr.

Fletcher would be disgustful almost in any other.' An ordinary Christian, for example, who, when he was having his likeness taken, should exhort 'the limner, and all that were in the room, not only to get the outlines drawn, but the colourings also of the image of Jesus on their hearts;' who, 'when ordered to be let blood,' should, 'while his blood was running into the cup, take occasion to expatiate on the precious blood-shedding of the Lamb of G.o.d;' who should tell his cook 'to stir up the fire of divine love in her soul,' and intreat his housemaid 'to sweep every corner in her heart;' who, when he received a present of a new coat, should, in thanking the donor, draw a minute and elaborate contrast between the broadcloth and the robe of Christ's righteousness--would run the risk of making not only himself, but the sacred subjects which he desired to recommend, ridiculous. Unfortunately there were not a few, both in Fletcher's day and subsequently, who did fall into this error, and, with the very best intentions, dragged the most solemn truths through the dirt. Fletcher, besides being so heavenly-minded that what would seem forced and strained in others seemed perfectly natural in him, was also a man of cultivated understanding and (with occasional exceptions) of refined and delicate taste; but in this matter he was a dangerous model to follow. Who but Fletcher, for instance, could, without savouring of irreverence or even blasphemy, when offering some ordinary refreshment to his friends, have accompanied it with the words, 'The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ,' &c., and 'The Blood of our Lord,' &c.? But extraordinary as was the spiritual-mindedness of this man of G.o.d, he could, without an effort, descend to earthly matters on occasion. One of the most beautiful traits of his character was ill.u.s.trated on one of these occasions. He had done the Government good service by writing on the American Rebellion, and Lord Dartmouth was commissioned to ask him whether any preferment would be acceptable to him. 'I want nothing,' answered the simple-hearted Christian, 'but more grace.' His love of children was another touching characteristic of Fletcher. 'The birds of my fine wood,' he wrote to a friend, 'have almost done singing; but I have met with a parcel of children whose hearts seem turned towards singing the praises of G.o.d, and we sing every day from four to five. Help us by your prayers.'

Having described the leader, the orator, the poet, and the saint of Methodism, it still remains to say something about the patroness of the movement. Methodism won its chief triumphs among the poor and lower middle cla.s.ses. The upper cla.s.ses, though a revival of religion was sorely needed among them, were not perceptibly affected. To promote this desirable object, _Selina, Countess of Huntingdon_ (1707-1791), sacrificed her time, her energies, her money, and her social reputation.