A Lampooning Bishop. 151 good works, and an uncommon warmth for some that are 1752 very bad." "In their several Answers and Defences, a strain Age 42 of jesuitical sophistry, artifice and craft, evasion, reserve, equivocation, and prevarication, is of constant use." Lavington's Part III., a volume in itself, is addressed "to the Reverend Mr. Wesley"; who is made the almost exclusive object of its virulent attack. He is told, that he is "an arrant joker, a perfect droll." "Go on," says the ribald bishop, "and build chapels. One may be dedicated to the god Proteus, famous for being a juggling wonder-monger, and turning himself into all shapes; another to the god called Catius, because he made men sly and cunning as cats. The people with whom you have to do, you know, will adore you; for the same reason that the Egyptians did their bull Apis; because renowned for miracles, and every hour changing its colour." He adds: "your Letter to the author of Enthusiasm is a medley of chicanery, sophistry, prevarication, evasion, pertness, conceitedness, scurrility, sauciness, and effrontery. Paper and time should not be wasted on such stuff." And this was all the answer his lordship furnished. We are afraid to make our pages, what Lavington has made his book, "a perfect jakes of uncleanness," by further quotations. Suffice it to say, that the whole of this scurrility was anonymous. No wonder that Wesley, in his answer, speaks of his calumniator as one that turns the most serious, the most awful, the most venerable things into mere farce, and matter of low buffoonery"; one who treats sacred topics with the "spirit of a merry-andrew." He convicts him of the most flagrant falsehood, and says, "I charge you with gross, wilful prevarication, from the beginning of your book to the end"; and firmly, but respectfully, sustains the charge. He writes: "I have now considered all the arguments you have brought to prove, that the Methodists are carrying on the work of popery. And I am persuaded, every candid man, who rightly weighs what has been said, with any degree of attention, will clearly see, not only, that no one of those arguments is of any real force at all, but that you do not believe them yourself; you do not believe the conclusion which you pretend to prove; only you keep close to your laudable resolution of throwing as much dirt as possible." 49 1752 Age 49 "These things being so, what must all unprejudiced men think of you and your performance? You have advanced a charge, not against one or two persons only, but indiscriminately against a whole body of people of his majesty's subjects, Englishmen, Protestants, members, I suppose, of your own church; a charge containing abundance of articles, and most of them of the highest and blackest nature. You have prosecuted this with unparalleled bitterness of spirit, and acrimony of language; using sometimes the most coarse, rude, scurrilous terms; sometimes the keenest sarcasms you could devise. The point you have steadily pursued, in thus prosecuting this charge, is, first, to expose the whole people to the hatred and scorn of all mankind; and next, to stir up the civil powers against them. And when this charge comes to be fairly weighed, there is not a single article of it true! Most of the passages you have cited, you have palpably maimed, corrupted, and strained to a sense never thought of by the writer; they prove nothing less than the points in question; and many of them are flat against you, and overthrow the very point they are brought to support. Is not this the most shocking violation of the Christian rule, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'; the most open affront to all justice, and even common humanity; the most glaring insult upon the common sense and reason of mankind, which has lately appeared in the world?" "You regard neither mercy, justice, nor truth. To vilify and blacken is your one point. I pray God it may not be laid to your charge! May He show you mercy, though you show none ! "I am, sir, "Your friend and well wisher, What was the result? In the month of March, or April,1 Lavington published a tract, with the title, "The Bishop of Exeter's Answer to Mr. Wesley's late Letter to his Lordship." 8vo, 15 pages; in which he feebly struggles to get out of a flagrant falsehood, of which Wesley had convicted him; and, true to his old vituperative style of writing, concludes thus: "The remainder of your epistle, mere rant and declamation, shall give me no trouble. Having cleared up a matter of fact, which may be thought necessary for my own justification, I find myself under no obligation or disposition, to enter into matters of dispute, wherein our opinions would widely differ. I am too sensible of your way of answering, your temper, and of what spirit you are of, to think of any further correspondence: and if you expect, that I should let myself down to a 1 London Magazine, 1752, p. 193. level with you, you will find yourself mistaken. I pray God to give you a good will, and a right judgment in all things; "And am, sir, "Your obedient, humble servant, "G. EXON." This was pitiful poltroonery, in perfect character with a cowardly calumniator, who had poured forth the most unfounded scandals, without daring to show his face or to sign his name. Wesley briefly replied, in a letter dated "Newcastle upon Tyne, May 8, 1752"; and so the matter ended. Amid such hurricanes was Methodism cradled; and in the face of such opponents Wesley had to pursue his great, gospel mission. Who, after the specimens of Lavington's scandalizing pen, is prepared to expect that the tablet, erected to his memory in Exeter cathedral, should represent him as one who "never ceased to improve his talents, nor to employ them to the noblest purposes"? The conclusion of this marvellous epitaph is as follows: "Unaffected sanctity dignified his instructions, To meet death without terror, He expired with the praises of God upon his lips, 1 Polwhele's Edition of "Enthusiasm," etc. 1752 Age 49 1753 Age 50 As 1753. S usual, Wesley began the new year by preaching, in the Foundery, at four o'clock in the morning, when a large congregation met to praise the God of providence and grace with "joyful hearts and lips." On the same day, his old friend Howel Harris wrote him a long letter, from which the following is an extract : "DEAR BROTHER JOHN WESLEY,― "January 1, 1753. Shall I speak freely to you, as I am going to that dear Man, who has indeed honoured you, and whom I believe you wish to honour, for you live on His bloody sweat and passion? I wish your ministry and that of the Moravians were united. It would be for the public good. I have fought a good fight, and have, through millions of infirmities, kept the faith. You and your brother Charles have ever been dear to me; but I have often feared, that your wisdom and popularity would be injurious to you, and turn you from the true simplicity of the gospel. I send this, as my dying and loving request, for the Lord's sake, for your own sake, and for the sake of thousands that attend your ministry, that you would direct their eye to the Saviour, and suffer them not to idolize you. Let nothing fall from your lip or pen, but what turns the soul from self to the Saviour. To deny ourselves is a difficult lesson, and there are but few that learn it. I have written some things, in the time of my confinement, which I have ordered the bearer to show you, and which you will perhaps correct and publish, if you have time, and think they would be of service to the cause of Christ. Hearty salutation to your brother Charles, and all who love Jesus Christ in sincerity. I have been laid aside from public service for some months. I am weary of nothing here but the body of sin in my flesh. I rejoice in you, and the large field that is before you. Though I know not how to give over, I must conclude. "HOWEL HARRIS."1 Whitefield spent the year in a glorious itinerancy throughout the kingdom. On the 1st of March, the first brick of his new Tabernacle was laid, on the site of his old wooden one, he having collected £1100 towards defraying the expense of its erection. He published several sermons, and also a small collection of hymns for public worship. "I and the Messrs. 1" Life and Times of Howel Harris," p. 203. Wesley," he writes, "are very friendly." The Wesleys, during the erection of his Tabernacle, allowed him the use of their London chapels,-an act of courteous kindness which he gratefully acknowledges. In a three months' summer tour, he travelled about twelve hundred miles, and preached a hundred and eighty times. In Grimshaw's church, at Haworth, thirty-five bottles of wine were used at a single sacrament. The year throughout was a year of triumph and of joy,-with one exception, which we are bound in honesty to mention. Moravianism was increasingly a bone of contention. Two years before, Zinzendorf had purchased, of Sir Hans Sloane, an old family mansion with adjoining grounds, situated on the banks of the Thames at Chelsea. The mansion was turned into a congregation house; a chapel was fitted up; a burial ground was laid out; and gardens, and a terrace, facing the Thames, were formed. The money expended was more than £11,000. In April, 1753, the whole establishment of the Unitas Fratrum removed into the newly acquired premises; and Lindsey House, Chelsea, was henceforth "the disciple house," the head quarters of the English Moravians. All bishops and elders were subordinate to Zinzendorf, who, under the name of "papa," was exclusively the ruler of the church. Meantime, an enormous debt had been incurred. Parliamentary negotiations, sending brethren and sisters to the American colonies, maintaining the preachers of country congregations, sustaining boarding schools, and meeting the large expenses of Lindsey House,-created pecuniary liabilities which the Unitas Fratrum found it difficult to meet. During the year 1749, and the first half of the year 1750, the managers of the "diaconies" had advanced £13,000, and clamoured for repayment. Zinzendorf tried to raise a loan of £30,000 for the English Moravians, from the nobility of Upper Lusatia; but his effort failed. A few of the London Brethren lent, from their own resources, nearly £15,000, which merely met present wants. Zinzendorf and others were in danger of arrest for debt. A crop of lawsuits sprung up. Thomas Hankey was a creditor to the amount of nearly £19,000; and the Moravian liabilities, ecclesiastical and trading, were altogether more than £130,000. Affairs 1753 Age 50 |