1762 Age 59 both ears, but rarely opened my mouth. I think I now understand the affair, at least as well as any person in England. 66 The sum is this: 1. The meeting in Beech Lane, before I came to town, was like a bear garden; full of noise, brawling, cursing, swearing, blasphemy, and confusion. 2. Those who prayed were partly the occasion of this, by their horrid screaming, and unscriptural, enthusiastic expressions. 3. Being determined either to mend them or end them, I removed the meeting to the Foundery. 4. Immediately, the noise, brawling, cursing, swearing, blasphemy, and confusion ceased. 5. There was less and less screaming, and less unscriptural and enthusiastic language. 6. Examining the society, I found about threescore persons who had been convinced of sin, and near fourscore who were justified, at those meetings. So that, on the whole, they have done some hurt, and much good. I trust, they will now do more good, and no hurt at all. Seven persons had left the society on this account; but four of them are come back already. "I bought the ground before Kingswood school of Margaret Ward, and paid for it with my own money. Certainly, therefore, I have a right to employ it as I please. What can any reasonable man say to the contrary? "I have answered the bishop, and had advice upon my answer. If the devil owes him a shame, he will reply. He is a man of sense; but I verily think he does not understand Greek! Adieu ! "JOHN WESLEY." "LONDON, December 23, 1762. "DEAR BROTHER,-This is too critical a time for me to be out of London. For that work Some of these, "I believe several in London have imagined themselves saved from sin 'upon the word of others'; and these are easily known. does not stand; such imaginations soon vanish away. and two or three others, are still wild. But the matter does not stick here. I could play with all these, if Thomas Maxfield were right. He is mali caput et fons; so inimitably wrong headed, and so absolutely unconvincible; and yet (what is exceeding strange) God continues to bless his labours. "My kind love to Sally. I shall soon try your patience with a long letter. Adieu ! "JOHN WESLEY." 2 The bishop, referred to in one of the above letters, was Warburton, bishop of Gloucester; but, as Wesley's answer was not published till the beginning of 1763, we defer any further notice of this furious episcopal onslaught upon Wesley and his friends. Other publications, however, must be mentioned. The 1 Wesley's Works, vol. xii., p. 115. 2 Ibid. p. 116. 1762 following was an octavo shilling pamphlet, which originated in a dispute in the London Chronicle: "Presbyters and Age 59 Deacons not commissioned to preach without the Bishop's Allowance. A Discourse addressed to a certain Methodist Clergyman." The title suggests the substance of this bigoted performance. Another harmless missile, hurled at the poor Methodists, was by the renowned translator of Plutarch's Lives, now a young curate in the county of Essex: "Letters on Religious Retirement, Melancholy, and Enthusiasm. By John Langhorne." 8vo, 87 pages. Dedicated to the Bishop of Gloucester. The worst thing said of Methodism is, that, though averse to popery, it holds one of its worst doctrines, namely, a pretence to plenary inspiration; and, that all the difference between the two systems is that, instead of one pope, the Methodists "find a thousand in their ignorant teachers, whom they consider as so many gods, and whose crude and undigested preachments they regard as oracles.” A third, and infinitely worse production, was a small halfcrown octavo, with the title, "A plain and easy Road to the Land of Bliss; a Turnpike set up by Mr. Orator." The Monthly Review (no friend to Methodism) remarks concerning this miserable book: "It is a dull and indecent satire on the Methodists, in imitation, as its author imagines, of the celebrated Tale of a Tub, which it resembles in no respect whatever. It is not only contemptible for its stupidity; but in itself is a filthy, obscene thing, for which its writer ought to be washed in a horsepond."1 A fourth was the following: "A Specimen of Preaching, as practised among the People called Methodists. By J. Helme." A number of phrases, said to be used by the Methodists, are here strung together, in the shape of a sermon, founded upon the text, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Helme expresses the opinion, that the jesuits and other emissaries of the Church of Rome are at the bottom of the Methodist "schemes of nonsense and delusion"; and that "the manner in which the fanatics take upon themselves to treat the sublime truths of Christianity cannot fail 1 Monthly Review, 1762. 1762 Age 59 to shock both the ear and the understanding of all who make any pretensions to religion or common sense."1 Another hostile publication, issued in 1762, was a miscellaneous octavo volume, of 380 pages, entitled, "Various Tracts by the Rev. James Penn, A.B., under Grammar Master of Christ's Hospital, and Lecturer of the united parishes of St. Ann and Agnes, and St. John Zachary, Aldersgate." The reverend pedagogue tells his readers, that "Methodism, which arose from a slender beginning, is branched out into various sects, and has met with such success as to become alarming It had its origin partly from the neglect of the superior clergy of the duties of their function; and this neglect continued is its great support. The clergy have talked, they have wrote, they have preached against the Methodists and their tenets, with justice indeed, but not without acrimony; and this has rendered their design abortive, and not a little served the cause of their adversaries. Unless some expedient is found to check the progress of the enthusiasm, it will soon become formidable, and have its spacious tabernacles in every city and county, as well as in London and Middlesex. It has encouraged a great number of laymen, many of whom are the refuse of the people, or the meanest of mechanics, to assume the ministerial office, and bellow out, in the lanes and alleys of the city, their wild notions, in a language rude, irrational, unintelligible. In their places of worship, here sits melancholy, there despair. Sighs and groans are heard from one corner; frightful and hideous looks are seen at another. The words of some speak assurance of their salvation, and an uncommon familiarity with their Maker; whilst others are overwhelmed with a horrible dread of damnation." The reader has had enough of the Rev. James Penn; but we add another extract, which, will convey an idea of the reverend author's principles. "A man's character is no more to be suspected by his being at a playhouse, than at a church. All are not saints, who frequent the latter; nor are all to be accounted sinners, who go to the former. Players are no more to be condemned, because some of the audience depart unimproved, than the preacher censured, if some of his 1 Monthly Review, 1762. Wesley's Publications in 1762. 457 1762 congregation should go away unedified." In the list of subscribers to Mr. Penn's octavo volume, the names of fifty clergy- Age 59 men are given. Wesley's works, published in 1762, were as follows. I. "Cautions and Directions given to the greatest Professors in the Methodist Societies." These were afterwards embodied in the "Plain Account of Christian Perfection." 2. "A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Horne: occasioned by his late Sermon preached before the University of Oxford." 8vo, 22 pages. This was a pamphlet, principally on the subject of justification by faith and works. Dr. Horne was now a young man of thirty-two years of age; a thorough Hutchinsonian; and a considerable author. He subsequently became chaplain to George III.; vice chancellor of Oxford; dean of Canterbury; and, in 1790, bishop of Norwich. He was learned, pious, and benevolent; and will always be remembered for his "Commentary on the Book of Psalms." Wesley's letter is exceedingly respectful; as indeed it ought to be. He writes: "If I have said anything offensive, anything that implies the least degree of anger or disrespect, it was entirely foreign to my intention. Nor indeed have I any provocation. I have no room to be angry at your maintaining what you believe to be the truth of the gospel: even though I might wish you had omitted a few expressions." 3. Another of Wesley's publications was a small tract, entitled: "A Blow at the Root; or Christ stabbed in the House of his Friends." 12mo, 11 pages. The title resembles the title of another pamphlet published "By an impartial Hand" some years previous,—“A Blow at the Root: or an attempt to prove that no time ever was, or very probably ever will be, so proper and convenient as the present, for introducing a further Reformation into our National Church, Universities, and Schools. Most humbly dedicated to his royal highness, William Duke of Cumberland." The object of Wesley's tract, however, was widely different from the object of this. His intention was to refute a heresy recently sprung up, "that Christ had done, as well as suffered, all: that His righteousness being imputed to us, we need none of our own: that, seeing there was so much righteousness and holiness in Age 59 1762 Him, there needs no more in us; that, to think we have any, or to desire to seek any, is to renounce Christ: that, from the beginning to the end of salvation, all is in Christ, nothing in man; and that those who teach otherwise are legal preachers, and know nothing of the gospel." 4. This was followed by another on the same subject, with the title, "Thoughts on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ," 12mo, II pages. The cause of this publication was the issue of a tract, in the name of Wesley, not one word of which was his, and which, as will be seen hereafter, he found it necessary to repudiate in 1763. This was not much for a man like Wesley to produce; but it must be remembered, that, owing to his brother's illness, he was now single handed; and that, besides being "in journeyings often, and in perils; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst," there came upon him preeminently, and almost exclusively, "the care of all the churches." |