Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

at Kingswood, he saw a woman distorting herself, and calling out as if in agony; he quietly told her that he did not think the better of her for it, and she immediately became quite calm. Another woman, at Bristol, when he questioned her in private, respecting her frequent fits, at length owned that they were for the purpose of making Mr. Wesley take notice of her. In many other cases, the convulsions were no doubt real and unfeigned; the effect of austere fasting or of ignorant fanaticism; of an empty stomach or an empty brain.

Moreover, almost from its birth, the new society was rent asunder by a violent schism. It had hitherto acted in communion with the Moravians, a sect recently founded in Germany, but whose English followers had engrafted fresh singularities on the parent stock. From an extremity of religious zeal, these Moravians had come round to the same point as those who lack it altogether. They made a jest of religious observances, such as going to church or to the Sacrament; for they argued, he who has not faith ought not to use these things, and he who has faith does not want them. One Moravian even went so far as to say, while discoursing in public, that as many go to hell by praying as by thieving.* Wesley naturally protested against these fanatics; they were also condemned by the chief of the sect in Germany, and the union between the Methodists and the better Moravians might perhaps still have been preserved. But Wesley, according to his usual system of drawing lots, under the idea of consulting Providence, had fallen upon the text, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me;" and from that moment thought himself bound to oppose all reconciliation.

A still more important breach for the Methodists next arose, when their own house became divided against itself. Whitefield, a man younger in years, and inferior both in learning and talents to Wesley, had hitherto treated him with almost the deference of a pupil, and in their correspondence at this time calls himself "a child "who is willing to wash your feet." They differed, however, on the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination.

* See Wesley's Works, vol. ii. p. 100. ed. 1809.

"What is there in reprobation so horrid?" asks Whitefield. "How," exclaims Wesley, "the elect shall be "saved, do what they will! The rest shall be damned, "do what they can!" An ample discussion on this mysterious subject failed to reconcile them; but seeing the evil of fresh divisions, and anxious to afford no triumph to their common adversaries, they wished to refrain from preaching upon it, or assailing each other in public. But enthusiasts, who would brave any other suffering, can never long endure the agony of moderation. Wesley soon again cast a lot for his guidance: his lot, which seems generally to have followed his preceding inclination, was, this time, "Preach and Print;" and he accordingly not only preached, but printed a sermon against the doctrine of election. Whitefield, on his part, took fire at this aggression, and the more so as his expressions at this time show the growing ascendency over him of spiritual pride. "I have a garden near at hand, "where I go particularly to meet and talk with my God "at the cool of every day. Our dear Lord sweetly "fills me with his presence. My heaven is begun indeed. "I feast on the fatted calf. The Lord strengthens me "mightily in the inner man." A man who could write and feel thus, was not likely to brook any opposition to any internal impulse: he wrote an acrimonious letter against Wesley, which his indiscreet friends sent to the press in London. Well might Wesley complain of the intemperate style and surreptitious publication; well might he tear a copy to pieces before his congregation, saying, that he believed he did just what Mr. Whitefield would, were he there himself!

...

The superstitions and excesses of the first Methodists cannot be concealed, with due regard to truth. But it is no less due to truth to acknowledge their high and eminent qualities. If to sacrifice every advantage, and to suffer every hardship if to labour for the good, real or supposed, of their fellow creatures with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their strength, — if the most fervent devotion if the most unconquerable energy, be deserving of respect, let us not speak slightingly of those spiritual leaders, who, mighty even in their errors, and honest even in their contradictions, have

stamped their character on their own and on the present times. It is proper to record, it is easy to deride their frailties; but let us, ere we contemn them, seriously ask ourselves whether we should be equally ready to do and bear every thing in the cause of conscience, whether, like them, we could fling away all thought of personal ease and personal advantage. It has often been said, that there is no virtue without sacrifices; but, surely, it is equally true, that there are no sacrifices without virtue. Generous actions often spring from error; but still we must prefer such error to a selfish and lazy wisdom, and, though neither Jacobites nor Methodists, we may admire the enthusiasm of a Lochiel in politics, and of a Wesley in religion.

The breach with the Moravians, and with the party of Whitefield, left Wesley sole and undisputed chief of the remaining brotherhood; and the gap thus made was far more than repaired by the growing multitude of converts. Methodism began to rear its head throughout the land, and the current of events soon carried Wesley far beyond the bounds which had formerly been drawn by himself. Thus, he had condemned field-preaching until he felt the want of pulpits; thus, also, he had condemned laypreaching, until it appeared that very few clergymen were disposed to become his followers. Slowly, and reluctantly, did he agree that laymen should go round and preach, though not to minister. These were, for the most part, untaught and fiery men, drawn from the loom or the plough by the impulse of an ardent zeal; but not unfrequently of strong intellect, and always of unwearied exertion. Their inferiority to Wesley in birth and education made them only the more willing instruments in his hands; their enthusiasm, it was hoped, would supply every deficiency; and it was found easier, instead of acquiring learning, to contemn it as dross. Their sermons, accordingly, had more of heat than of light, and they not unfrequently ran into extremes, which Wesley himself cannot have approved, and of which it would be easy, but needless, to multiply extraordinary instances. Their rules were very strict; they were required to undergo every hardship, and to abstain from every innocent

[blocks in formation]

But their

indulgence, as, for example, from snuff. organization was admirable. Directed by Wesley, as from a common centre, they were constantly transferred from station to station, thus affording to the people the excitement of novelty, and to the preacher the necessity of labour. The Conference, which assembled once every year, and consisted of preachers selected by Wesley, was his Central Board or Administrative Council, and gave weight and authority to his decisions. Every where the Methodists were divided into classes, a leader being appointed to every class, and a meeting held weekly, when admonitions were made, money contributed, and proceedings reported. There were also, in every quarter, to be Love Feasts, an ancient institution, intended to knit still closer the bands of Christian brotherhood. Whenever a member became guilty of any gross offence, he was excluded from the Society, so as to remove the Methodists as much as possible from the contagion of bad example, and enable them to boast that their little flock was without a single black sheep. It would be difficult even in the Monastic orders to display a more regular and well-adapted system. Like those Monastic orders the Methodists might still have remained in communion with the Church of their country; but in later life Wesley went several steps further, and took it upon him to ordain Ministers, and even Bishops, for his brethren in America.

[ocr errors]

Yet with all this, Wesley never relinquished, in words at least, his attachment and adherence to the Church of England. On this point, his language was equally strong from first to last. We find, in 1739: "A serious clergy"man desired to know in what points we differed from "the Church of England. I answered, to the best of my "knowledge, in none."† In 1766, he says: "We are not "Dissenters from the Church, and will do nothing will"ingly which tends to a separation from it..... Our "service is not such as supersedes the Church-service: "we never designed it should."‡ And in December,

"Let no preacher touch snuff on any account. Show the societies "the evil of it." Minutes of Conference, Aug. 1765.

Journal, September 13. 1739.

Minutes of Methodist Conferences, August, 1766.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

1789, only a few months before his death: "I never had any design of separating from the Church: I have no "such design now.... I declare, once more, that I live "and die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgment or advice will ever sepa"rate from it." * - But, as we have seen, the conduct of Wesley did not always keep pace with these intentions, and his followers have departed from them far more widely. Several, who joined the Methodists from other sects, brought with them an unfriendly feeling to the Church; several others, who would have shrunk with horror from any thing called Schism, were less shocked at the words Dissent or Separate Connexion; for of course when the name is changed, the thing is no longer the same !-Yet even in the present times an eminent Methodist observes, that, although the relation to the Church has greatly altered since the days of Wesley, dissent has never been formally professed by his persuasion, and that "it forms a middle body between the Establish"ment and the Dissenters." †

None of Wesley's tenets were, as he believed, at variance with the Church of England. His favourite doctrines were what he termed the New Birth, Perfection, and Assurance. It is not my intention to entangle myself or my readers in the mazes of controversy; and I shall therefore only observe, that Wesley at his outset pushed these doctrines to a perilous extreme; but that, when his fever of enthusiasm had subsided to a healthy vital heat, he greatly modified and softened his first ideas. He still clung, however, to the same words, but gave them a narrower meaning; so that once, when defending his views on Perfection to Bishop Gibson, the Prelate answered: " Why, Mr. Wesley, if this is what you mean by "Perfection, who can be against it?" But unhappily the multitude is incapable of such nice distinctions, and apt to take words in their simple and common meaning. These doctrines, in a wider sense, soon became popular,

* See Wesley's Works, vol. xv. p. 248.

Mr. Watson's Observations on Southey's Life, p. 138. and 159. ed. 1821.

« EdellinenJatka »