BR 7 bb 
 
 Overton, John Henry, 183b 
 
 1903. 
 The evangelical revival 
 the eighteenth century 
 
<eporf>£ of Church l^t^rorp 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. MAXDELL CKEIGIITOX, M.A. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 SrOTTISWOODE AND CO., KEW-STltEET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON 
 
THE 
 
 EVANGELICAL REVIVAL 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY WEKTON 
 
 CASON OF LIXCOLX AND RECTOR OF EPWORTH 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1886 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
PEE PACE 
 
 The object of the following sketch is to give a general 
 idea of a most important movement in the English 
 Church in the last century. Those who desire to fill 
 up its details, and to trace its connexion with the 
 general history of the Church and Nation, may be 
 referred to Canon Perry's ' History of the Church of 
 England,' to Dr. Stoughton's i Ecclesiastical History of 
 England,' to Mr. W. E. H. Lecky's ' History of England 
 in the Eighteenth Century,' to Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
 ' History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury,' to Abbey and Overton's £ English Church in the 
 Eighteenth Century,' to Sir James Stephen's c Essays 
 on Ecclesiastical Biography,' to Bishop Kyle's c Christian 
 Leaders in the Last Century,' and to the many lives of, 
 and essays about, John Wesley, which it would be impos- 
 sible to enumerate, and invidious to select from, in this 
 short Preface. While the present writer gratefully ac- 
 knowledges his obligations to these works, and to others 
 written in the nineteenth century, he must add that 
 
vi Preface 
 
 he lias studied much more carefully those written in 
 the eighteenth century, especially the works of the 
 Revivalists themselves ; from these he has endeavoured 
 to form an independent judgment. While he has not 
 shrunk from dealing fearlessly with burning questions, 
 he trusts that he has not been guilty of any conscious 
 unfairness, or of any breach of Christian charity. 
 
 J. H. 0. 
 
 Epworth Eectory : 
 
 Festival of SS. PJiilij) and James, 188G. 
 
OOKTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Activity in the Early Part of the Eighteenth Century . . 1 
 
 Apathy at the Beginning of the Georgian Era . . . . 2 
 
 Causes of this Apathy 4 
 
 The Political Situation 4 
 
 Blighting Influence of Sir E. Walpole 5 
 
 Prevalence of Controversy 6 
 
 Law's ' Serious Call ' 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 Influence of his Earl}' Training . J> 
 
 His Life at School and College 10 
 
 Rise of Methodism at Oxford 11 
 
 His Experience in Georgia 13 
 
 Moravian Influence — His Conversion 15 
 
 His Journal lt> 
 
 His Readiness to adopt Suggestions 17 
 
 His Defects IS 
 
 His Extraordinary Activity 20 
 
 1738, the Date of the Revival 21 
 
 Field-preaching 22 
 
 His Desire of doing Practical Good .... .21 
 
 His Personal Tastes 27 
 
viii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GEORGE WHITEFIELD AND OTHERS. 
 
 Prominence of Whitefield's Name among Contemporaries 
 Character and Career of Whitefield .... 
 Charles Wesley — Influence of his Hymns . , . 
 Important Part he took in other Ways .... 
 John Fletcher — His Life and Character 
 Countess of Huntingdon — Her Success and Failures 
 Dr. Coke — the Sacrilices he made .... 
 Dr. Adam Clarke and others ...... 
 
 TAG!? 
 
 2i> 
 30 
 34 
 35 
 37 
 40 
 42 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 METHODISM AND EVANGELICALISM. 
 
 Comparison between the two 44 
 
 Evangelicals Objected to be termed Methodists . . . . 4G 
 
 Wherein Evangelicals Differed from Methodists . . . 49 
 
 Methodist System Described 53 
 
 Difficulty of Separating Evangelicals from Methodists . . 58 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL CLERGY. 
 
 James Hervey 50 
 
 William Grimshaw 60 
 
 John Berridge . 02 
 
 William Eomaine G4 
 
 Henry Venn G8 
 
 John Newton 70 
 
 Thomas Scott 74 
 
 Richard Cecil 78 
 
 Joseph Milner 80 
 
 Isaac Milner 8 L 
 
 Samuel Walker 82 
 
 Thomas Adam 8-3 
 
 Thomas Kobinson and William Richardson 84 
 
 Other Clergy 85 
 
Contents 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL LAITY 
 
 All Acted in Subordination to the Clergy 
 
 John Thornton . 
 
 Henry Thornton 
 
 William Wilberforce . 
 
 William Cowper 
 
 Lord Dartmouth . 
 
 Lord Teignmouth . 
 
 Susanna Wesley . 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher . 
 
 Mrs. Newton 
 
 Hannah More . 
 
 Some who hung on the Out 
 
 kirts of the Movement 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 LITERATURE OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 John Wesley's Sermons ..... 
 Whitefield's, Newton's, Scott's, Milner's Sermons 
 Hervey's ' Meditations ' and ' Theron and Aspasio 
 Ptomaine's * Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith ' 
 Venn's ' Complete Duty of Man ' . 
 Wilberf orce's • Practical View ' . , 
 
 Hannah More's Works 
 
 Adam's • Private Thoughts ' . . . . 
 
 Cecil's ' Eemains ' 
 
 Newton's ' Cardiphonia ' and ' Omicron ' 
 
 Lives of Scott, Venn, and Newton 
 
 Scott's ' Force of Truth ' . 
 
 Lives of John Wesley ..... 
 
 Milner's ' Church History ' . 
 
 Wesley's ' Ecclesiastical History ' . 
 
 Commentaries on the Bible — Coke, Wesley 
 
 Scott's Commentary 
 
 Literature of the Calvinistic Controversy . 
 Wesley's Literary Activity «... 
 Charles Wesley's Hymns .... 
 
X 
 
 Contents 
 
 Toplacly's Hymns, and others 126 
 
 Cowper's Poetry 1-7 
 
 General Estimate of the Literature 128 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 Spiritual and Moral Results generally 
 On the Young .... 
 Abolition of the Slave Trade . 
 Religious Tract Society 
 Bible Societies .... 
 
 Foreign Missions — Wesleyan 
 London Missionary Society 
 
 Church Missionary Society 
 
 Revolutionary and Sceptical Spirit Checked . 
 
 Effects on the Church of England 
 
 A Supplementary Movement Inevitable . 
 
 Wesley's Appreciation of the Church System 
 
 Effects on the Dissenting Interest .... 
 
 Later History of the Movement .... 
 
 Position of the Evangelicals at the Close of the 18th ( 
 
 ntury 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE REVIVAL 
 
 Mob Riots . 
 Opposition of Moralists . 
 Judicial Opposition 
 The Popular Historians . 
 Clerical Opposition 
 Opposition of Dissenters 
 Opposition of Literary Men- 
 Causes of the Opposition 
 A Desire for Quiet 
 Hatred of Puritanism . 
 Suspicion of Romanism 
 Fear of Jacob it ism . 
 Extravagances of Methodists 
 Insubordination of Clerical M 
 
 thodists 
 
Contents xi 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Doctrines those of Church of England 182 
 
 Points on which all Agreed 187 
 
 The ' New Birth ' 188 
 
 Guidance of the Holy Spirit 190 
 
 Calvinistic Controversy 101 
 
 Justification by Faith 11)1 
 
 Other Points in Dispute 193 
 
 Calvinists did themselves Injustice in their Writings . . . 191 
 Moderate Calvinism Described . . .... 195 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL COMPARED WITH OTHER 
 MOVEMENTS. 
 
 The Reformation 200 
 
 Puritanism of the 17th Century 201 
 
 German Pietism 2U2 
 
 Index 203 
 
THE EVANGELICAL EEYIYAL 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The religious apathy which set in with the accession of 
 the Hanoverian dynasty in England is one of the most 
 1700-17U remarkable phenomena in the history of reli- 
 reiSf°us° f gi° n - It is a popular but grievous error to 
 activity suppose that the whole of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was, from a religious point of view, a period of 
 inertness apart from the Evangelical Revival. On the 
 contrary, it would be difficult to find a period of greater 
 activity than the first fourteen years of that century. 
 And it is peculiarly ungrateful of us to ignore that 
 activity, because we are reaping the benefits of it up to 
 the present day. Then it was that our two oldest 
 Church societies for spreading Christian knowledge at 
 home and abroad were floated. It is true that the 
 earlier society was founded before the seventeenth cen- 
 tury closed, but it was not till the eighteenth century 
 
 C.H. B 
 
2 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 that it began to make its influence generally felt. Then 
 it was that the first scheme on any great scale for pro- 
 viding a religious education for the poor was established 
 in the shape of the charit y.gchool s . Then it was that a 
 real effort was made for relieving the crying poverty of 
 the great mass of the clergy through the influence 
 brought to bear upon the bountiful Queen Anne. Then 
 it was that the largest and most English, and, we may 
 now add, one of the most practically useful, of our 
 national temples — St. Paul's, London — was completed. 
 Then it was that a scheme was projected for keeping 
 pace with the growing wants of the metropolis in the 
 provision of means of grace ; and in the time of which 
 we are speaking as much progress was made in the 
 carrying out of that scheme as could reasonably be 
 expected. Then church bells rang for divine service 
 almost as frequently as they do in our own active day. 
 Then the religious societies for young men, and the 
 societies for the reformation of manners (a more ques- 
 tionable scheme), which were founded in the preceding 
 century, were most flourishing. Then the Church had 
 so strong a hold upon the people that her bitterest foes 
 were obliged to veil their real meaning, or to adopt an 
 apologetic tone and profess that they were writing in her 
 interests, in order to obtain a hearing at all. 
 
 But with the advent of the first George all these 
 symptoms of activity gradually began to droop, and in a 
 short time faded quite away ; and it was not till more 
 Apathy set than another century had elapsed that they re- 
 Georgian era appeared in a similar form. Detailed proofs 
 of this relapse are easily forthcoming. Though the 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge certainly 
 
Introduction 3 
 
 remained alive during the Georgian era, it as certainly 
 did not keep up the promise of growth and expansion 
 which it gave in the reign of Queen Anne. The same 
 may be said of its earliest offshoot, the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. A glaring 
 proof of the stagnation of the latter society may be 
 found in the fact that it at once let slip the project, 
 which, before the death of the queen, was all but accom- 
 plished, of establishing a colonial episcopate — surely an 
 essential feature of any missionary effort which was 
 professedly conducted on the lines of the Church of 
 England. The charity schools became suspected of 
 political propagandism, and fell into bad odour. ISTo 
 such munificent gift to the clergy as that of Queen 
 Anne's Bounty was repeated. The scheme for building 
 fifty-two new churches in London and the suburbs was 
 quietly allowed to drop, after only twelve had been 
 built and a few more repaired. The number of church 
 services grew small by degrees and beautifully less. A 
 most painful contrast will be found between a published 
 record of the services held in London in 1714, 1 and 
 another published in 1824 ; 2 and a similar falling off 
 would have been discovered in the country at large, if 
 statistics had been taken. The religious societies 
 lingered on long enough to give a sort of framework to 
 the societies of the Methodists, and then died a natural 
 death; the societies for the reformation of manners 
 died out with them. The Church continued to be a 
 name to conjure with, but her whole tone was per- 
 ceptibly lowered ; and other religious bodies shared the 
 same plight. 
 
 1 Paterson's Pietas Londinensis. 2 London Parishes, $c, 1821. 
 
 b 2 
 
4 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 It is not difficult to trace the causes of tliis col- 
 lapse. The seeds had been sown in the preceding period. 
 Causes of ^ ne mor bid dread of falling either into the 
 the collapse g C yH a f Romanism on the one hand or the 
 Charybdis of Puritanism on the other, tended to mate 
 men value unduly the virtues of caution and quiet. 
 The reaction against the reign of the Saints had by no 
 means spent its force; while JEi2manisni_was__still a 
 present danger, with a Romish king over the water 
 ready to take possession of England at the first favour- 
 able opportunity. Sometimes these two utterly opposite 
 causes of alarm oddly enough combined to raise a pre- 
 judice against the same man or cause. John Wesley 
 was at least as often charged with encouraging Roman- 
 ism as with encouraging Puritanism./ To avoid danger 
 on either side a somewhat colourless style of teaching, 
 . after the Tillotsonian type, became fashionable. What 
 is intended to offend nobody is apt also to affect no- 
 1 body. In studying to maintain c moderation ' and avoid 
 ' enthusiasm,' the prevailing theology lost much of its 
 vivifying power ; preaching too much degenerated into 
 the mere moral essay. Men's spiritual consciousness 
 could hardly be awakened by discourses, however sound, 
 6n T tlie~l ; e1isonableness of Christianity.' 
 
 The political situation greatly tended, in more ways 
 than one, to paralyse the spiritual life. In the first 
 Political place, the contrast between Queen Anne and 
 situation ^he two first Georges in relation to religious 
 matters was very marked. The queen may not have 
 been a strong-minded woman, nor a high type of Chris- 
 tian, but all her public influence was thrown into the 
 scale of religious earnestness, while that of her two cynical 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 successors was certainly thrown into the opposite scale. 
 Then again, the vast majority of the clergy submitted 
 with a very bad grace to the new regime. Many of 
 them had to eat their own words, or to explain them 
 away in a non-natural sense, which was demoralising to 
 their characters and detrimental to their influence. The 
 bishops, on the other hand, were, almost to a man, 
 Whigs. The Bangorian controversy, culminating in 
 the suspension of Convocation, was a type of the dif- 
 ferences which existed everywhere between the mass of 
 the Church and her appointed rulers. Such conditions 
 of antagonism between the rulers and the ruled are 
 obviously not conducive to the success of religious 
 effort. The bishops carried the day. Hoadly's bio- 
 grapher exultingly records that the bishop lived long 
 enough to see all the opposition which had been raised 
 against him die out. He did, but it was by no means 
 to the advantage of the Church or of religious life 
 generally. How can a work go on without any definite 
 system ? How can an institution prosper without any 
 common ground on which to meet ? and now that Con- 
 vocation entirely ceased to meet, where was the common 
 ground ? 
 
 But it really is not too much to say that the influ- 
 ence, of one man contributed more than all the other 
 sirEobert , caus es combined to the religious apathy of 
 Waipoie ^q early Georgian era. That man was, of 
 course, the all-powerful minister Sir Robert Walpole. 
 Hi&.policy from the beginning to the end of his career 
 was, systematically and avowedly, to put a stop to all 
 religious activity. His conduct in the matter of the 
 missionary enterprise of one of the greatest and best 
 
6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 men of the age, Dean (afterwards Bishop) Berkeley, is 
 only a specimen of his general method of dealing with 
 Church questions. That good man was allowed to sacri- 
 fice all his worldly prospects to the cause of Christian 
 missions with the distinct promise of public support, 
 was put off, tampered with, and at last completely let 
 down. At the same time, Sir Eobert Walpole's peace 
 policy, tending as it did to the increase of material 
 j)rosperity, and consequently to the increase of large 
 centres of industry, rendered Church activity all the 
 more necessary, in order to overtake the masses of the 
 people who had quite outgrown the old parochial 
 machinery. 
 
 Another cause must be noted, which brought out 
 both the strength and the weakness of the Christianity 
 Prevalence of the period, viz. the prevalence of religious 
 versy controversy on the most fundamental points. 
 
 A great part of the energy of preachers, writers, and 
 workers generally, was expended upon the defence of 
 revealed truth, and was consequently diverted from 
 questions of directly practical import. But this energy 
 was not wasted. Never were the Christian champions 
 more active and more successful than they were at this 
 time ; they measured swords with opponents from all 
 quarters and were triumphant over all. This was owing 
 partly to the inherent strength of their case, partly to 
 their own intellectual superiority. The strength of their 
 case, as against Arians, Socinians, and Deists, was that 
 all these really endeavoured to stand upon a descending 
 scale. Having gone so far out of the road of orthodoxy, 
 they were bound logically to go farther. This was pressed 
 home upon them with irresistible force by their antago- 
 
Introduction 7 
 
 nists, and gave the latter the advantage, even when in 
 intellectual power there was not much to choose between 
 the combatants. Thus, in intellectual power, Samuel 
 Clarke and Daniel Waterland were perhaps pretty fairly 
 matched ; but Waterland was victor all along the line, 
 because Clarke's position of semi-Arianism was in itself 
 untenable. But in other cases the champions were 
 absurdly unequal. If one compares the works, e.g. 
 of Toland, Tindal, Collins and Chubb, with those of 
 Butler, Berkeley, Law, and Warburton, the intellectual 
 inequality becomes at once apparent. c They (the Deists) 
 are,' writes Mr. Leslie Stephen, ' but a ragged regiment, 
 whose whole ammunition of learning was a trifle when 
 compared with the abundant stores of a single light of 
 orthodoxy ; whilst in speculative ability they were chil- 
 dren by the side of some of their antagonists.' The 
 result was that Christianity in England at the com- 
 mencement of the Bevival was in this strange position. 
 It had been irrefragably proved, as against its then 
 opponents; it was established speculatively on the 
 firmest of firm bases ; but speculation was not carried 
 into practice. The doctrine was accepted, but the life 
 was not lived. Such a state of things could not last ; if 
 the actual promoters of a revival had not existed, others 
 must have arisen. 
 
 Thus the train was laid, and it only required a spark 
 to kindle the fire. That spark was, oddly enough, thrown 
 Law's out by one who had no sympathy with the 
 
 cair * course which the fire took when it was lighted. 
 It js_iLQt surprising that there should have been some 
 reluctaucein owning the share which William Law took 
 in^originating .the Evangelical Kevival. For in the two 
 
8 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 practical treatises which, alone of his writings, were 
 directly concerned with the Revival, there is little of 
 what is popularly understood by Evangelical teaching ; 
 while, in his controversial works, and still more in his 
 later mystical works, he is quite at variance with that 
 teaching. Nevertheless, the connexion of Law with the 
 movement is undoubted. The testimony of the eighteenth 
 century is clear upon the point. Dr. Coke, who was 
 Wesley's right hand man, after describing the deplorable 
 state of religion when Wesley's societies were formed, 
 adds : ' The great Mr. Law was an exception indeed. . . . 
 Though a non-juror, and deprived on that account of the 
 exercise of his public ministry, he enforced by his ex- 
 cellent pen that essential doctrine of the Gospel, the 
 necessity of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. . . . 
 This considerable writer was the great fore-runner of the 
 Revival which followed^ and did more to promote it than 
 any other individual whatsoever ; yea, more perhaps than 
 the rest of the nation collectively taken.' John Wesley 
 himself owns as much ; and he and his brother Charles, 
 George Whitefield, Thomas Scott, Henry Venn, John 
 Newton, Thomas Adam, and many other Evangelical 
 leaders all express their personal obligations to Law. In 
 one respect, indeed, Law is rather a connecting link 
 between the Caroline divines and the Oxford school of 
 Pusey and Newman. In another he is a connecting 
 link between the evidence writers who unconsciously 
 prepared the way for the Revival, and the Revivalists 
 themselves. In intellectual power, he will bear com- 
 parison with Butler and Waterland ; in devotedness of 
 life, with Wesley and Whitefield. His direct connexion 
 with the Revival was briefly this : — the truths of Chris- 
 
Introduction g 
 
 tianity being proved triumphantly against all tlie_a££all- 
 aiits of that day, what was most needed was an appeal 
 which would stir men's hearts and set them, aglow. The 
 ( Christian Perfection ' and the ' Serious Call' were such 
 appeals, and they had the desired effect. But here 
 Law's connexion with the movement ends ; he stood 
 quite aloof from its course ; and in later times it was 
 not the Evangelicals, but the old-fashioned, pious, High- 
 Churchmen (of whom there were always many speci- 
 mens) who took the ' Serious Call ' as their devotional 
 manual. Hence Law's place belongs simply to this 
 introductory chapter ; he was rather the precursor than 
 actor in the Revival, and so we may pass on to consider 
 who were the real actors therein. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 JOHX WESLEY. 
 
 the most conspicuous 
 character connected with the Revival, and requires and 
 Epworth deserves a chapter to himself. No adequate 
 rectory i c i ea can ^g conceived of John Wesley without 
 taking into full account his early training. The spot 
 on which these lines are written influenced his character 
 and career far more than either Charterhouse or Christ 
 Church did. Born at Epworth in 1703, he received 
 his early training almost exclusively from his mother, 
 whose influence over him extended to the last hour of 
 her life. It was at Epworth that he first learnt to 
 undervalue the parochial system ; for he saw there a 
 
io The Evangelical Revival 
 
 good parish priest labouring for nearly forty years and 
 reaping apparently very little fruit from his labours ; 
 and, on the other hand, it was at Epworth that he 
 imbibed that deep attachment to the Church of 
 England which he never lost, for his father and 
 mother were Church-people to the backbone. It was 
 at Epworth that he was first impressed with that 
 strong conviction of the special intervention of a par- 
 ticular Providence in the commonest events of life 
 which is brought out so markedly in his journal ; for 
 his providential rescue, as a brand snatched from the 
 burning, in the famous fire at Epworth rectory in 1709, 
 left an indelible impression upon his mind. It was at 
 Epworth that that vein of credulity and superstition 
 which certainly tinged his character to the day of his 
 death was first formed: ' Old Jeffrey,' the famous 
 Epworth ghost, in the supernatural character of whom 
 he never ceased to believe, had a considerable share 
 in moulding some of the phases, both of Methodism and 
 its founder. It was -at Epworth that he formed, from 
 liisjQiQiJh£tf's^aimple and teaching, those habits of order 
 and discipline which rendered the name of ' Methodist ' 
 so singularly _ appropriate to him. It was at Epworth, 
 with the sight of a highly educated father, mother, and 
 elder brother before him, that he learned to appreciate 
 the advantages of education; and so never joined in 
 that silly depreciation of ' human learning ' which exas- 
 perates sensible men in the writings of some who were 
 connected with the Revival. 
 
 There is a singular absence of any traces of the influ- 
 ence which either his school days at Charterhouse or his 
 undergraduate days at Christ Church left upon him. 
 
John Wesley ii 
 
 It was not till he became Fellow of Lincoln that Ox- 
 ford began to make its real impress upon him. But 
 Lincoln the period which he spent as resident Fellow 
 oxford' was a marked epoch in his life. For some 
 time he was ' moderator of the classes ' which were 
 held every day in the college hall 'for exercises and 
 disputations ; ' and his work in this office developed 
 that logical acumen which stood him in stead on many 
 occasions in his unwilling disputes with adversaries 
 from various quarters. His position as a college don 
 was an excellent training for that almost royal attitude 
 which he maintained to the end among his ' helpers ' 
 and followers. And the atmosphere of Oxford gene- 
 rally tended to give him larger views of life than one 
 who had passed less time at that noble university, with 
 its time-honoured traditions and its roll of great men 
 in all departments, could probably have held. 
 
 His residence at Oxford had been interrupted for 
 two years, during which he acted as his father's curate 
 oxford at Epworth and Wroot. It was during that 
 
 Methodism interval that the nucleus of Methodism was 
 formed. On his return to Oxford he found a little so- 
 ciety formed under the auspices of his younger brother, 
 Charles (then a student of Christ Church), for the 
 purpose of the mutual- improvement, both in mind and 
 soul, of its members. The little band at once placed 
 themselves under the direction of John, who, from his 
 age and high character for learning and piety, was their 
 natural leader. There seems to have been absolutely 
 nothing remarkable to our views in the conduct of this 
 little band. They simply strove to live holier lives and 
 obey more strictly the rules of the Church of their 
 
12 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 baptism, than was usual in those lax da}~s. And 
 nothing shows more clearly the need there was of some 
 spiritual movement than the way in which they were 
 treated. It seems difficult to realise the fact that, in a 
 place especially devoted to Christian education, the mere 
 sight of a few young men going quietly to receive the 
 Holy Communion every Sunday at St. Mary's, their 
 own university church, should have attracted a crowd 
 of ridiculing spectators ; or that the effort to observe 
 strictly the plain rules of the Church should have 
 branded them with what were intended to be opprobrious 
 nicknames, but which were in reality most honourable 
 titles — the Holy Club, the Godly Club, the Eeformers, 
 the Sacramentarians, and, finally, the Methodists. To_ 
 read the classics and the Greek Testament together, to 
 visit the poor in the city and. the prisoners in the gaol, 
 to fast when the Church plainly told them to fast, and 
 to attend diligently to all the appointed means of grace, 
 — this was thought eccentric in a little body of men, the 
 leader of whom was an ordained clergyman, and all of 
 whom were intending to take holy orders] How far Mr. 
 Law was their spiritual director it is difficult to ascertain ; 
 but there is no doubt that of all living writers he was 
 the one who attracted JohnfWesley most, and that his 
 personal influence over the two brothers was very con- 
 siderable. They used to make pilgrimages on foot (to 
 save the money for the poor) to Putney, where Mr. 
 Law then resided, to ask his counsel. 'It is true,' 
 wrote John Wesley in his journal, ' that Mr. Law, whom 
 I Jove jand reverence now (1760), was once a kind of 
 oracle to me.' 
 
 The oracle was consulted when John was invited 
 
John Wesley 13 
 
 by the benevolent General Oglethorpe to accompany 
 him to Georgia, partly as a parochial clergyman to the 
 new English colony there, and partly as a mis- 
 sionary to the Indians. This was immediately 
 after the death of the elder Mr. Wesley, and when the 
 oldest brother, Samuel, was obviously failing. The no- 
 ble self-sacrifice of the widowed mother, who not only 
 consented, but urged her two sons, John and Charles, 
 to set forth, is very characteristic. 'Had I twenty 
 sons I should rejoice that they were all so employed 
 though I should never see them more.' 
 
 The experience of John Wesley in Georgia, disas- 
 trous though it was, was a most important factor in 
 important moulding his future career. It first brought 
 career a him into contact with the Moravians — in itself 
 a crucial event. But this was not all. The failure of 
 the attempt was probably, to a very great extent, 
 responsible for the irregularities with which he was 
 subsequently charged. Hot from the influence of 
 William Law, John Wesley attempted to carry out 
 to the very letter all the rules of the Church in an 
 infant colony, the very last place in the world which 
 was likely to submit to such rigour. He insisted upon 
 baptizing by immersion, and would admit none but 
 communicants as sponsors. He refused the Holy 
 Communion to Dissenters unless they would consent to 
 be rebaptized; he would not read the burial service 
 over Dissenters ; awd finally, as a climax, he repelled 
 from the Holy Table the wife of one of the principal 
 men in the colony, who had before this all but become 
 the wife of Wesley himself, and when remonstrated 
 with he assumed a statuesque attitude and replied in 
 
14 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 language which Law himself might have used : c When 
 Mrs. Williamson openly declares herself to have re- 
 pented I will administer to her the mysteries of God.' 
 In short he attempted, not only to present the full 
 system of the Church but to enforce its discipline, and 
 that even in doubtful points, among a people who were 
 totally unfit to receive it. They could not understand 
 what he was aiming at. 'They say,' he was told, 'they 
 are Protestants, but as for you they cannot tell what 
 religion you are of; they never heard of such a religion 
 before.' They were not very well acquainted with Church 
 history, otherwise they would have certainly ' heard of 
 such a religion before.' They would have heard of its 
 having flourished in their own mother-country only a 
 generation before their own time, for i£~was assuredly 
 the religion of all the great Caroline divines. But we 
 may admit that Wesley attempted to draw the reins 
 too tight, and we may also fairly presume that his 
 painful experience in Georgia as a parochial clergyman 
 (the missionary work was hardly attempted) may have 
 combined with his experience of Epworth to make him 
 hold so cheaply as he did the value of parochial work. 
 
 There is no trace of pique in Wesley's account of 
 the dismal failure of his experiment ; he was not well 
 treated, but he lays all the blame on himself. ' I went 
 to America,' he says, ' to convert the Indians, but I was 
 not converted myself.' It is a relief to find that in his 
 old age he added a note : ' I am not sure of this ; ' 
 and that instead of maintaining the sweeping assertion 
 that in these early days he was utterly devoid of faith, 
 he distinguished between the faith of a servant and 
 the faith of a son, owning that he had the former but 
 
John Wesley 15 
 
 not the latter, until the memorable day now to he de- 
 scribed. 
 
 On his voyage both ways, and after his return home, 
 Wesley fell under the influence of the Moravians, 
 Moravian especially of a very remarkable man, Peter 
 convert Bohler. It was at one of their meetings that 
 his ' conversion' was completed. 'In the evening 
 [of May 24, 1738] I went very unwillingly to a society 
 in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's 
 Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter 
 before nine, while he was describing the change which 
 God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt 
 my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, 
 Christ alone, for salvation, and an assurance was given 
 me " that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and 
 saved me from the law of sin and death." ' It was quite 
 right that he should be thankful for the blessing, but 
 there was no need for him to turn upon his old teacher 
 and upbraid him for not having given him the light. 
 However, Law was well able to take care of himself ; in 
 intellectual power he was more than a match for far 
 stronger antagonists than John Wesley. Those who 
 read the correspondence now will not be at a loss to 
 decide who had the worst of it. But it is a credit to 
 Wesley that though he must have had sense enough to 
 see that he had been completely overmastered in argu- 
 ment, he never ceased to regard Law with the utmost 
 reverence and love, and bore frequent and warm testi- 
 mony to the extraordinary power and usefulness of his 
 old mentor's practical writings, and the loftiness of his 
 Christian character. This fact is too often forgotten by 
 those who lay great stress upon the influence which the 
 
1 6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Moravians exercised over Wesley, nor do they seem 
 duly to weigh the fact that Wesley afterwards differed 
 from the Moravians at least as widely as he did from 
 Law. 
 
 But Wesley was now launched upon a course in 
 which he was quite out of sympathy with Law's views 
 and tastes. He commenced that career of exhaustless 
 labour which he continued for more than half a century. 
 It is not as the founder of a sect (which he never desired 
 to be), but simply as a reformer that he must come be- 
 fore us in these pages, and that only in general outline, 
 not in details. That his designs from begin- 
 ning to end were purely unselfish, must 
 surely be manifest to all unprejudiced persons who will 
 study him in that wonderfully life-like portrait of him- 
 self which he has given us in his own Journal, instead 
 of being content to look at him through the spectacles 
 of others. If ever a man poured forth the whole secrets 
 of his soul, surely Wesley did in his Journal. It is, on 
 the face of it, a real, not a conventional, account of his 
 thoughts and doings, and deserves to be studied at 
 first-hand. 
 
 But apart from this the known facts of his life 
 utterly fail to bear out some of the charges which have 
 Purity of been laid against him. It has been said that 
 motives he was an ambitious, self-seeking man ; self- 
 willed, fond of power, brooking no contradiction, 
 inclined to be quarrelsome. His ablest biographer, 
 Dr. Southey, has given the weight of his great name to 
 some of these charges. But let us see how the facts 
 stand. Now it is a remarkable fact that of scarcely 
 any of the plans and designs which are specially con- 
 
John Wesley 17 
 
 nected with. Jolm "Wesley's name was John Wesley 
 himself the originator. They were either suggested by 
 others or were actually set about against his will, and 
 carried on because he submitted his own judgment to 
 that of others. We have seen that the first nucleus of 
 Methodism at Oxford was formed, not by John, but by 
 Charles Wesley, and that John merely took up what his 
 younger brother had started. His societies were simply 
 a carrying on of the idea of the religious societies 
 which had been established more than half-a-century 
 before. Field-preaching, which was the very backbone 
 of Methodism, was not only not begun by John Wesley, 
 but was regarded by him with great repugnance ; a 
 repugnance which he had the greatest difficulty in over- 
 coming, and, in fact, never altogether overcame. The 
 employment of lay-preachers was equally offensive to 
 him, and his dislike was only overruled by the advice 
 of one whose counsels he never neglected — his mother. 
 The class-meetings were not his idea, but the idea of an 
 unknown follower at Bristol, who suggested the plan 
 simply to meet a temporary financial exigency. So far 
 was Wesley from being obstinately wedded to his own 
 opinions that he laid himself fairly open to the charge 
 of inconsistency by so frequently modifying them. And, 
 finally, he was overpersuaded by others to do that which 
 a Churchman must ever hold to be one of the greatest 
 errors of his life, when he usurped, in utter defiance of 
 his obligations as a clergyman, the office of a bishop — 
 that is, if he really did mean to take upon himself the 
 office of a bishop, but, after all, that is rather doubtful. 
 He set apart Dr. Coke to be 'a superintendent,' but is 
 that quite the same thing as : consecrating ' him to be ' a 
 C.H. C 
 
1 8 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 bishop'? It is one of those questions in which the 
 meaning of words should be carefully weighed. This, 
 at any rate, is certain — that Wesley, by reading two 
 very inadequate authorities, viz. Stillingneet's juvenile 
 work, the 'Irenicon,' which that great man in his 
 maturer years recanted, and Mr. (afterwards Lord 
 Chancellor) King's juvenile work on the constitu- 
 tion of the Christian Church, which lie also virtually 
 recanted in his later years, was convinced that bishops 
 and priests were but one order ; in other words, he did 
 not raise himself to the bishop's level, but reduced the 
 bishop to his own level. 
 
 That he should adopt a lordly tone with his ' helpers ' 
 was an inevitable result of their relative positions; 
 moreover, the tone was, one may almost say, 
 hereditary in all the Wesley family; there is an 
 abruptness, a peremptoriness, in their correspondence 
 one with another which might sometimes almost pass 
 for rudeness did we not know the affectionate relations 
 which subsisted between them. At the same time it is 
 admitted that some of Wesley's utterances were very 
 exasperating, and that they naturally tended to widen 
 the breaches which existed between him and many with 
 whom in the main he agreed, as well as those who dis- 
 agreed both with his principles and his practices. There 
 is often too contemptuous a tone in his correspondence 
 with Whitefield, and the sneering way in which he 
 sometimes alluded to ' the genteel Methodists ' was not 
 becoming ; nor can he be at all justified in the open 
 defiance which, in the earlier period of the Eevival, he 
 showed to the rulers of the Church to whom, as an 
 ordained clergyman, he had solemnly promised canonical 
 
John Wesley 19 
 
 obedience. His sole quarrel, he said, was with sin and 
 Satan, but it is not surprising that his deeds and words 
 often provoked others to quarrel with him. A weakness, 
 too, which was near akin to a virtue, often led him into 
 error. His constant recourse to the foolish and objection- 
 able practice of the i Sortes Biblicas ' frequently misled 
 him. His brother Charles thought l bodily symptoms 
 no sign of grace,' and Whitefield considered them as 
 ' doubtful indications, and not to be encouraged ; ' but 
 John Wesley undoubtedly encouraged them, and thus 
 led to many wild extravagances which he was the first 
 to deplore. In short, that which, viewed from its strong- 
 side may be called guilelessness, from its weak side 
 credulousness, was a dangerous quality for a man in his 
 position to possess. May we not see symptoms of this 
 same guilelessness or credulousness, call it which we will, 
 in his fond belief that his followers would adhere to the 
 Church ? That his wish for them to do so was sincere 
 is unquestionable. He had a positive dislike to Dis- 
 senters, 1 and an ever-increasing love for the Church, its 
 services, its ritual, its ministers, and its doctrines. But 
 if we did not take into account his extreme simplicity 
 (in more than one sense of the term) we could hardly 
 believe it possible that he could seriously suppose that 
 his followers shared that love. They went to church 
 because he insisted upon their doing so, and his will 
 was law ; but their heart was with their own societies. 
 
 1 So late as 1780 he writes in his Journal : ' Trowbridge. As 
 most of the hearers were Dissenters I did not expect to do much 
 good.' In 1777 : ' Peel-town, Isle of Man. A more loving, simple- 
 hearted people than this I never saw ; and no wonder, for they have 
 but six Papists, and no Dissenters, in the island.' 
 
 c 2 
 
20 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 John Berridge saw that they would drift away, so did 
 Charles Wesley, but John Wesley did not. It is but 
 bare justice to the many with whom John Wesley was 
 brought into collision to admit all this. Surely it could 
 hardly be expected that the clergy would regard with 
 a favourable eye one who, without in the least intending 
 to do so, was really leading their flocks away from them. 
 From no quarter do we hear more complaints of this 
 than from the Evangelical clergy; and surely, from their 
 point of view, the complaint was not unreasonable. 
 But Wesley's faults were all errors of judgment, not of 
 heart ; his was a fine, noble, Christian character, and 
 his very errors were akin to virtues. 
 
 And now we may turn to the more pleasing task of 
 tracing out his self-denying labours. The first point 
 His self- that strikes us is his extraordinary activity. 
 labours It is said in the Preface to his Journal with 
 perfect truth that ' he published more books, travelled 
 more miles, and preached more sermons, than any 
 minister of his age.' It is perfectly bewildering to 
 follow the course of his travels. The whole length and 
 breadth of England were traversed by him over and over 
 again ; he made frequent journeys into Scotland and 
 Ireland ; and at every town and village where he stayed 
 he was ready, in season and out of season, to preach 
 the everlasting Gospel. This went on for more than 
 half-a-century, and the mere physical labour must have 
 been enormous. Only a constitution of iron, a tem- 
 perament of extraordinary buoyancy, and at the same 
 time one which was never ruffled, a strict abstemious- 
 ness of life, and, above all, an intense belief in an over- 
 ruling Providence to which he might always commit: 
 
John Wesley 21 
 
 himself, could have enabled him to endure it. He was 
 perfectly fearless of danger, and would face an angry 
 mob with the calm courage of a hero, or rather of a 
 martyr. The readers of a short sketch like the present 
 will hardly expect to find here an account of his work 
 in detail ; it must suffice to give a general outline. 
 
 John Wesley himself dates the beginning of the 
 Revival, of which he was the heart and soul, from the 
 Date of eg- s ,P r ^ n g of 1738. 1 i Then,' he says, ' it pleased 
 viral, 1738 q 0( } to kindle a nre w hich I trust shall never 
 be extinguished.' The human ins trum ent, he declares, 
 was_JPete r "Bohl pr. ' Oh ! what a work hath God 
 wrought since his coming to England ! Such an one 
 as shall never come to an end till heaven and earth 
 shall pass away.' He also credits Peter Bohler with 
 the particular form which Methodism took. * On 
 May 1, 1738, our little society at Fetter-lane began. 
 Our rules in obedience to God and by the advice of 
 
 Peter Bohler were ' and then he proceeds to specify 
 
 them. There is nothing in this inconsistent with the 
 fact that Wesley's societies were intended to be a con- 
 tinuation or reproduction of the religions societies of 
 1678, whose Church tone was most strongly marked. 
 As a matter of fact it may be perfectly true that £ the 
 religious societies supplied a body to Methodism, the 
 Moravians a soul ; ' but it is evident that to Wesley's \ 
 mind no idea of this sharp-drawn distinction occurred. 
 Moravian influence touched him deeply at the beginning 
 
 1 But in another passage he makes 1729 the date of the com- 
 mencement of the Kevival. There is no discrepancy between the 
 two statements — 1729 would be the date of the commencement of 
 Methodism in any form, 1738 of the permanent form which it took. 
 
22 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 of liis career as a reformer ; and, if it had continued, it 
 must have materially affected his Church principles. 
 But, while it lasted, it did not do so ; indeed, the time 
 when Moravian influence was most fresh and strong 
 upon him was the very time when he was endeavouring* 
 to carry out his Church principles most rigorously. 
 
 And now began that course of itinerancy which 
 produced such startling and wide-spread effects. Field- 
 pieid- preaching became a necessity, and, having 
 
 preaching keen begun first by Whitefield, was adopted 
 most reluctantly by Wesley. On March 31, 1739, he 
 records : c I reached Bristol and met Mr. Whitefield. 
 I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange 
 way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an 
 example on Sunday ; having been all my life (till very 
 lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency 
 and order that I should have thought the saving of 
 souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.' 
 And on the following day : £ At four in the afternoon I 
 submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the high- 
 ways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a 
 little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city to 
 about three thousand people.' The reformers were 
 breaking no law of the Church by out-door preaching ; 
 and it is hard to see how the masses could have been 
 reached without it. For, supposing all the churches 
 had been thrown open to them, it would have been im- 
 possible to crowd into them a tithe of the seething multi- 
 tude, and probably not a tithe of that tithe would ever 
 have been persuaded to enter the doors. But, as a 
 rule, the churches were closed to the new preachers; 
 and much as we may regret the fact, it is hardly fair to 
 
John Wesley 23 
 
 blame the clergy indiscriminately for refusing to admit 
 them. For the reproach implies that every ordained 
 clergyman has a perfect right to preach in whatever 
 church he pleases. Of course this is not the case, and 
 it would be very undesirable if it were so. If a perfect 
 stranger were to come and ask a clergyman for the use 
 of his pulpit, that clergyman would be more than 
 justified in refusing him ; and the case would be still 
 stronger if he had heard nothing of the stranger but to 
 his disparagement. Now it is probable that the clergy 
 who refused their pulpits had either no knowledge of 
 Wesley at all, or had heard of him as a man full of 
 irregularities and extravagances. They did not know, 
 as we do, what he really was. So far from being per- 
 secuted at the beginning of his career as a reformer by 
 the dignitaries of the Church, Wesley was treated by 
 them with the utmost courtesy and forbearance. Let 
 us hear the two brothers' own account of their reception 
 by the Primate (Potter) in 1738. 'He showed us,' 
 writes Charles, l great affection, and cautioned us to give 
 no more umbrage than was necessary for our own 
 defence, to forbear exceptionable phrases, and to keep 
 to the doctrines of the Church.' John calls him ' a 
 great and good man,' and then tells us the advice he 
 gave him : ' If you desire to be extensively useful, do 
 not spend your time and strength in contending for or 
 against things of a disputable nature, but in testifying 
 against open, notorious vice, and in promoting real, 
 essential holiness.' This was the motto of all John 
 Wesley's future career. The Bishop of London (Gibson) 
 ( warned them against Antinomianism and dismissed 
 them kindly ; ' and as for the Bishop of Gloucester 
 
24 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 (Benson), lie was almost too kind to their fellow-helper, 
 Whiten" eld, admitting him to holy orders when he was 
 under the light age, and certainly not above his age in 
 learning and experience. But these pleasant relations 
 between John Wesley and his spiritual superiors did 
 not last long. They were revived in his old age, 1 but 
 in his mid-career they were interrupted; the course 
 which he took was too contrary to the spirit of the 
 Georgian era to admit of their continuance. He be came 
 suspected of encouraging that bugbear of the eighteenth 
 century — enthusiasm. In 1739 Bishop Gibson wrote a 
 pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' by way of 
 caution against lukewarmness on the one hand and 
 enthn siasm on the other ; ' and he defined enthusiasm 
 as a ' strong persuasion on the mind that they are 
 guided by the immediate impulses of the Spirit of God.' 
 John Wesley himself was equally averse from what he 
 considered enthusiasm ; only he would have defined it 
 in rather a different way from what the bishop did. 
 He preached a sermon in which he distinguished be- 
 tween what was called enthusiasm and what he held to 
 be such. He was c surprised and grieved at a genuine 
 instance of enthusiasm,' the instance being that of a 
 man whom God had told that he should be a king. 
 One would have been inclined to call such a man not 
 an enthusiast but a madman. 
 
 The true key-note to John Wesley's whole career is 
 to be found in the advice of Archbishop Potter, already 
 quoted. Everything else was made subservient to his 
 
 1 John Wesley says in December 1789 : * So are the tables turned 
 that I have now more invitations to preach in churches than I can 
 accept of.' 
 
John Wesley 25 
 
 desire of doing practical good. It was with this view 
 that he laid so much stress upon h is favou rite doctrine 
 Kev-note to °S. ' C hristian Perfection ' — a doctrine which 
 2£3e y ' s gave deep oHenceTb" many of his co-religion- 
 career ^ s ^ bnt is surely a very noble and a very true 
 
 doctrine when defined and guarded as Weslev defined 
 and guarded it. ' Loving God/ he writes in his old 
 age, ' with all our hearts, and our neighbour as our- 
 selves, is the perfection I have taught these forty years. 
 I pin down all its opposers to this definition of it. 
 No evasion ! No shifting the question ! Where is the 
 delusion of this ? ' He felt that it was onlv by ta king a 
 high aim, and by feeling that it was possible to attain 
 that aim, that man could ever be elevated and restored 
 to the image of God. The restoration of the image of 
 God in the soul of man was another definition, not 
 contrary to, but explanatory of, the one given above, of 
 Wesley's c Christian Perfection.' 
 
 It was with the same practical end in view that he 
 set so firm a face against Calvinism — again to the deep 
 offence of many of his co-religionists ; for he felt that 
 there was a practical danger of Calvinism leading to 
 Antinomianism, as in some instances it undoubtedly did. 
 The same cause led him to oppose the mystic ' stillness ' 
 of the Moravians, for he felt that the Christian's duty 
 was to work and not to wait, or rather to wait in work- 
 ing. The same cause brought him into antagonism with 
 the far more refined and intellectual mysticism, which 
 fascinated his quondam friend and oracle, William Law. 
 The same desire of doing practical good led him to 
 waive clerical etiquette, and intrude even into the 
 parishes of Evangelical clergymen. The same cause 
 
26 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 will in part account for his almost morbid dislike of 
 c^i^^^ } 1 _J^_^^^^^_^sq. controversy comes 
 in practical work is apt to go out. With the same view 
 he avoided — thorough gentleman though he was — the 
 congregations of the gentry where he felt he could 
 make little practical impression, and devoted himself 
 almost exclusively to the poor whom he loved. This, 
 too, may be one reason why he did not put so promi- 
 nently forward as might have been expected, in his 
 sermons and in his intercourse with his people gene- 
 rally, what may be called his Anglican tastes ; for he felt 
 that they would not be understood, and that to the one 
 great object of his life all mere personal predilections 
 must be subservient. In fact, he made light — far too 
 light — of mere opinions generally. ' Is thy heart right, 
 as my heart is with thy heart ? If so give me thy hand.' 
 All who would help him in his sole quarrel with sin 
 and Satan he welcomed with open arms, no matter what 
 their opinions might be. 1 This, too, was probably the 
 real cause why he thought it right to rule, not with a 
 rod of iron, but with a benevolent despotism, his con- 
 stantly increasing body of fellow-labourers ; for he 
 knew that he could direct them better than they could 
 direct themselves in that one work which they had to 
 do — the instructing, persuading, and encouraging men 
 to love God with all their hearts and their neighbours 
 as themselves. 2 
 
 1 ' How hard it is,' he writes, December 11, 1785, * to fix, even on 
 serious hearers, a lasting sense of the nature of true religion ! Let 
 it be right opinions, right modes of worship, or anything, rather 
 than right tempers.' 
 
 2 There is an amusing instance of this in his characteristically 
 abrupt counsel to Mr. Benson, with regard even to the choice of 
 
John Wesley 27 
 
 Perhaps, also, we may attribute to the same cause — 
 viz. the subordination of everything in Wesley's view 
 Wesley's ^° ^ ne enforcement of practical religion — 
 tastes fjjg^ cur i ous contrast between the Methodist 
 
 movement, or at least the popular idea of it, and the 
 bent of Wesley's own inclinations. J^T ethodism was 
 popularly supposed to be a sort of revival of the old 
 Puritanism of the seventeenth century: and, though 
 the theory is inadequate, and, in many respects, erro- 
 neous, there were undoubtedly certain points of resem- 
 blance between the two systems. But all Wesley's 
 tastes and sentiments were markedly anti-Puritan. 
 This will be best illustrated by selecting from his 
 Journal some of his opinions on various points. Here, 
 for instance, is an entry on January 30, 1785 — £ I en- 
 deavoured to point out those sins which were the chief 
 cause of that awful transaction we commemorate this 
 day. I believe the chief sin which brought the king 
 to the block was his promoting the real Christians. 
 Hereby he drove them into the hands of designing men, 
 which issued in his own destruction.' Here is an entry 
 which would rather startle ultra-Protestants : February 
 1786 — c Stuart's History of Scotland proves Mary, 
 Queen of Scots not only one of the best princesses then 
 in Europe, but one of the most blameless, yea, the most 
 pious, women.' He rarely took part in politics, but the 
 
 books for his own private reading. ' What I recommend I know ; if 
 you want more books let me recommend more, who best understand 
 my own scheme. Beware you be not swallowed up in books ! an 
 ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge ! ' Take again his 
 remarks on the dress of his followers : ' It is true these are little, 
 very little, things, which are not worth defending, therefore give 
 them up, let them drop, throw them away without another word.' 
 
2o The Evangelical Revival 
 
 American war stirred liini to write strongly in favour of 
 the Royalist side. His ' Calm Addresses ' caused a great 
 sensation, and raised against him many enemies. But 
 he felt strongly on the subject of government. l There 
 is,' he wrote, ' most liberty of all, civil and religious, 
 under a limited monarchy, usually less under an aris- 
 tocracy, and least of all under a democracy.' His 
 opinion of books is of a similar cast. Of the ' Whole 
 Duty of Man,' that text-book of Churchmen and Royal- 
 ists after the Restoration, that abomination of the Evan- 
 gelicals, he writes, ' I wish none may ever read a worse 
 book.' He records with delight in January 1784, 'I 
 spent two hours with that great man, Dr. Johnson.' 
 He thinks Dr. Home's ' Commentary on the Psalms ' 
 ' the best that ever was wrote.' ' I w^ent on,' he writes 
 in 1768, < reading that fine book, Bishop Butler's 
 " Analogy." But I doubt it is too hard for most of 
 those for whom it is chiefly intended — Free-thinkers, 
 so called, are seldom close thinkers.' Bishop Lowth 
 and Dean Prideaux are also favourite authors with him. 
 On the other hand it would be difficult, if possible, to 
 find from him any praise of writers with any Puritan 
 leaning. Nothing seems to please him more than when 
 he can record any praise of clergymen, especially of 
 bishops; and such praise frequently occurs in his 
 Journal, especially in his later years. ' We had,' he 
 writes in 1777, 'at Carmarthen a plain, useful sermon 
 from the Vicar, though some said he did not preach the 
 Gospel. He preached what these men have great need 
 to hear, less they seek death in the error of their life.' 
 He does not conceal his dislike of the Presbyterian 
 services in Scotland, while nothing can exceed the 
 
John Wesley 29 
 
 enthusiasm with which he speaks of the ' exquisite 
 decency' of the services in the Episcopal churches. 
 He finds Lady Huntingdon's young preachers a great 
 thorn in his side. In short, all his sentiments give one 
 the impression of a man who was the very reverse of an 
 innovator or a demagogue. It is a sad pity that such a 
 man could not have been welcomed as a most valuable 
 aid to the Church, though there were more difficulties 
 in the way than is popularly supposed. Take him for 
 all in all he towers far above all the leaders of the 
 Evangelical Revival, not so much in saintliness, or in 
 intellectual power, or in eloquence, or in sound judg- 
 ment, or in singleness of purpose, but in general force. 
 If one man had to be picked out as the Reviver, that 
 man's name would assuredly be John Wesley. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GEORGE WHITEFIELD — CHARLES WESLEY — JOHX FLETCHER 
 
 It is a singular fact that, wjiile it may be said that in 
 the eighteenth century John Wesley was Methodism, 
 Prominence it is not the name of Wesley that comes 
 field's name hgforejns most frequently and most promi- 
 nently in the contemporary accounts of the Methodists, 
 but the name of George Whitefield (1714-1770). In 
 the c Letters of Horace Walpole,' for instance, and 
 literature of that stamp, the name of Wesley rarely 
 occurs, that of Whitefield continually. This may be 
 
30 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 accounted for partly by the fact that Wesley scrupu- 
 lously kept himself aloof from the polite world, c the 
 gay, genteel things,' as he called them, from which class 
 such literature emanated, and for which it was intended, 
 while Wliitefield was constantly among them ; partly 
 because it was much easier to ridicule Wliitefield than 
 Wesley, who was always, beyond all dispute, a scholar 
 and a gentleman, as well as a Christian. 
 
 A contemporary historian actually calls ' one White- 
 field, a young clergyman, the founder of an institu- 
 tion of a set of fanatics under the name of Methodists,' * 
 and another puts Whitefield before the two Wesleys 
 in an equally contemptuous account of the rise of the 
 Methodists. 2 
 
 But in looking back upon the movement, * as it 
 appears in the dry light of history, we see at once the 
 whitefieia very different proportions of the two men. 
 preacher Wliitefield was simply a guileless, self-deny- 
 ing, but ill-trained and very injudicious^.enthusiast, in 
 the nineteenth rather than the eighteenth century's 
 acceptation of that term. To criticise him would be 
 like criticising the song of the skylark ; for the one is 
 hardly more careless than the other of what the world 
 might say. To preach in every part of the world the 
 everlasting Gospel in his somewhat narrow view of it, 
 — this was his work in life. He was not at all likely 
 to make any permanent mark upon such men as those 
 who have left what one may call testimonials to his 
 preaching powers, hard-headed men like David Hume 
 
 1 Continuation of Eapin's History by Tindal, vol. v. (of con- 
 tinuation) p. 191. 
 
 2 Smollett's Continuation of Hume, vol. v. p. 375. 
 
George Whitefield 31 
 
 and Benjamin Franklin, and clever rakes like Lord 
 Boling'broke and Lord Chesterfield. But the immediate 
 effects which he produced were more striking even than 
 those produced by Wesley, thousands and tens of 
 thousands listened to his simple and earnest words, and 
 were, at least for the time, startled from their security. 
 And as very many of the uneducated folk who heard 
 him were really touched and did lead better lives in 
 consequence, it seems a pity that he should have not 
 confined himself to them. For how was it reason- 
 able to expect that he could affect people of a more 
 educated class ? Brought up to the menial work of 
 1 drawer ' in a Gloucester inn, and thence removed 
 directly to Oxford in the scarcely less menial capacity of 
 a servitor at Pembroke College, he had been launched 
 into the world, through the questionable kindness of 
 Bishop Benson, as a preacher of the Gospel, at an 
 even earlier age than youths, not long ago fresh 
 from school, are usually entrusted with that all-im- 
 portant message. His fire, his earnestness, his mag- 
 nificent voice, his dramatic action, his noble person, 
 took the world by storm. In the wilds of America; 
 arnong^jthe colliers of Kingswood, with l a mount for 
 his pulpit, and the heavens for his sounding-board ' (he 
 had none of Wesley's repugnance to field-preaching 
 he preferred it to any other) ; amid the hubbub of 
 St. Bartholomew's fair ; in the darkness of midnight in 
 Hyde Park, when all London was in a panic about an 
 expected earthquake; in his own great tabernacle in 
 Tottenham fields, and in Lady Huntingdon's drawing- 
 room among what he calls c tiptop nobility ; ' up and 
 down in every part of England and Scotland, his voice 
 
32 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 had been heard, and had made itself felt, as few had 
 been felt for many a long year. But it is not surprising 
 that a reaction set in. He was a preacher and nothing 
 more ; as a preacher he had done a great work for the 
 Revival, but that work was, in the nature of the case, 
 ephemeral. He had no system, no method ; so that the 
 term ' Methodist ' was singularly inappropriate to him, 
 though in the estimation of one section of his contem- 
 poraries, he was far excellence the typical Methodist — ■ 
 far more even than Wesley. As such he was more 
 cruelly maligned than any of them. And that, not only 
 on account of his weak points, which were many, but in 
 matters in which he was absolutely guiltless. In a 
 1 Comic Romance ' of the day entitled ' The Spiritual 
 Quixote,' he is introduced to the hero, Mr. Geoffrey 
 Wildgoose, who thought of turning Methodist preacher, 
 dressed in a purple ' night-gown ' (dressing-gown) and 
 a velvet cap. Instead of a Bible or Prayer-book, as 
 Wildgoose expected, he had a good basin of chocolate, 
 and a plate of muffins well-buttered, before him. ' Come 
 in,' he said, ' come in, my dear friends. I am always at 
 leisure to receive my Christian brethren. I breakfasted 
 this morning with some prisoners in Newgate upon 
 some tea and sea-biscuit, but found my stomach a little 
 empty, and was refreshing myself with a dish of choco- 
 late.' In short, he is represented as a sleek hypocrite, 
 who was making a good thing out of his preaching. 
 The author, the Rev. Richard Graves, had been a 
 scholar of Pembroke at the very time when Whitefield 
 was a servitor, and he appears to have been particularly 
 exasperated because ' a late writer called Mr. Whitefield 
 a fellow of Pembroke College in Oxford ; ' but that was 
 
George Whitefield 33 
 
 no reason why lie should tell — well, untruths, even 
 about a servitor. His insinuations are most unjust. 
 If ever a man had a single eye for God's glory and the 
 salvation of men it was George Whitefield. He was 
 ready to spend and be spent in that sacred cause. 
 And though he 
 
 Stood pilloried on infamy's high stage, 
 And bore the pelting scorn of half an age, 
 
 yet ' he lov'd the world that hated him,' and only sought 
 to do it good. His preaching power is too well attested to 
 be for a moment doubted. If John Wesley's testimony 
 to ' that torrent of eloquence which frequently bore down 
 all before it, that astonishing force of persuasion which 
 the most hardened sinners could not resist,' be sus- 
 pected as partial, Bishop Warburton is certainly not a 
 witness biassed in his favour, and he owns that l of 
 Whitefield's oratorical powers and their astonishing- 
 influence on the minds of thousands there can be no 
 doubt.' More evidence from equally unexceptionable 
 sources might be quoted, but it is needless. George 
 AVhitefield stands forth as emphatically the orator of 
 the movement. 
 
 And equally certain is it that he was an utterly 
 unselfish, God-fearing man. His faults were all faults 
 of the head, not of the heart ; he was rash and in- 
 discreet ; he frequently violated the rules of good 
 taste; he was deficient in theological — and, indeed, in 
 all — learning. It is not altogether surprising that he 
 raised up many enemies against himself; and still less 
 surprising that there were many who ridiculed and 
 spoke contemptuously of him. Men like Dr. Johnson, 
 for instance, who had a deep respect for Wesley, spoke 
 
 C.H. D 
 
34 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 very slightingly of Whitefield. But it is also not 
 surprising that his memory survived all the opposition, 
 ill-will, and contempt that he incurred; and that the 
 prophecy of an obituary notice, quoted by John Wesley 
 in his funeral sermon — ' The name of George Whitefield 
 will long be remembered with esteem and veneration ' — 
 has proved correct. 
 
 Ear more effective and permanent, though less showy 
 than Whitefield's, was the part which Charles Wesley: 
 Charles (1708-1788) took in the Revival. That gift 
 Wesley f sacrec l song which lie possessed in a remark- 
 able, almost an unparalleled, degree, not only gave light 
 and sweetness to the worship of those vast congrega- 
 tions which assembled to hear the c new lights,' but 
 supplied to a great extent the place of a liturgy and a 
 creed. More people expressed their hopes, their fears, 
 and their beliefs, in the language of Charles Wesley's 
 hymns than in that of John Wesley's sermons. And 
 who can imagine the effect of such hymns on a genera- 
 tion which had previously not dreamed that the praises 
 of God could be sung in any other strain than that of 
 Sternhold and Hopkins, or Tate and Brady ? To turn 
 from c How blest is he who ne'er consents,' to *' Jesu, 
 Lover of my soul,' is almost to turn from the ridiculous 
 to the sublime. Is it conceivable that the devotional 
 feelings of any pious soul should have been elevated by 
 the former? Is it conceivable that they should not 
 have been elevated by the latter ? One can well 
 understand the electric shock of sympathy which would 
 thrill through a vast multitude when they lifted up 
 their hearts and voices to join in i for a thousand 
 tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise ! ' or ' Soldiers 
 
Charles Wesley 
 
 35 
 
 of Christ, arise ! ' John Wesley undoubtedly hit a blot, 
 not in our Church's system, but in her practice, when 
 he contrasted the Psalmody of parish churches with 
 that of his own societies. 'Their solemn addresses to 
 God,' he wrote respecting the latter, ' are not inter- 
 rupted either by the formal drawl of a parish clerk, the 
 screaming of boys, who bawl out what they neither 
 understand nor feel, or the unreasonable and unmeaning 
 impertinence of a voluntary on the organ. When it is 
 seasonable to sing praise to God they do it with the 
 spirit and the understanding also, not in the miserable, 
 scandalous doggerel of Hopkins and Sternhold, but in 
 psalms and hymns which are both sense and poetry, 
 such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn Christian 
 than a Christian to turn critic' Of course the hymns 
 were not confined to those of Charles Wesley; John 
 himself contributed some, principally translations from 
 the German ; Watts, Doddridge, Toplady, Olivers, and 
 others were laid under contribution, but Charles W r esley 
 was par excellence the sacred poet of the movement. 
 ' The number he wrote,' says Mr. Abbey, ' is something 
 amazing. In more than forty different publications, 
 exclusive of mere selections from former works, he sent 
 out into the world, between 1738 and 1785, 4,100 
 Jiymus ; and upwards of two thousand more were left at 
 his death in manuscript.' And if he had taken no other 
 part in the Eevival than as a hymn-writer he would 
 still have been a factor in it whose importance it would 
 be difficult to exaggerate. But he did take a very active 
 part in other ways. He was, before his marriage, 
 almost as active and effective a preacher as John, and 
 on more than one occasion his calmer judgment and 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 milder temper were of very great service in checking 
 irregularities and smoothing down asperities in that 
 great man's conduct. In particular he was the con- 
 necting link between John Wesley and Whitefieid 
 when other ties between them were broken ; and on 
 other occasions his office was to pour oil on the troubled 
 waters. Charles Wesley was, not in intention but in 
 fact, a far more staunch and consistent Churchman than 
 his elder brother. He saw more clearly than John the 
 tendency of Methodism to separate from the Church, 
 and remonstrated with his brother with the true Wesley 
 peremptoriness. 'The preachers,' he wrote in 1779, 
 ' 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.' He strongly objected to his brother's conduct 
 in the ordination question, and is said to have written 
 a hon mot which, though it has been often quoted, 
 deserves to be quoted yet once again : 
 
 How easily are bishops made 
 By man or woman's whim ! 
 
 Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid 
 But who laid hands on him 1 
 
 True to his principles to the last he left orders that he 
 should not be buried in his brother's ground, because it 
 was not consecrated, but in the churchyard of the 
 parish in which he died ; and his body was carried to 
 the grave by eight ordained ministers of the Church of 
 
John Fletcher 37 
 
 England. But as a rule the two brothers worked most 
 harmoniously together. John Wesley always speaks of 
 their work as joint work. ' My brother and I ' is his 
 frequent expression. It_ is the greatest mistake, how- 
 ever, to regard Charles as John's shadow. He had a 
 very strong will of his own, and knew on occasion how 
 to make it felt. Methodism would, have been some- 
 thing very different from what it was had there been no 
 Charles Wesley. 
 
 The last of the four leaders of what may be called 
 the Wesley branch of the Evangelical Revival is .John 
 Fletcher of Fletcher (1729-1785). He was a Swiss by 
 Madeiey birth and his name was originally De la 
 Flechere, but he settled in England and became attracted 
 by the Methodist movement when he was tutor to the 
 sons of Mr. Hill, of Tern Hall (1752). The next year 
 he was admitted into holy orders, and was soon after- 
 wards presented to the living of Madeiey. He was one 
 of the few clergymen who thoroughly identified them- 
 selves with the Methodist movement, as distinguished 
 from the Evangelical, and yet thoroughly attached them- 
 selves to parochial work ; indeed, he is generally spoken 
 of in connexion with his parish as ' Fletcher of Madeiey.' 
 His indefatigable, and in the end successful, labours for 
 twenty-five years among the rough colliers, as well as 
 the gentry, in this Shropshire village need not be de- 
 scribed in detail. All we have to do with him is so far as 
 he affected the general course of the Evangelical Revival. 
 His speciality (if one may use the expression) was to 
 exhibit the Christian model in its highest perfection. If 
 anyone asked, ' Show us an instance of the effects of 
 this system,' he might be referred to Fletcher of Madeiey, 
 
38 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 for Ills Christian character was undoubtedly the direct 
 product of the system. All his co-religionists seem to 
 have been unanimous in assigning to him, not only a 
 high, but the very highest, place for saintliness among 
 his contemporaries. He was for some time a sort of 
 ' Visitor ' at Lady Huntingdon's training college at 
 Trevecea : c and,' writes Dr. Benson, the first head-master, 
 c he was received as an angel of God. It is not possible 
 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.' ' 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?' If John Wesley had wanted a 
 living example of the possibility of attaining to Christian 
 perfection, the best he could have found would have 
 been John Fletcher. And he virtually did instance 
 him when he preached after his death on the suggestive 
 words, ' Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, 
 for the end of that man is peace.' The conclusion of 
 this sermon will be a fitting conclusion to the testi- 
 monies, which might be multiplied, if necessary, to the 
 unique saintliness of the man. 'I was,' says the 
 preacher, ' 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 
 
John Fletcher 39 
 
 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 God. So unblam- 
 able 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 eternity.' 
 
 Wesley desired that Fletcher should be his successor; 
 but the hale old man survived the younger, who was 
 Wesley's always delicate, for several years. And, had 
 pietcher it been otherwise, Fletcher would scarcely have 
 been suited to take "Wesley's place. For there was 
 always something of the foreigner about Fletcher, 
 whereas it was one of the secrets of Wesley's influence 
 that he was English to the backbone, and thoroughly 
 understood the mind and ways of Englishmen. More- 
 over, the vicar of Madeley was not a great admirer of 
 the system of itinerancy, and, much to Wesley's regret, 
 insisted upon wasting his sweetness on the desert air of 
 Madeley ; in fact, Wesley not obscurely hints that he 
 killed himself by doing so. e In the year 1781, with 
 the full approbation of all his friends, he married Miss 
 Bosanquet. By her tender and judicious care, his 
 health was confirmed more and more ; and I am firmly 
 convinced that had he used this health in travelling all 
 over the kingdom, five or six or seven months every 
 year (for which never was man more eminently qualified, 
 no, not Mr. Whitefield himself), he would have done 
 more good than any other man in England. I cannot 
 doubt but this would have been the more excellent way. 
 However, though he did not accept of this honour, he 
 did abundance of ffood in that narrow sphere of action 
 
40 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 which he chose ; and was a pattern well worthy the 
 imitation of all the parochial ministers in the kingdom.' 
 It may seem ungallant not to include among the 
 leaders of the Evangelical Revival a lady who gave her 
 seima whole heart and soul, her social influence and 
 
 Countess of . 
 
 Huntingdon private fortune, to the work, and who un- 
 doubtedly brought within its range many who, but for 
 her, would have stood quite aloof from it. And yet we 
 can scarcely place among its foremost agents Selina 
 Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791). She devoted 
 herself chiefly to the introduction of the e New Light ' 
 among her own class of society. And the enumeration 
 of a few among the distinguished individuals whom she 
 persuaded to listen to her favourite preachers will show 
 the extent both of her success and of her failures. 
 The first Earl of Chatham, Lord North, the Earl of 
 Sandwich, Bubb Dodington, George Selwyn, Charles 
 Townshend, Horace Walpole, Lord Camden, the Earl of 
 Bath, Lord Northington, the Earl of Chesterfield, 
 Viscount Bolingbroke, Frederick Prince of Wales, the 
 Duke of Cumberland, John Lord Hervey, the Duke of 
 Bolton, the Duke of Grafton, Sarah Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, the Duchess of Buckingham, Lady Townshend 
 were at different times among the hearers. It is mar- 
 vellous that such personages could have been induced 
 to attend the ministry of Whitefield (who was the chief 
 attraction) at all ; but it would have been still more 
 marvellous if they had really become converts. Truth 
 compels us to own that as a rule they did not. No 
 doubt there were some who listened with good effect. 
 Among the aristocracy who sincerely shared Lady Hun- 
 tingdon's views were her relatives, the Lady Fanny 
 
Countess of Huntingdon 41 
 
 Shirley and the Hon. Walter Shirley, the Earl of 
 Buchan, perhaps the Marquis of Lothian, and others. 
 Neither is there any reason to doubt that when the 
 Earl of Bath, Lord Chesterfield, and others spoke with 
 approbation of what they heard, they spoke what they 
 really felt at the time. But there is no evidence that 
 they were permanently affected. Some seem to have 
 listened with avowed hostility, others with a half-con- 
 temptuous toleration ; and even the patronising approval 
 which others condescended to give was hardly less hope- 
 ful for any good that the preachers might produce. The 
 most permanent result of Lady Huntingdon's exertions 
 was the ' Connexion ' which she formed, the nucleus of 
 which was the theological college at Trevecca in Wales, 
 which she founded and supported. John Wesley gives 
 a very unsatisfactory account of the rawness of some of 
 the preachers who were sent forth from this seminary ; 
 but on such a point we must accept his testimony cum 
 grano. Personally Lady Huntingdon's character com- 
 mands the deepest respect. The moral courage which 
 enabled a lady, brought up among all the traditions of 
 an aristocracy such as the aristocracy was in the reigns 
 of George II. and George III., to cast aside all the 
 prejudices of her order, and brave all the contempt and 
 ridicule of those with whom she would naturally be 
 most brought into contact, and cast in her lot openly 
 and without reserve with the despised Methodists, is 
 admirable. If she seems at times to adopt a somewhat 
 imperious air towards her proteges, we must remember 
 that a countess zuas a countess in those days, and that 
 she was certainly encouraged in the line she took by 
 the extravagant homage paid to her by Whitefield and 
 
42 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 others. John Wesley, indeed, was never dazzled by her 
 grandeur ; on the contrary, he took upon him more than 
 once to rebuke the imperiousness of c that valuable 
 woman ; ' Berridge of Everton rebelled laughingly 
 (more suo) against her authority ; and there is not the 
 slightest trace of undue subserviency in the clergy, 
 like Romaine and Henry Venn and others, who acted 
 with rather than wider her. But the majority of those 
 who were connected with her could not fail to be dazzled 
 by the honour of the connexion; and not only sub- 
 mitted to, but courted, the authority which she was not 
 slack in assuming over them. 
 
 The only other person identified with the Methodists 
 whose position and circumstances enabled him to make 
 anything like the same worldly sacrifices as 
 Lady Huntingdon did, was Dr. Thomas Coke. 
 He was in early life a gentleman commoner of Jesus 
 College, Oxford, and was a man of large private means. 
 But all his social advantages, and all his private means, 
 he devoted to the cause of Methodism. He did not 
 become a Methodist until 1776, by which time the line 
 of demarcation had been drawn between the Methodists 
 proper and the Evangelicals proper ; but this distinction 
 only emphasised the contempt with which the Methodists 
 or followers of Wesley were regarded. Southey terms 
 him ' the most efficient of all Wesley's fellow- workers/ 
 and assigns to him the second place in Methodism ; but 
 surely this could only be given to him after Eletcher 
 was dead and Charles Wesley had virtually retired 
 from the work. However, without making any in- 
 vidious comparisons, it is unquestionable that Dr. Coke 
 was a most efficient helper after he joined the move- 
 
Dr. Coke 43 
 
 merit. In the view of Churchmen, a prejudice naturally 
 attaches to his name as being connected with what they 
 cannot but think the most false step in Wesley's career, 
 his taking upon himself to ordain ' superintendents ' for 
 America ; but that ought not to blind them to Dr. 
 Coke's real excellence. He was emphatically a scholar, 
 a gentleman, and a Christian ; not without defects, as 
 even his greatest admirers have admitted, but a real 
 honour to the cause which he espoused. Wesley, in 
 later life, regarded him as his right-hand man, and 
 looked to him as his successor, so far as there could be 
 a successor to the unique position which Wesley held 
 among his societies. Missionary work was the speciality 
 of Dr. Coke. He crossed the Atlantic eighteen times at 
 his own expense, and was practically the founder of the 
 Wesleyan Missions which have since attained such great 
 proportions. He died on one of his voyages, and was 
 buried at sea. 
 
 One hardly likes to close this sketch of the Methodist 
 leaders without at least a passing notice of the most 
 Dr. Adam learned of them all, Dr. Adam Clarke. But 
 as he was not born until the year 1760 or 
 1762, he can hardly be termed a leader of the band. 
 He joined the movement about the same time as Dr. 
 Coke, and was very active as a preacher and helper 
 generally. But, of course, it is as an author that he is 
 best known, and his magnum opus belongs to the nine- 
 teenth, not the eighteenth, century. 
 
 Among the lesser luminaries of Methodism in the 
 last century were Thomas Walsh, John Wesley's most 
 honoured friend ; Mr. Perronet, the excellent vicar of 
 Shoreham, to whom both the brothers Wesley had 
 
luminaries 
 of Metho- 
 dism 
 
 44 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 recourse in every important crisis, and wlio was called 
 by Charles "Wesley the < Archbishop of Methodism ; ' Sir 
 Lesser John Thorold, a pious Lincolnshire baronet ; 
 
 Mr. Brackenbury of Raithby Hall in the same 
 county ; John Nelson, the worthy stonemason 
 of Birstal, who was pressed as a soldier simply because he 
 was a Methodist ; Sampson Stainforth, Mark Bond, John 
 Haine, the Methodist soldiers who infused a spirit of 
 Methodism into the British army ; Thomas Olivers, the 
 converted reprobate, John Pawson, Alexander Mather, 
 and other worthy men, who would, of course, have a 
 niche in any professed history of Methodism, but need 
 not be described at length in a short sketch like the 
 present. Enough has now been said to give the reader 
 a fair idea of the 'personnel of the Methodists of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 METHODISM AND EVANGELICALISM. 
 
 Methodism and Evangelicalism (the necessity for using 
 this very clumsy word needs an apology) were both 
 Two depart- parts of one great religious movement ; and 
 
 mentsof \ . i i T n 
 
 the Revival it is perhaps only by reading events of the 
 eighteenth century in the light which, the nineteenth 
 throws upon them that the two can be separated 
 by any very strong line of demarcation. They both 
 aimed at reviving spiritual religion ; they both so far 
 resembled the Puritanism of the seventeenth century 
 in that they contended for the immediate and particular 
 influence of the Holy Spirit, for the total degeneracy 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 45 
 
 of raaivjbr the vicarious nature of the Atonement, 
 for the absolute unlawfulness of certain kinds of amuse- 
 ment, for the strict observance of the Lord's Day or 
 Sabbath, for they used the terms indiscriminately ; and 
 they both agreed in differing from Puritanism, by taking 
 either no side in politics at all, or else taking the op- 
 posite side from that which the Puritans would have 
 taken, by disclaiming sympathy with Dissenters or 
 Nonconformists, by glorying in the fact that they were 
 members of the Church of England (Methodists no less 
 than Evangelicals), by the most staunch loyalty to the 
 throne. Even the terms by which they are now distin- 
 guished can hardly be called distinguishing terms in the 
 eighteenth century. For all_ Methodists would have 
 wished to be called Evangelical, and all Evangelicals, 
 whether they wished it or no, were called Methodists. 
 There was a sharp enough distinction drawn between 
 Calvinists and Arminians, and a less marked but still 
 sufficient distinction between those who confined their 
 ministrations within parochial limits and those who 
 preferred the system of itinerancy ; and, in each case, 
 broadly speaking, the former may be termed Evan- 
 gelicals, and the latter Methodists ; but the outer world 
 persisted in confounding the two, in spite of the remon- 
 strance of the Evangelicals, who strongly objected to 
 being identified with the irregularities of Methodism. 
 Thomas Scott published his ' Force of Truth' in 1778, 
 forty years after the date which Wesley gives for the 
 commencement of the Kevival, and it is interesting to 
 observe what were his sentiments on the point. ' Method- 
 ist,' he writes, ' as a stigma of reproach, was first applied 
 to Mr. Wesley, Mr. Whitefield, and their followers ; and 
 
46 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 to those who, professing an attachment to our Established 
 Church, and disclaiming the name of Dissenters, were 
 not conformists in point of parochial order, but had 
 separate seasons, places, and assemblies for worship. 
 The term has since been extended by many to all per- 
 sons, whether clergy or laity, who preach or profess the 
 doctrines of the Reformation, as expressed in the articles 
 and liturgy of our Church. For this fault they must 
 all submit to bear the reproachful name of Methodists, 
 especially the ministers ; nor will the most regular and 
 peaceable compliance with the injunctions of the rubric 
 exempt them from it, if they avow the authorised, but 
 in a great measure exploded, doctrines to which they have 
 subscribed. My acquaintance hitherto has been solely 
 with Methodists of the latter description, and I have 
 them alone in view when I use the term ! ' These are 
 Scott's views after he became a decided Evangelical. His 
 description of his feelings on the subject before he 
 became one, may perhaps account for the perverse con- 
 fusion of ideas in the public mind of which he justly 
 complains. ' Being situated,' he says, l in the neigh- 
 bourhood of those whom the world calls Methodists' 
 [he alludes especially to Mr. Newton] ' I joined in the 
 prevailing sentiment ; held them in sovereign contemjDt, 
 spoke of them with derision, declaimed against them 
 from the pulpit as persons full of bigotry, enthusiasm, 
 and spiritual pride ; laid heavy things to their charge, 
 and endeavoured to prove the doctrines which I supposed 
 them to hold (for I had never read their books) to be 
 dishonourable to God, and destructive to morality. And, 
 though in some companies I chose to conceal part of my 
 sentiments, and in all aifected to speak as a friend to 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 47 
 
 universal toleration, yet scarcely any person can be 
 more proudly and violently prejudiced against both their 
 persons and principles than I then was.' l 
 
 What Scott felt in 1778 was also felt at least twenty 
 years earlier by two other famous Evangelicals, Mr .Walker 
 of Truro and Mr. Adam of Winteringham. ' They were,' 
 writes Mr. Eichardson of York (another Evangelical 
 who obviously sympathised with their position), in the 
 ' Christian Observer' in 1802, 'both true sons of the 
 Church, and beheld with great anxiety those deviations 
 of the Methodists, from which they both suffered unde- 
 served reproach, as we all do this day, however regularly 
 we conduct ourselves.' There is a curious illustration of 
 the truth of Mr. Eichardson's complaint in a ruthless 
 exposure of the weaknesses of the Methodists in articles 
 in the < Edinburgh Eeview ' written so late as 1808, the 
 writer of which is now known to be Mr. Sidney Smith. 
 He groups together ' Arminian and Calvinistic Method- 
 ists and the Evangelical [the italics are his] clergymen 
 of the Church of England ; ' and adds : i We shall use 
 the general term of Methodism to designate those three 
 classes of fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out 
 the finer shades and nicer discriminations of lunacy, but 
 treating them all as in one general conspiracy against 
 common sense and rational orthodox Christianity.' 2 
 The point is so important that, at the risk of wearying 
 the reader, one more instance must be quoted to show 
 how Methodists and Evangelicals were confounded, and 
 how grieved the latter were at the confusion. ' I never,' 
 writes Mr. Eichardson, in a vindicatory letter to his 
 
 1 Force of Truth, Part I. subfinem. 
 
 2 Edinburgh Revieiv, No. XXIL, Art. V. ' Ingram on Methodism. 
 
48 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 friend, Mr. Comber, in 1772, ' had any connection with 
 the Methodists, either at Kirkby Moor side or York, more 
 than with my other parishioners. I think of them as I 
 do of other Protestants who differ from myself in 
 opinion, with charity. As far as I think their opinions 
 agree with the Word of God and the doctrines of the 
 Church of England I follow them, without regarding 
 common prejudices. At the same time, I dislike the 
 manner in which they speak of the influences of the 
 Holy Spirit, and their unscriptural notions of perfection. 
 As to the persons you call Methodisers, they are the 
 most valuable part of my acquaintance, being those 
 whom a malicious world has branded with that name 
 on account of their superior piety and regularity of 
 manners. As soon as a person begins to show any 
 symptoms of seriousness and strictness more than the 
 fashion of the age allows he is called a Methodist, 
 though he may happen to have no sort of connection 
 with them ; and when once this stigma is fixed upon 
 him, he becomes like a deer whom the sportsmen have 
 marked out for a chase ; he is driven away by the rest 
 ofjjhe herd and avoided like an infection. Ridiculed 
 and discouraged in his spiritual progress he is often 
 reduced to this alternative — either to square his con- 
 science by the customs of the world or throw himself 
 into the arms of a party. Those who have the interests 
 of true religion at heart would do well to consider the 
 mischievous consequences of branding strict professors 
 with the odious name of Methodists. It is a stumbling- 
 block to young minds in particular. It discourages the 
 serious, and emboldens the careless and irreligious. 
 With these sentiments I shall never, I hope, renounce 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 49 
 
 a truly pious friend because the world chooses to call 
 him a Methodist, nor avoid a duty which the Gospel of 
 Christ enjoins, for fear of getting the same appellation 
 myself.' l An amusing instance of the vague way in 
 which the term Methodist was applied is given in 
 Mr. Vaughan's Life of Robinson, of Leicester. Robin- 
 son's tutor and friend, Mr. Postlethwaite, ' hearing that 
 he was bent on turning Methodist, from the kindest 
 motives took him seriously to task, exhorting him to 
 beware, to consider what mischief the Methodists were 
 doing, and at what a vast rate they were increasing.* 
 " Sir," said Robinson, " what do you mean by a Method- 
 ist ? Explain, and I will ingenuously tell you whether 
 I am one or not." This caused a puzzle and a pause. At 
 last, Mr. Postlethwaite said : " Come then, I'll tell you ! 
 I hear that in the pulpit you impress on the minds of 
 your hearers that they are to attend to your doctrine 
 from the consideration that you will have to give an 
 account of them, and of your treatment of them, at the 
 Day of Judgment." " I am surprised," rejoined Robinson, 
 " to hear this objected. It is true." Robinson got no 
 further explanation from the tutor, but that the increase 
 of Methodism was an alarming thing.' 
 
 It was not solely on the question of parochial order 
 Differences tnat tne Evangelicals differed from the Method- 
 of doctrine i stgj though that was undoubtedly the main 
 crux. They strongly objected to some of Wesley's 
 
 1 Quoted in the Christian Observer for 1877. Let me once for 
 all express my obligation to the writer of this admirable series 
 of biographical sketches scattered throughout the Christian Ob- 
 server in 1877. It would be a most seasonable work if these 
 sketches were published together in one small volume. 
 
 an. e 
 
50 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 opinions, and still more to his light estimate of the 
 value of all opinions. His favourite doctrine of c Chris- 
 tian Perfection' was an abomination to them; and, 
 though they were very moderate Calvinists, still they 
 were Calvinists, and Wesley's pronounced anti-Calvinism 
 was naturally unpalatable to them. On this point the 
 Whitefield section of the Methodists would be more in 
 harmony with them ; and, as a matter of fact, they 
 reverenced the memory of Whitefield — they can scarcely 
 be said to have become a compact body during his life- 
 time — far more than the name of Wesley. But then, 
 Whitefi eld's followers soon drifted away into other 
 communities ; and if Whitefield offended the Evangeli- 
 cals less by his theological opinions, he offended them 
 more by his vehement abuse of his own order. 
 
 If, on the one hand, the Evangelicals objected to 
 being confounded with the Methodists, no less did the 
 Wesley ana Methodists obiect to identifying themselves 
 
 parochial . ., . __^ J _. . T " 7& 
 
 work with the Evangelicals. It was not only that 
 
 John Wesley claimed the world for his parish, and 
 made no exception to this all-embracing rule, carrying 
 it out even at Huddersfield where there was a Venn, 
 and at Truro where there was a Walker ; but he did 
 not believe in the efficacy of the parish clergyman's 
 ministration, even when he agreed with him. ' We know/ 
 he writes, c several regular clergymen who do preach 
 the genuine Gospel, but to no effect at all. There is one 
 exception in England — Mr. Walker, at Truro.' But 
 even Mr. Walker in vain attempted to dissuade him 
 from keeping up his societies in those parishes (Truro 
 included) where the Gospel was preached. ' I do not 
 know,' wrote Wesley, in reply to a remonstrance from 
 
Methodism axd Evangelicalism 51 
 
 Walker, on his not leaving the people of St. Agnes to 
 their Evangelical clergyman, Mr. Vowler, 'that every- 
 one who preaches the truth has wisdom and experience 
 to guide and govern a flock. I do not know whether 
 Mr. Vowler would or could give that flock all the 
 advantages for holiness which they now enjoy.' Shortly 
 afterwards, Mr. Walker writes to his friend, Mr. Adam, 
 about this same Mr. Vowler — c His patience and pru- 
 dence will, I believe, overcome the strange opposition 
 made against him by the Methodists. In their eye 
 both he aDd I are well-meaning legalists.' 
 
 If Wesley, with all his deep attachment to the 
 Church, still felt more than justified in carrying on his 
 Evangelical separate work in parishes which were filled 
 
 cl&r cr Y fincl 
 
 Methodists by Evangelical clergymen, it is hardly neces- 
 sary to say that his followers, who had no such attach- 
 ment, were perfectly ready to follow his lead. In fact, 
 the Evangelicals often found less difficulty in preserving- 
 amicable relations with avowed Dissenters than with 
 the Methodists. And one can quite see why. They 
 foresaw the inevitable break which must occur at 
 Wesley's death, if not before, between the Methodists 
 and the Church, and they strongly objected to being 
 thought to be in any way mixed up with a movement 
 which was leading to a separation which they would 
 sincerely deplore. One finds strong traces of this in 
 the ' Church History ' of Milner, who never loses an 
 opportunity of dealing a side blow at the Methodist 
 irregularities. 
 
 And as years rolled on, the general tone of mind 
 and habits of thought of the Evangelicals differed more 
 and more widely from those of the earlier Revivalists. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 A dignified self-restraint, a calmness both of preaching 
 and of action, took the place of the restless activity and 
 Later impulsiveness of many of the first Methodists. 
 
 Evangelicals As ^ rule? too ^ ^ ie Evangelicals affected 
 
 quite a different class of society from that which 
 Methodism influenced. The converts to Methodism 
 proper were mostly drawn from the lower and lower- 
 middle classes. Thejjackbone of Evangelicalism was 
 the upper and upper-middle classes. 
 
 It must also be remembered that religious revivals 
 of the Evangelical type had been going on quite inde- 
 pendently of the Methodist movement. In 
 apart from Wales, for instance, the work of Griffith 
 
 the Method- , . , . , .. . , 
 
 ist move- Jones, which, in a much more limited area, 
 closely resembled that of Wesley, began at 
 the time when John Wesley was a child, just rescued 
 from the burning rectory of Epworth. Jones' successor, 
 HoAvell Harris, commenced his career as a Eevivalist 
 two years before the first Methodist society was formed. 
 Daniel Rowlands, another Evangelical reformer, was 
 the spiritual son of Harris, rather than of the Wesleys. 
 That remarkable movement in West Cornwall, of which 
 Mr. Walker was the recognised leader, owed neither its 
 commencement nor its course to Methodism, with which, 
 indeed, it was subsequently brought into somewhat 
 sharp collision. 
 
 But that which, above all things, distinguished 
 Methodism (that is, Wesleyan Methodism) from Evan- 
 Meihodist gelicalism, was that elaborate organisation of 
 societies the ^societies, which rendered the term ' Me- 
 thodism,' though given in derision and long before the 
 organisation had taken place, so singularly appropriate 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 53 
 
 to Wesley's system. The world called the Methodists 
 mad, but at any rate there was method in their madness. 
 This is as convenient a place as any for giving a 
 short outline of the system which is such a marked 
 Methodist feature in the history of the Revival. The 
 system system seems to have grown from special exi- 
 
 gencies rather than to have been elaborated as a whole ; 
 and the fact that it did so, instead of detracting from, 
 rather adds to, our appreciation of the orderly mind — 
 one may almost say the legislative wisdom — of Wesley, 
 who so skilfully and effectively adapted special and tem- 
 porary requirements that they became the occasion 
 for general and permanent institutions. Take, for in- 
 stance, the very name society. It was an old and very 
 familiar term to Wesley ; the Religious Societies, the 
 Societies for the Reformation of Manners, the Society 
 for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, were known 
 to him from his childhood, for they had all found a warin 
 supporter in the Rector of Epworth. John Wesley 
 simply took up the old name, considering probably that 
 if such societies were good for other purposes, why not 
 for binding together in a holy bond his newly-awakened 
 disciples ? The older societies, too, suggested what 
 he wanted in another respect. They were essentially, 
 at least with one doubtful exception, 1 organisations 
 
 1 The doubtful exception is, of course, the Societies for the 
 Eeformation of Manners, in which Churchmen and Dissenters were 
 sometimes, though not always, joined together, and which were dis- 
 countenanced, or at least coldly regarded, by some Churchmen ; they, 
 however, found a strong adherent in John Wesley's father, who was, 
 perhaps, influencedby his friend Eobert Nelson, a High Churchman, 
 but a staunch friend of the Societies. 
 
54 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 within, not outside, the Church of England — helps, not 
 hindrances, to it j and that was what Wesley desired his 
 societies to be. Take again the class-meeting. This 
 arose simply from the necessity of finding money to pay 
 for what Wesley himself would have called a c preach- 
 ing-house ' at Bristol. It was suggested by someone : 
 ' Let every member of the Society give a penny a week 
 till all is paid.' ' But,' it was replied, i many of them 
 are poor, and cannot afford to do it.' ' Then,' said the 
 suggestor, i put eleven of the poorest with me, and if 
 they can give anything, well : I will call on them 
 weekly ; and if they can give nothing, I will give for 
 them as well as for myself. And each of you call on 
 eleven of your neighbours weekly ; receive what they 
 give, and make up what is wanting.' The plan 
 answered in more ways than one. Some who went 
 round found members living inconsistent lives, and 
 reported it to Wesley, who at once saw an opening 
 for further organisation. ' It struck me,' he says, 
 ' immediately, this is the thing, the very thing, we 
 have wanted so long.' He assembled the leaders and 
 charged them to look into the conduct of those whom 
 they visited weekly, as well as receive their pence ; then, 
 instead of going round to every house, the ' class- 
 leader,' as he now began to be called, gathered the 
 class, which consisted of about a dozen, more or less, into 
 a room ; and hence that essential feature of Methodism, 
 the class-meeting. It answered quite as well finan- 
 cially. ' A penny a week and a shilling a quarter,' the 
 class rule, has been the backbone of Methodism from a 
 financial point of view. Let the precedent be com- 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 55 
 
 mended to those Churchmen who are anxious to estab- 
 lish the weekly offertory. 
 
 Yia prima salutis, 
 Quod minime reris, Graia, pandetur ab urbe. 
 
 Whether the plan of this weekly collection com- 
 mended itself to Wesley from its resemblance to the 
 practice of the primitive Church (1 Cor. xvi. 2) is not 
 known ; but it is known from his own words that this 
 was the case with many of the most distinctive features 
 of his system. It was so, for instance, with regard to 
 the Love Feasts. ' In order to increase in them a 
 grateful sense of all the mercies of the Lord, I desired 
 that one evening in a quarter they should all come 
 together, that we might eat bread (as the ancient 
 Christians did) with gladness and with singleness of 
 heart. At these Love Feasts — so we term them, re- 
 taining the name as well as the thing, which was in 
 use from the beginning, Jude 12 — our food is only a 
 little plain cake and water ; but we seldom return from 
 them without being fed, not only with the meat that 
 perisheth, but with that which endureth to everlasting- 
 life.' It was so with regard to the Watch Niglits. ' I 
 was informed that several persons in Kingswood fre- 
 quently met together in the school and, when they could 
 spare the time, spent the greater part of the night in 
 prayer and praise and thanksgiving. Some advised 
 me to put an end to this; but, upon weighing the 
 thing thoroughly, and comparing it with the practice of 
 the ancient Christians, I could see no cause to forbid it ; 
 rather I believed it might be made of more general use.' 
 And then he proceeded at once to make it of more 
 general use by forming some rules with his usual 
 
$6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 practical sagacity. It was so with regard to the 
 Quarterly Tickets, which, trifles as they may seem, 
 have played no small part in the career of Methodism. 
 ' To each of those, of whose seriousness and good con- 
 versation I found no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony 
 under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket 
 prepared for that purpose ; every ticket implying as 
 strong a recommendation of the person to whom it was 
 given as if I had wrote at length, " I believe the bearer 
 hereof to be one that fears God and works righteousness." 
 Those who bore these tickets (these Tesserce, as the 
 ancients termed them, being of just the same force with 
 the commendatory letters mentioned by the apostle) 
 wherever they came were acknowledged by their 
 brethren, and received with all cheerfulness.' It was 
 so probably with regard to the Band Meetings, which 
 form, as it were, the inner circle of Methodism. Many 
 met with ' temptations of such a kind that they knew 
 not how to speak of in a class in which persons of 
 every sort, young and old, men and women, met 
 together. These, therefore, wanted some means of 
 closer union ; they wanted to pour out their heai'ts 
 without reserve, particularly with regard to the sin 
 which did still easily beset them, and the temptations 
 which were most apt to prevail over them ; and they 
 were desirous of this when they observed it was the 
 express advice of an inspired writer, " Confess your 
 faults one to another, and pray one for another that 
 ye may be healed" (James v. 16).' This precept, 
 which, on the presumption that it was obeyed, implied 
 a custom of the primitive Church, appears to have 
 iuduced Wesley to grant their wish. ' In compliance 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 57 
 
 with their desire, I divided them into smaller com- 
 panies, putting the married or single men, and married 
 or single women together ; ' and then he specifies ' the 
 chief rules of these bands (i.e. little companies, so that 
 old English word signifies).' In fact, one point of dif- 
 ference between Wesley, at least, if not his followers, 
 and the Evangelicals was that the model of the former 
 was chiefly the primitive Church, that of the latter 
 chiefly the reformation of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Most of the other institutions of Methodism rose 
 from the exigencies of the case. Thus, the arrangement 
 of circuits became a necessity in order to bind together 
 the various little societies grouped round one common 
 centre. The circuits necessarily required the appoint- 
 ment of superintendents , for Wesley had no idea of a 
 democracy or an oligarchy in religion any more than 
 he had in politics. The circuit-stewards (that is, two 
 principal members in the circuit nominated yearly by 
 the superintendent, and chosen by the quarterly meet- 
 ing) were a necessity, if the funds were to be managed 
 in the orderly way which alone would satisfy so business- 
 like a man as Wesley. And, finally, the Conference 
 grew from a mere informal meeting of preachers sum- 
 moned by Wesley to help him chiefly in the appoint- 
 ment of pi^eachers for the various circuits, into a sort 
 of senate, whose Minutes are the statutory laws of 
 Methodism, and to whom is the ultimate appeal in 
 every disputed case. The President, elected annually by 
 the ' Legal Hundred ' — who, properly speaking, consti- 
 tute the Conference, though other preachers are admitted 
 — is a kind of temporary archbishop of Methodism. 
 
 This is only a very inadequate sketch of that minute 
 
58 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 and elaborate network which embraces the whole of the 
 complicated and ingenious system established by John 
 Wesley ; but it is sufficient to show one point of dis- 
 tinction between the Methodists and the Evangelicals. 
 The latter were quite outside the whole machinery, the 
 former by the mere fact of becoming Methodists became 
 part of it. On the other hand, the latter accepted the 
 parochial system, while the former generally looked 
 upon it, as their founder had looked upon it, as a mere 
 rope of sand; the latter felt themselves more closely 
 bound by the articles and other formularies of the 
 Church, which, though they were never disputed, no 
 doubt sat more lightly upon the former. And, finally, 
 the latter worked less within a groove than the former, 
 who were necessarily tied down very closely within 
 the limits of the system originated by one who was a 
 heaven-born statesman, and who applied his statesman- 
 ship to the regulation of his societies. 
 
 And yet, after all that has been said, it is not sur- 
 prising that Methodism and Evangelicalism should have 
 Methodists been confused by those who were outside the 
 -efieS an " P a ^ e °f both. For when we pass from the con- 
 confused sideration of general principles to the applica- 
 tion of them to particular individuals, we find at once 
 the difficulty of ticketing this one as a Methodist, that 
 one as an Evangelical. It would be easy enough to do 
 so after the eighteenth century closed, and when a new 
 generation arose ; but during the first generation of the 
 Evangelical Eevival, and indeed to the very close of the 
 eighteenth century, Methodists and Evangelicals wexe 
 in many respects so inextricably mixed up that it is 
 impossible entirely to separate the one class from the 
 
Methodism and Evangelicalism 59 
 
 other. It is only, therefore, with many modifications 
 and exceptions that the group of good men who will 
 come before us in the next chapter can be said to have 
 lived and worked in a different plane from those 
 described in the preceding chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL CLERGY. 
 
 The difficulty touched upon at the close of the last 
 chapter meets us at once when we endeavour to trace 
 Jumes the course of the earlier members of the 
 
 nervey Evangelical school. We will begin with James 
 Hervey (1714-58), who was undoubtedly an Evan- 
 gelical of Evangelicals. In every point on which the 
 Methodists differed from the Evangelicals he decidedly 
 agreed with the latter. He was perfectly content to 
 work within the limits of his own little parish, or rather 
 parishes — for, in a very small way, he was a pluralist, 
 being vicar of Weston Favell and Collingtree, the com- 
 bined incomes of which were only 180/. a year. Indeed 
 he not only held aloof from the work of itinerancy 
 himself, but had the hardihood to remonstrate with 
 John Wesley on the subject. He was a very decided 
 though moderate Calvinist ; his ' Theron and Aspasio ' 
 was one of the most popular expositions of Calvinism 
 which the Evangelical school produced ; indeed, all his 
 writings were very text-books of devotion with the 
 Evangelicals, not only of his own day, but of a later 
 generation, while they were never valued highly by the 
 Methodists proper. And yet Hervey was actually one 
 
60 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 of the original Methodists. He was the college pupil 
 and also the spiritual son of John Wesley, who never 
 ceased to regard him with a paternal eye. After having 
 graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford, he lived a blame- 
 less, useful, but uneventful, life at Weston Favell in 
 Northamptonshire, attending closely to the duties of 
 his parish, and nobly devoting a large proportion of his 
 modest income, including all the profits of his literary 
 work, which must have been considerable, to works of 
 Christian charity and benevolence. 
 
 The same difficulty of classification occurs in the 
 cases of William Grimshaw (1708-1763) and John 
 William Berridge (1716-1793), names which one na- 
 of r Haworth turally couples together on account of the 
 many points of resemblance between the two men. 
 Both are very justly claimed by the Evangelicals as 
 their own, and yet both were inextricably mixed up with 
 Methodism proper. William Grimshaw was to the end 
 of his career a parochial clergyman, and there is no 
 doubt that he did a vast amount of good in the wild 
 and desolate region in which his lot was cast — wild and 
 desolate even now, and still more so in the eighteenth 
 century. The name of Haworth has been immortalised 
 since his time, by the genius of that remarkable family 
 which after some generations succeeded him at the 
 vicarage of this secluded spot, the Brontes ; but Grim- 
 shaw did quite enough to make Haworth a noted name. 
 He was eccentric to the very verge of insanity ; but his 
 eccentricity helped rather than hindered his work as an 
 evangelist. Complaints of the decay of discipline are 
 frequent during the eighteenth century ; but Grimshaw 
 managed to enforce it at Haworth, not by having 
 recourse to the old-fashioned plan of church censures, 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 61 
 
 but by a summary method of his own. While the 
 hymn was being sung before sermon, he would go out 
 of church, it is said, armed with a horsewhip, and drive 
 all the loiterers about the village into church. How he 
 pretended to be a mischievous boy and teased a blind 
 woman with a stick to ascertain whether she had really 
 attained a Christian command over her temper • how he 
 dressed himself up as a beggar and appeared at a rich 
 parishioner's doer to test whether he was really as 
 charitable as he pretended to be ; how he walked in dis- 
 guise through the fields in order to find out who were 
 breaking the Sabbath — need not be told at length . 
 By these and other means he acquired such an ascend- 
 ency at Haworth that the village blacksmith positively 
 refused to shoe the horse of a rider who was travelling 
 on an urgent mission of charity on a Sunday, until he 
 had gained the vicar's leave ; and drinkers at the 
 public-house would take flight out of the window when 
 the formidable clergyman threatened a visit. It is not 
 surprising that he should have been called c the mad 
 parson ; ' but he might also have been called ' the good 
 parson.' It is much easier to laugh at Grimshaw's 
 eccentricities than to follow his nobly self-denying life, 
 spent altogether in the service of his Divine Master, and 
 in endeavouring, according to his light, to better the 
 wild people who lived on and about his rugged York- 
 shire moor. CJrimshaw was one of the few parochial 
 clergymen who thoroughly sympathised with John 
 Wesley and all his doings. He carried his sympathy 
 so far as actually to build a Methodist 'preaching- 
 house ' (that was the name by which Wesley especially 
 desired that such buildings should be called) in his own 
 parish, and almost within a stone's throw of the parish 
 
62 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 church. He was not only no enemy to itinerancy, 
 but itinerated himself, travelling through Lancashire, 
 Cheshire, and Derbyshire, as well as Yorkshire, preach- 
 ing sometimes as often as thirty times a week, and 
 never less than twelve. In fact, if Wesley was the 
 centre of the Kevival throughout the kingdom, Grim- 
 shaw was the centre of the Revival within no slight 
 area about his own home. He was a decided, though 
 moderate, Oalvinist. Death carried him off seven years 
 before the Calvinistic controversy burst out in all its 
 fury ; and considering his temperament, and considering 
 the part which Berridge, who so very closely resembled 
 him, took in that wretched dispute, we may say 
 that in this respect he was felix opporhmitate mortis. 
 However, as he never seems to have come into collision 
 with Wesley, though he frequently met him at the very 
 time when the dispute with Whitefield was at its height, 
 perhaps if he had lived he would have had the good 
 sense to hold aloof from the fray. 
 
 Unhappily, John Berridge, much as he resembled 
 Grimshaw on other points, did not resemble him in 
 John Ber- this. His effusions on the Calvinistic contro- 
 Everton versy form a painfully conspicuous feature in 
 his life. From a literary point of view they are beneath 
 contempt; but they are quite unworthy of the man, 
 intellectually as well as morally. 1 For John Berridge 
 
 1 See, as a specimen, ' The Serpent and the Fox, or an Interview 
 between Old Nick and Old John,' published in The Gospel (X) Maga- 
 zine, with the signature of ' Old Everton,' which, after many pages 
 of abusive doggerel, concludes : — 
 
 ' The Priest with a simpering face 
 
 Shook his hair-locks, and paused for a space ; 
 
 Then sat down to forge lies with his usual grimace. 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 6$ 
 
 was not only a most earnest and self-denying man, but 
 also one of very considerable culture. He was a Fellow 
 of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and before his ' conversion ' 
 was much sought after as a witty and amusing com- 
 panion in university circles. The moral courage which 
 enabled such a man avowedly to ' turn Methodist ' must 
 have been exceptionally great. When Wesley sacrificed 
 a similar position at Oxford, the name ' Methodist ' had 
 not, of course, become a general term of reproach ; when 
 Isaac Milner did the same at Cambridge, Methodism, 
 including in that term Evangelicalism, had become a 
 distinct power. But in the interval, during which 
 Berridge cast in his lot with the Methodists, the obloquy 
 was at its height and the power had hardly yet asserted 
 itself. Berridge's eccentricities were at least equal to 
 those of Grimshaw ; but so also was his devotedness to 
 his Master's cause and to the good of souls. He was 
 born, he said, with a fool's cap on his head ; and he 
 does not seem to have been particularly anxious to take 
 it off. But if he could have said with St. Paul (though 
 in rather a different sense), ' I speak as a fool,' he might 
 also have said in perfect truth, with the same apostle, 
 ' In labours more abundant.' He was at one time a 
 sort of connecting link between Lady Huntingdon and 
 John Wesley, being a firm and faithful friend, but no 
 flatterer of the former, while, like Grimshaw, he was one 
 of the few parochial clergymen who cordially welcomed 
 the latter into his parish. Everton Church, of which 
 he was minister, became one of the most frequent scenes 
 of those physical manifestations which accompanied the 
 preaching of the Revivalists in the earliest stage of the 
 movement ; and our excitable vicar was ever ready to 
 
64 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 fan the flame of the excitement. Like Grimshaw, he 
 touched Methodism proper with one hand, and Evan- 
 gelicalism proper with the other. For he continued to 
 the end vicar of Everton, as Grimshaw continued 
 vicar of Haworth, and was equally attentive to the 
 spiritual wants of his parishioners. But, as Grimshaw 
 wandered far beyond the limits of Haworth, among the 
 wolds and moors of Yorkshire, and in other counties, 
 so Berridge itinerated among the midlands, defying the 
 opposition of the clergymen into whose parishes he in- 
 truded, and whose hostility he not unnaturally aroused. 
 But his motives were always good. A more single- 
 minded, devoted man never lived ; and the Revival in 
 Bedfordshire and the neighbouring counties was as 
 much due to Berridge as that in more northern climes 
 was due to Grimshaw. His epitaph in Everton Church- 
 yard may still be read, and it is very characteristic of 
 the man. 
 
 Excellent men as both Grimshaw and Berridge were, 
 it is a little relief to turn from such eccentric beings to 
 »„.,.. , some more orderly and decorous types of Evan- 
 Roiname gelical leaders. To make the contrast com- 
 plete let us first take the gravest of them all. William 
 Romaine (1714-1795) was, as his name implies, French 
 by extraction. His father was a Protestant refugee 
 who had taken refuge in England after the revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes. This may account for two 
 points in his history. The French Huguenots had, of 
 course, many points in common with the English 
 Evangelicals ; so it is not surprising that Romaine 
 should have identified himself with the movement with- 
 out having passed through any of those changes which 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 65 
 
 are found in the careers of most of the Evangelical 
 leaders. Perhaps, also, his foreign origin may have 
 prevented Eomaine from thoroughly understanding 
 English ways, and may in part account for the unpopu- 
 larity which he met with. He had certainly none 
 of the boisterous bonhomie of Grimshaw or Berridge, 
 and not the thoroughly English feeling of Venn or 
 Newton. But he was a thoroughly good, self-denying 
 man, and perhaps the most learned of all the Evangelical 
 leaders. He was at Oxford all through the rise of the 
 Methodist movement, but was in no way connected with 
 it. He was a member of Hertford College ; and it is said 
 that ' while there his intense application to study made 
 him so regardless of dress that one day, being observed 
 to pass by rather negligently attired, a visitor asked the 
 Master of the College, ' Who is that slovenly fellow 
 with his stockings down ? ' The Master replied, ' That 
 slovenly person, as you call him, is one of the greatest 
 geniuses of the age, and is likely to become one of the 
 greatest men in the kingdom.' l Without exactly fulfil- 
 ling the Master's prediction, he certainly achieved a very 
 considerable reputation for learning. He published a new 
 edition of Calasio's Hebrew Lexicon and Concordance 
 — a work which employed his leisure for seven years, 
 and was deservedly held in esteem. He was so well 
 thought of as an astronomer that he was considered 
 worthy to fill the post which Sir Isaac Newton and 
 Isaac Barrow had held before him — that of Gresham 
 Professor of Astronomy. It cannot be said that he 
 rivalled either of these great men in that capacity. On 
 
 1 Memoir of the Author prefixed to The Life, Wall.-, and Triumjfh 
 of Faith, edition in 1 vol., 1821. 
 
 C.H. F 
 
66 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the contrary he made himself rather ridiculous by in- 
 dulging in that foolish depreciation of secular studies 
 which provokes us in the utterances of several of the 
 Evangelicals. £ Were dying sinners,' he asks with more 
 wit than wisdom, ' ever converted by the spots on the 
 moon ? Was ever miser reclaimed from avarice by 
 Jupiter's Belt ? or did Saturn's Ring ever make a 
 lascivious female chaste ? The modern divinity brings 
 you no nearer than 121,000,000 of miles short of 
 heaven. 5 This effirsion is on a par with his famous 
 university sermon in which he implies that men's pre- 
 ference of hymns — such as Charles Wesley's, for instance 
 — to Tate and Brady's psalms was a preference of human 
 compositions to those of the Holy Ghost. But it is an 
 ungracious and ungrateful task to dwell on a good 
 man's weaknesses. It is more profitable and more 
 pleasant to turn to the real good which he did. His ap- 
 propriate sphere of action was the Metropolis and its 
 neighbourhood. He spent some years as curate of S. 
 Olave's, Southwark ; it sounds strange to modern ears 
 to hear this described as ' a delightful retreat,' ' a curacy 
 in Surrey, where he enjoyed a quiet time for study,' but 
 the Southwark of 120 years ago was very different from 
 the Southwark of to-day. The greater part, however, 
 of his ministerial life was spent in London proper. He 
 was ' assistant morning preacher ' at S. George's, Han- 
 over Square, which was then, even more than it is now, 
 a central church for the aristocracy ; then lecturer at S. 
 Dunstan's in the West ; and, finally, rector of S. Andrew 
 Wardrobe and S. Ann, Blackfriars, still retaining, at 
 least for a time, his lectureship at S. Dunstan's. Like 
 the early Methodists, Romaine met with considerablft 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 67 
 
 opposition in his ministrations. Only instead of taking 
 the form of rotten eggs and turnip-tops, it took a less 
 gross, but scarcely less scandalous, shape. He was dis- 
 missed from his preachership at S. George's because the 
 parishioners found their pews occupied by the strangers 
 who crowded to hear him. At S. Dunstan's, the 
 churchwardens, failing to procure his legal dismissal j 
 had recourse to the petty annoyance of closing the 
 church doors until the moment when the lecture began, 
 and refusing to light the church when it was opened. 
 By this means they probably defeated their own ends : 
 for it must certainly have added greatly to the solemnity 
 and effectiveness of the sermon, when the preacher 
 stood in the midst of a perfectly dark and crowded 
 church, preaching by the light of a single taper which 
 he held in his own hand. Though he was the con- 
 fidential adviser and senior chaplain of Lady Hunting- 
 don, he showed not a trace of that adulation which is so 
 painful a feature in poor Whitefield's intercourse with 
 the Countess ; and it is greatly to the credit of that 
 good lady that, so far from resenting his dignified 
 independence, she helped to procure for him the only 
 piece of real preferment which he ever enjoyed. 
 Roraaine withdrew from her c Connexion' altogether 
 when she virtually separated herself from the Church. 
 Although Romaine was a more extreme Calvinist than 
 most of the Evangelical leaders, he wisely kept himself 
 quite aloof from the wretched Calvinistic controversy. 
 In fact John Wesley makes an honourable exception of 
 William Romaine when he complains of the hard usage 
 he received from the Evangelical Calvinists. The hubbub 
 of that distracting controversy would have been alien 
 
 f 2 
 
68 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 to his tastes, for lie was a reserved man. ' He lived/ 
 as his biographer touchingly expresses it, ' more with 
 God than with men ; and in order to know his real his- 
 tory, or the best part of it, it would be requisite to 
 know what passed between God and his own soul.' But 
 this we do know, as the same writer truly says in 
 reference to what may be called his sacred Trilogy: 
 ' Their author knew by experience what it was to live 
 by faith, to walk by faith, and to triumph in faith.' 
 Take him for all in all, William Romaine was the 
 strongest man connected with the Evangelical branch of 
 the Revival. 
 
 There was a certain outward resemblance between 
 
 William Romaine and Henry Venn (1721-1797). Venn, 
 
 like Romaine, was a man of very decided 
 
 Henry Venn e 
 
 culture, oi great dignity and reserve, and ot 
 a blameless and most devoted life. Like Romaine, he 
 was attached to Lady Huntingdon as her chaplain, but 
 thoroughly maintained his independence and self-respect 
 in his relations to her ladyship, and withdrew from the 
 • Connexion ' after the separation of 1781. But he seems 
 to have been a man of less austere and more attractive 
 character than Romaine, and a less extreme Calvinist. 
 The most active part of his life was spent at Huclders- 
 fielcl. Though he was there only eleven years (for he 
 was obliged to retire at the early age of forty-seven, 
 worn out with overwork in his large parish), he made 
 an indelible mark, both as a preacher and a parish 
 priest. It is interesting to observe that one result of 
 his parochial experience was a modification of his views 
 as to Church order. 'Induced,' writes his son and 
 biographer, 'by the hope of doing good, my father 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 6g 
 
 in certain instances preached in unconsecrated places. 
 But, having acknowledged this, it becomes 1113' pleasing 
 duty to state that he was no advocate for irregularity 
 in others ; that when he afterwards considered it in its 
 different bearings and connexions, he lamented that he 
 had given way to it, and restrained several other persons 
 from such acts by the most cogent arguments.' Perhaps 
 it was the same practical experience in pastoral work — ■ 
 for it was as a pastor even more than as a preacher 
 that he won his reputation at Huddersfield — which pre- 
 vented him from rushing into the fray when the Cal- 
 vinistic controversy broke out. In fact, he discouraged 
 such disputes, and once administered a judicious snub 
 1 when asked about a young minister, whether he was a 
 Calvinist or Arminian.' 'I really do not know,' he 
 replied ; ' he is a sincere disciple of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and that is of infinitely more importance than 
 his being a disciple of Calvin or Arminius.' The 
 last twenty-six years of Henry Venn's life were spent 
 in the secluded village of Yelling; there he trained 
 up a family, which have made the name of Venn an 
 honoured household word, not only among Evangelicals, 
 but among all who value true Christianity. One of 
 this family, John Venn, rector of Clapham, an Evan- 
 gelical of the second generation, amply repaid the obliga-. 
 tions he was under to his excellent father, by writing 
 his biography, which is as conspicuous for its interest- 
 ing style and the good taste which preserved it from 
 degenerating into a mere panegyric, as for the filial 
 piety of which it is a fitting monument. 
 
 But, interesting as Venn's life and character are, 
 they do not equal in interest those of John Newton 
 
70 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 (1725-1807). Most of the other Evangelical leaders 
 had always led at least outwardly respectable lives ; but 
 Jolm Newton had sunk into the lowest depths of 
 
 Newton depravity, and passed through terrible expe- 
 riences, such as fall to the lot of few. How he went as 
 a common sailor in a merchant vessel, how he was 
 impressed on board a man-of-war, how he became the 
 menial servant of a slave-trader on the coast of Africa, 
 where he was half-starved and scarcely half- clothed, 
 how he took part in the horrible slave-traffic, need 
 not here be told at length. His own account of his 
 state of mind and course of life during this period 
 is perfectly awful. ' I well remember,' he says, c that 
 while I was passing from one ship to the other [in 
 which he was among strangers, and therefore under no 
 restraint] I rejoiced in the exchange, with this reflec- 
 tion, that I might now be as abandoned as I pleased, 
 without any controul ; and, from this time, I was 
 exceedingly vile ; indeed little, if anything, short of that 
 animated description of an almost irrecoverable state, 
 which we have in 2 Peter ii. 14. I not only sinned 
 with a high hand myself, but made it my study to 
 tempt and seduce others upon every occasion ; nay, I 
 eagerly sought occasion, sometimes to my own hazard 
 and hurt.' 1 ' My whole life, when awake, was a course of 
 most horrid impiety and profaneness. I know not that 
 I have ever since met so daring a blasphemer. Not 
 content with common oaths and imprecations, I daily 
 invented new ones ; so that I was often seriously 
 reproved by the captain, who was himself a very 
 
 1 See Cecil's Life of Newton, prefixed to his edition of Newton's 
 Worts, p. 13. 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 71 
 
 passionate man, and not at .all circumspect in his 
 expressions. From the relation I at times made of my 
 past adventures, and what he saw of my conduct, and 
 especially towards the close of the voyage, when we 
 met with many disasters, he would often tell me that, 
 to his great grief, he had a Jonah on board ; that a 
 curse attended me wherever I went ; and that all the 
 troubles he met with in the voyage were owing to his 
 having taken me into the vessel.' l ' In a word, I seemed 
 to have every mark of final impenitence and rejection; 
 neither judgments nor mercies made the least impres- 
 sion upon me.' 2 Men of Newton's later opinions have 
 been charged with exaggerating their former depravity, 
 but Newton's account of himself is too circumstantial, 
 and too obviously bears on the face of it traces of its 
 reality, to admit of such a suspicion in his case. 
 
 But all this while there were some traces of a better 
 self. He had been piously brought up in his very early 
 counter- years ; and while quite a boy he had conceived 
 evenin Ms a romantic attachment to a child of thirteen, 
 worst days j^^ Q a tl e tt, whoui he afterwards married. 
 His pure love for her was the one bright spot in those 
 dreary days of darkness. ' My love to Mrs. N c was the 
 only restraint I had left ; though I neither feared God 
 nor regarded man, I could not bear that she should 
 think meanly of me when I was dead.' The account of 
 his gradual change is almost too sacred, and certainly 
 too long, to be transferred to these pages. But one 
 point ought to be noted, because it has been said that 
 
 1 See Cecil's Life of Newton, prefixed to his edition of Newton's 
 Works, pp. 22, 23. 
 
 2 lb. p. 24. 
 
j 2 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the Evangelicals unduly depreciated intellectual culture. 
 This certainly was not the case with Newton. Simulta- 
 neously with his awakening to a sense of religion arose 
 a desire to improve his mind ; and it is perfectly mar- 
 vellous, considering his antecedents, to what an extent 
 he succeeded. He employed his leisure hours in one of 
 his voyages in reading Horace, and ' I began,' he says, 
 ' to relish the beauties of the composition ; acquired a 
 spice of what Mr. Law calls classical enthusiasm ; and 
 indeed, by this means, I had Horace more ad unguem 
 than some who are masters of the Latin tongue; for 
 my helps were so few that I generally had the passage 
 fixed in my memory before I could fully understand its 
 meaning.' He then made himself well acquainted 
 with other Latin poets, taught himself as much Greek 
 as would enable him to read the New Testament, 
 acquired enough Hebrew to ' read the Historical books 
 and Psalms with tolerable ease,' and actually began 
 Syriac, 'having surmised some advantages from the 
 Syriac version.' He moreover picked up the French lan- 
 guage, and made considerable progress in mathematics. 
 When the blaspheming slave-dealer became the 
 earnest and devoted Christian, he found that his expe- 
 nig past riences in that fearful past stood him in good 
 stoodhTm 03 stead. He could sympathise, as none but a 
 in stead man w j 10 j iac | p asse( } through such an ordeal 
 could, with the temptations of others; and he could 
 lead the fallen to restoration by the very ways which he 
 himself had trod. In fact, it was this which led him 
 to seek tloly Orders. ' I thought,' he says, ' I was, 
 above most living, a fit person to proclaim that faithful 
 saying, that Jesus Christ came into the ivorld to save the 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 73 
 
 chief of sinners ; and, as my life had been full of re- 
 markable turns, and I seemed selected to show what 
 the Lord could do, I was in some hopes that perhaps, 
 sooner or later, He might call me into His service.' 
 For sixteen years he was curate of Olney, and was then 
 presented by Mr. John Thornton to the living of 
 S. Mary Woolnoth, in London. At Olney he was the 
 spiritual director of William Cowper : opinions differ 
 as to the judiciousness, or otherwise, of his treatment 
 of that delicate case ; but as to the excellence of his 
 intentions there can be no doubt whatever. His 
 ministry was not altogether successful at Olney; he 
 was more in his element in London, though here too he 
 met with much disappointment. It is rather as a 
 friend or director of other leaders of the Evangelical 
 Eevival than as a leader himself that Newton made his 
 mark. One can well understand the reverence and 
 love with which he was regarded in his later years ; for 
 if his earlier character, as drawn by himself, is about as 
 repulsive as one can conceive, his later character is 
 singularly attractive. It is the greatest mistake in the 
 world to think of him as a rough, hard man ; a more 
 tender and sympathising heart than that which beat 
 under the rough exterior of John Newton never ex- 
 isted. Witness his wonderful forbearance with Thomas 
 Scott, as related by Scott himself, his considerate treat- 
 ment of Hannah More and William Wilberforce — not 
 to mention the moot point in regard to William Cowper 
 (the present writer has a very strong opinion, though 
 not a popular one, on that point too), his enthusiastic 
 devotion to Mary Catlett, both before and after their 
 marriage, and to her memory when she was taken from 
 
74 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 him, and a thousand other little traits which will only 
 be observed in a minute study of his life and writings. 
 He was also a singularly genial man, full of quiet 
 humour, as the admirable : ana ' preserved by R. 
 Cecil show. There is a pleasing and characteristic 
 picture of his later years drawn by the same accom- 
 plished pen : c Being of the most friendly and commu- 
 nicative disposition, his house was open to Christians 
 of all ranks and denominations. Here, like a father 
 among his children, he used to entertain, encourage, 
 and instruct his friends ; especially younger ministers 
 or candidates for the ministry. Here also the poor, the 
 afflicted, and the tempted found an asylum and a 
 sympathy, which they could scarcely find, in an equal 
 degree, anywhere besides.' Then follows one of those 
 delightful anecdotes which illustrate alike his humour 
 and his gentleness : i Some time after Mr. N. had 
 published his " Omicron," and described the three stages 
 of growth in religion, from the blade, the , ear, and the 
 full corn in the ear, distinguishing them by the letters 
 A, B, and C, a conceited young minister wrote to 
 Mr. N. telling him that he read his own character 
 accurately drawn in that of C. Mr. N. wrote in reply 
 that in drawing the character of 0, or full maturity, he 
 had forgotten to add, till now, one prominent feature of 
 C's character — namely, that C never hiew Ins own face.' 
 From John Newton we naturally turn to his suc- 
 cessor at Olney, and (in some sense) his spiritual 
 Thomas son > Thomas Scott (1746-1821). Scott, like 
 scott Newton, had to pass through severe trials ; but 
 
 they were of an intellectual rather than a moral nature. 
 Socinianism, in some form or other, was again raising 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 75 
 
 its head, after the severe blow it had received from 
 Waterland, at the time when Scott entered the ministry; 
 and Scott, like many other clergymen of that day, 
 became deeply tainted with its influence. His vivid 
 account in the c Force of Truth ' of the struggles which 
 he passed through, is eminently characteristic both of 
 the man and the times. From these struggles he was 
 delivered, chiefly through the instrumentality of John 
 Newton. He was curate of a neighbouring parish to 
 Olney, and was conscience-stricken on hearing that his 
 neighbour, Mr. Newton, had been to visit two of his 
 own dying parishioners whom he had neglected. But 
 he had to overcome that strong prejudice which he 
 shared with the majority of the clergy against ' those 
 whom the world called Methodists,' before he could give 
 Newton a hearing at all. Newton at last overcame this 
 prejudice, not by argument, but by carefully resisting 
 the temptation to argue with which Scott was perpetu- 
 ally plying him. How any unprejudiced person can 
 read Scott's overtures to Newton, as described in the 
 ' Force of Truth,' and Newton's letters to ' the Eev. T. S.' 
 in his correspondence, and yet continue to think that 
 Newton was a rough, overbearing, injudicious man 
 seems inconceivable. Nothing can exceed the gentle- 
 ness, the tenderness, the judiciousness, the patience, 
 and forbearance — in short, the true Christian charity — 
 with which Newton treats his neighbour and corre- 
 spondent ; and, on the other hand, nothing can exceed 
 the generous frankness with which Scott admits his 
 own perverse obstinacy. ■ He continued to regard New- 
 ton as a Methodist, intellectually beneath contempt, 
 until, one by one, his prejudices dropped off, and he 
 
J 6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 was convinced by what lie well terms 'the force of 
 truth.' When Scott succeeded Newton in the curacy 
 of Olney the outgoing tenant of the vicarage gave the 
 incoming one a warning which is so characteristic of 
 the relations between the two, and also of the quaint 
 humour, the gentleness, and the humility of the writer, 
 that it is worth quoting : ' Methinks I see you sitting 
 in my old corner in the study. I will warn you of one 
 thing. That room (do not start !) used to be haunted. 
 I cannot say I ever saw or heard anything with my 
 bodily organs, but I have been sure there were evil 
 spirits in it and very near me : a spirit of folly, a spirit 
 of indolence, a spirit of unbelief, and many others — 
 indeed their name is Legion. But why should I say 
 they are in your study, when they followed me to 
 London and still pester me here ? ' 
 
 Scott met with more difficulties at Olney than 
 Newton had done ; and his difficulties were increased 
 chaplain of rather than lessened, when he exchanged bis 
 Hospital curacy for the very disagreeable office of 
 chaplain to the Lock Hospital in London, an office 
 which in that day was generally held by Evangelical 
 clergymen. He had not the elements of a popular man 
 about him, and he knew it. ' Some things,' he writes, 
 t requisite for popularity, I would not have if I could, 
 and others I could not have if I would.' The particular 
 line which he took up, though a most useful and 
 necessary line, was not calculated to make him popular. 
 His printed sermons show that he felt it his special 
 duty to protest, as a Calvinist, against the perversions 
 of Calvinism, a course ingeniously adapted to arm 
 Calvinistic Methodists, Arminian Methodists, and all 
 
The Evangelical Clergy yy 
 
 anti-Methodists of every kind against him. No wonder 
 the good man lias to complain : ' Everything conduced 
 to render me more and more unpopular, not only at the 
 Lock, but in every part of London ; ' and yet he could 
 add with perfect truth, ' My most distinguishing repre- 
 hensions of those who perverted the doctrines of the 
 Gospel to Antinomian purposes, and my most awful 
 warnings, were the language of compassionate love, 
 and were accompanied by many tears and prayers.' 
 But, independently of his preaching, Scott was never 
 likely to be so popular as Xewton ; he was not so 
 genial, so tender, so lovable a man, and one can quite 
 understand the gentle poet Cowper not getting on so 
 well with him. He was, however, a man of fine, noble, 
 Christian character ; and, even apart from his writings, 
 well deserves to be ranked with the Evangelical leaders. 
 Perhaps the fact that all his life long he had to main- 
 tain a hard struggle against poverty may have tended 
 to sour him a little ; but we find few, if any, com- 
 plaints -on that score, though they would have been 
 more than excusable. For surely it was a hard case 
 for a man of blameless life and a most conscientious 
 worker, a man, too, above the average both in abilities 
 and attainments, to labour until he was past middle age 
 for the miserable stipend of 100/. a year. It was his 
 poverty which forced him to write the ' Commentary ; ' 
 and one is grieved, not to say indignant, to learn that 
 in spite of the almost unprecedented success of the 
 venture, it increased rather than diminished the pe- 
 cuniary embarrassments of the author. He died, as 
 he had lived, a very poor man. Like Yenn he retired 
 in his later years to a country village — Aston Sandford. 
 
?S The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Like Venn, his honoured name was transmitted to 
 worthy descendants of the third and fourth generation ; 
 and like Venn he was fortunate — it was almost the only 
 respect in which the poor man was fortunate — in having 
 his biography written by a son who executed his labour of 
 love in a most graphic and interesting, but not in the 
 least fulsome, fashion. 
 
 It is a striking contrast to turn from Newton and 
 Scott to the friend of both, and the biographer of 
 Richard one > Ri cnai *d Cecil (1748-1810); a delicate, 
 Cecil highly-cultured man who had never passed 
 
 through the school of adversity, as his friends had done, 
 and who met with no rough experience in his minis- 
 terial work. He ministered to a congregation which 
 must, in the fitness of things, have consisted of people 
 more or less refined, in Bedford Row. It is chiefly on 
 account of his pure and lofty character, which would 
 have shed a lustre upon any cause, that he has always 
 been rightly placed among the leaders of the Evangeli- 
 cal Revival, for he was not the man to seek prominence 
 in any position of life. The Evangelical cause could ill 
 afford to place in the background one who, perhaps 
 more than any other of the leaders, was the representa- 
 tive of ' sweetness and light.' His point of contact 
 with the Evangelicals was principally his spiritual- 
 mindedness ; for, whatever its defects, the Evangelical 
 school in the last century was without doubt the home 
 of the most spiritually-minded. But some of his utter- 
 ances will sound very strange in the ears of those who 
 regard Evangelicalism as a new form of Puritanism. 
 Let us hear, for instance, what he says about the 
 Puritans themselves : ' The Puritans treated man as 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 79 
 
 though he had nothing of the animal about him. There 
 was among them a total excision of all amusement and 
 recreation. Everything was effort, everything was 
 severe. I have heard a man of this school preach on 
 the distinction between justifying and saving faith. 
 He tried to make his hearers enter into these niceties, 
 whereas faith in its bold and leading features should 
 have been presented to them if any effect was expected. 
 The bulk of mankind are capable of much more than 
 the Papist allows, but are incapable of that which the 
 Puritan supposes. They should be treated in opposition 
 to both, as rational and feeling creatures, but upon a 
 bold and palpable ground.' What, again, would ' real 
 Protestants ' (those who have waded through the Cal- 
 vinistic controversy will be familiar with this expres- 
 sion, to their sorrow) say to the following ? — •' Man is 
 a creature of extremes. The middle path is generally 
 the wise path, but there are few wise enough to find it. 
 Because Papists have made too much of some things 
 Protestants have made too little of them. Papists treat 
 man as all sense ; therefore, some Protestants would 
 treat him as all spirit. Because one party has exalted 
 the Virgin Mary as a divinity, the other can hardly 
 think of that most highly favoured among women with 
 common respect. The Papist puts the Apocrypha into 
 his canon; the Protestant will scarcely regard it as 
 an ancient record. The Popish heresy of human merit 
 in justification drove Luther on the other side into 
 most unwarrantable and unscriptural statements of 
 that doctrine. Papists consider grace as inseparable 
 from the participation of sacraments ; Protestants too 
 often lose sight of them as instituted means of convey- 
 
8o The Evangelical Revival 
 
 ing grace.' And, once more, what would the railers at 
 priestly assumption say of the following ? — c I never 
 choose to forget that I am a priest, because I would not 
 deprive myself of the right to dictate in my ministerial 
 capacity. I cannot suffer a man, therefore, to come to 
 me merely as a friend on his spiritual affairs, because I 
 should have no authority to say to him, " Sir, you must 
 do so and so." I cannot suffer my best friends to dic- 
 tate to me in anything which concerns my ministerial 
 duties. I have often had to encounter this spirit, and 
 there would be no end of it, if I did not check and 
 resist it. I plainly tell them that they know nothing of 
 the matter.' * The inherent excellence of these remarks, 
 their thoughtful discrimination, their pure and dignified 
 style, the insight they give us into the writer's charac- 
 ter, and, above all, their oddity as coming from an 
 Evangelical leader, will be, it is hoped, a sufficient 
 apology for the length at which they have been quoted. 
 Two more, and only two more, names must be 
 added to make the complete list of the clerical leaders 
 Joseph °f ^he Evangelical Revival, of the first rank. 
 
 Miiuer These are the two brothers, Joseph and Isaac 
 
 Milner. The elder of the two — Joseph Milner (1744- 
 1797) — having shown himself both a classical scholar 
 and a mathematician at Cambridge, entered at once 
 the scholastic profession, first in a private school, and 
 then as head-master of the Grammar School, Hull, com- 
 bining with this the office of Sunday afternoon lecture- 
 ship at Holy Trinity, or the High, Church. Both these 
 offices gave him scope for inculcating those Evangelical 
 
 1 These quotations are all from Cecil's Remains, arranged by 
 Josiah Pratt. 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 8i 
 
 opinions, which, like most of the leaders of the move- 
 ment, he did not embrace until after he had been some 
 little time in Holy Orders : and he certainly availed him- 
 self of his opportunities. He passed through the 
 usual experience of Evangelical preachers, raising at 
 first much opposition to his preaching on the ground 
 that it tended to Methodism, but soon living this down 
 and becoming a popular favourite. He also served the 
 church of North Ferriby, a village about eight miles 
 from Hull. Just before his death he was appointed 
 to the vicarage of Holy Trinity, chiefly through the 
 active exertions of William Wilberforce. It was partly 
 through Milner that Hull and its neighbourhood be- 
 came a stronghold of Evangelicalism — as it Continues to 
 be, more or less, up to the present day. But it is as a 
 writer thab Joseph Milner's name is chiefly connected 
 with the Evangelical Eevival. We may, therefore, 
 pass from his personal history to that of his younger 
 brother. 
 
 Isaac Milner (1751-1820) was the one exception 
 
 to the rule that the leaders of the Evangelical Revival 
 
 attained to no high preferment in the Church. 
 
 Isaac Milner ° \ . 
 
 His career at Lam bridge was a singularly 
 brilliant one. He was not only the Senior Wrangler 
 of his year, and First Smith's Prizeman, but was so far 
 above the rest in his degree examination that the 
 epithet ' incomparabilis ' was attached to his name in 
 the Mathematical Tripos. He resided at Cambridge 
 and became Professor of Mathematics and President of 
 his College (Queen's), and finally Dean of Carlisle. 
 His position at Cambridge gave him a splendid vantage- 
 ground for helping on the cause of Evangelicalism. 
 C H. G 
 
82 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 He used all his influence to indoctrinate with Evan- 
 gelical views the future clergy who might afterwards 
 spread them throughout the country ; and, being a man 
 of a genial manner and of great conversational powers, 
 as well as of high reputation in the university, he was 
 naturally very successful. In fact, it was greatly owing 
 to Isaac Milner that Cambridge was not marked, as 
 Oxford was, by hostility to Evangelicalism, and that so 
 large a proportion of the Evangelical clergy were 
 always Cambridge men. 
 
 It may seem an arbitrary line, but one must draw 
 the line somewhere ; and among the other Evangelical 
 clergy of the eighteenth century, none appear quite 
 to hold the position which has been assigned to the 
 leaders of the movement noticed above. There were, 
 however, a few others, without some slight notice of 
 whom even a short sketch like the present would be 
 very incomplete. Among these clergy of what one may 
 Samuel call the second rank the chief place must be 
 Traro assigned to Samuel Walker of Truro (1719— 
 
 1760). Indeed, if he had lived a little later, and if his 
 lot had been cast in a less remote spot, he would almost 
 certainly have been among the foremost of the Evan- 
 gelical leaders. But it is a far cry to Cornwall ; and in 
 those days, when communication with distant parts was 
 not so complete or so rapid as it is now, it was impos- 
 sible for a Cornish man, whose forte lay in preaching 
 and practical work rather than in writing, to make 
 his influence adequately felt throughout the country. 
 Moreover, he was an Evangelical before Evangelicalism 
 had become a distinct and recognised power, and he 
 did not live long enough to see the day when that 
 
The Evangelical Clergy 83 
 
 happened. In point of date lie belonged to the earlier 
 phase of the movement, but so far as opinions, conduct, 
 and general tone of mind were concerned, he clearly 
 belonged to the later phase. It would, however, be 
 quite incorrect to describe Walker as one born out of 
 due time ; there were in his day, and had never ceased 
 to be, numbers of clergy who held precisely the same 
 views as the later Evangelicals did, and the only point 
 on which Mr. Walker differed from them was in the 
 fact that he succeeded in producing within a limited 
 sphere a revival based on their views, but conducted 
 scrupulously on the principle of the parochial system. 
 He was, if not the exclusive originator, at any rate the 
 central figure of that remarkable revival in West Corn- 
 wall, which went on side by side with the Wesleyan 
 Revival, and was frequently brought into collision with 
 it. Like Wesley, Walker formed a i society ' at Truro ; 
 but it was a society which was to be strictly after, the 
 model of those earlier 'religious societies,' which 
 began in the seventeenth century, and which not only 
 professed to be, but actually were, real handmaids to 
 the Church. 
 
 With the name of Walker is naturally associated 
 that of his most intimate friend and kindred spirit, 
 Thomas Thomas Adam of Winteringham (1701-1784). 
 wintlSng- A Lincolnshire village in the eighteenth cen- 
 ham £ ur y wag n0 £ muc ] 1 j ess remo te than a Cornish 
 
 town from the great centres of life ; and of this village 
 Adam was the resident incumbent for no less than fifty- 
 eight years, being in vain tempted, first by his uncle, 
 and then by his diocesan (Bishop Thomas) to put him- 
 self in the way of further preferment. There can be 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 obviously little to record about his uneventful, but 
 blameless and useful life, a short sketch of which will 
 be found prefixed to his best known work, ' Private 
 Thoughts/ by his great friend and co-religionist, Mr. 
 Stillingfleet of Hotham. Archdeacon Bassett of Glent- 
 worth, a neighbouring village to Winteringham , the 
 incumbency of which is still held by a member of the 
 Bassett family, was another intimate friend both of 
 Adam and "Walker, and held precisely the same re- 
 ligious views as both. 
 
 But though there were many country clergymen 
 who before the close of the century were pronounced 
 Thomas Evangelicals, the centres of the movement 
 2E;° f were generally large towns. London, Hull, 
 Eich™ou m Huddersfield, and Cambridge have been no- 
 of York ticed. To these must be added Leicester and 
 York. The leading Evangelical clergyman at Leicester 
 was Thomas Bobinson (1749-1813), who left a deep and 
 permanent impression upon that important midland 
 centre by his preaching and by his parochial activity, 
 and upon the country at large by his pen. He took a 
 leading part in schemes for the amelioration, not only 
 of the spiritual, but also of the temporal, condition of 
 Leicester, and affected largely the clergy of the place, 
 one of whom, Mr. Vaughan, a kindred spirit, has given 
 us an interesting biography of his friend. At York 
 the pioneer of Evangelical principles was William 
 Bichardson (1745-1821), who lived long enough to see 
 the rise in the ancient city of a younger generation of 
 Evangelical clergy, who looked up to him in his old age as 
 their spiritual father. Before the century closed Charles 
 Simeon had taken up at Cambridge Isaac Milner's work, 
 
The Evangelical Clergy S5 
 
 wliicli he more than carried out among the future 
 clergy of England ; but his history belongs more to the 
 nineteenth than to the eighteenth century. Richard 
 Conyers of Helmsley, John King of Hull, Thomas 
 Dykes of Hull, John Venn of Clapham, Augustus Top- 
 lady of Broad Hemsbury, Rowland Hill of the Surrey 
 Chapel (though in point of position, not of doctrine, he 
 was almost sui generis), and many others, would claim 
 place in any extended history of the Evangelical move- 
 ment ; but in this sketch it must suffice to say that before 
 the nineteenth century began the Evangelical clergy had 
 become a very numerous and influential body within 
 the Church of England. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL LAITY. 
 
 It might, perhaps, have been expected that as the 
 Evangelical Revival was effected by what is now called 
 Laity played tne Low-Church party in the Church (the term 
 na S t U e b part"in na -d quite a different meaning in the eighteenth 
 tueEevivai cen t U iy), the lay element would have been 
 quite as prominent as the clerical in the work ; for Low 
 Churchmen are, of course, utterly opposed to anything 
 like sacerdotalism. This, however, was certainly not 
 the case. The laity helped nobly with their purses, 
 and, to some extent, with their personal efforts and 
 with their pens. But all they did was in strict sub- 
 ordination to the clergy^ In fact there is hardly a 
 single layman who can be said to have attained the 
 
S6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 position of a leader of the first rank in the Revival. 
 This may partly be accounted for by the fact that the 
 great instrument in the Revival was preaching ; and as 
 the chief point which differentiated the Evangelical from 
 the Methodist movement was the strict observance by 
 \ | the former of Church order — or rather, let us say, Church 
 customs, for outdoor lay-preaching is no infringement of 
 the rules of Church order — the laity were debarred from 
 using, nor do they seem to have desired to use, the 
 main instrument by which the effects were produced. 
 But this was not all. Some of the leading Evangelical 
 clergy (like Cecil) took a very high view of ministerial 
 authority, and none of them were by any means dis- 
 posed to submit to lay dictation. We have seen how 
 Romaine, Venn, and others declined to be dazzled even 
 by the glamour of a Countess; and men like Scott, 
 Newton, and the Milners, were not the men to let the 
 reins slip out of their own hands. Indeed, they were 
 not tried in this peculiar way. It is true that Scott, 
 especially, had to fight a severe battle against Anti- 
 nomianism ; but it was against the doctrine, not against 
 the wish for personal supremacy on the part of the men 
 who held it, that he had to fight. The good men who 
 agreed with the views of their clergy were perfectly 
 ready to let those clergy have the undisputed rule. 
 Hence a very short chapter will suffice to sketch the lead- 
 ing laity who took a part in the Evangelical movement. 
 A striking instance of what has been said above 
 John may be found in the careers of the two Thorn- 
 
 Thomton tong ^ j ] in the father, and Henry the son. 
 They were wealthy merchants, who in very truth looked 
 upon their riches, not as their own but as talents en- 
 
The Evangelical Laity Sy 
 
 trusted to them for their Master's use. John Thornton 
 was the patron of John Newton. He was much impressed 
 by Newton's thrilling ' Narrative/ and paid him a visit at 
 Olney. The result of this visit was that Thornton told 
 Newton to ' be hospitable, and keep an open house for 
 such as were worthy of entertainment; and help the 
 poor and needy.' ' I will statedly allow you,' he added, 
 ' 200Z. a year, and readily send whatever you have occa- 
 sion to draw for more.' Mr. Newton told Mr. Cecil that 
 he thought he had received from Mr. Thornton upwards 
 of 3,000L in this way, during the time he resided at 
 Olney. 1 This was only a sample of John Thornton's 
 princely munificence. To quote the words of Newton's 
 biographer : ' He purchased advowsons and presentations, 
 with a view fo place in parishes the most enlightened, 
 active, and useful ministers. He employed the exten- 
 sive commerce in which he was engaged, as a powerful 
 instrument for conveying immense quantities of Bibles, 
 Prayer-books, and the most useful publications, to every 
 place visited by our trade. He printed, at his own sole 
 expense, large editions of the latter for that purpose, 
 and it may be safely affirmed, that there is scarcely a 
 part of the known world, where such books could be 
 introduced, which did not feel the salutary influence of 
 this single individual. He was a philanthropist on the 
 largest scale, the friend of man under all his wants. 
 Instances might be mentioned of it, were it proper to 
 particularise, which would surprise those who did not 
 know Mr. Thornton. They were so much out of ordi- 
 nary course and expectation, that I know some who felt 
 it their duty to inquire of him whether the sum they 
 1 Life of Kenton, p. 59. 
 
8S The Evangelical Revival 
 
 had received was sent by his intention or by mistake. 
 To this may be added, that the manner of presenting 
 his gifts was as delicate and concealed as the measure 
 was large. Besides this constant course of private 
 donations, there was scarcely a public charity, or occa- 
 sion of relief to the ignorant or necessitous, which did 
 not meet with his distinguished support. His only 
 question was " May the miseries of men in any measure 
 be removed or alleviated ? " ISFor was he merely distin- 
 guished by stretching out a liberal hand ; his benevo- 
 lent heart was so intent on doing good, that he was 
 ever inventing or promoting places for its diffusion at 
 home or abroad.' l 
 
 Henry Thornton was the worthy son of a worthy 
 father. He is said to have divided his income into two 
 Homy parts, retaining only one-seventh for his own 
 
 Thornton ug( ^ anc | c j evo j-| D g six-sevenths to charity ; 
 after he became the head of a family, he gave two-thirds 
 away, and retained one-third for himself and his family. 
 It appeared, after his death, from his accounts, that the 
 amount he spent in the relief of distress in one of his 
 earlier years considerably exceeded 9,000?. His posi- 
 tion as a Member of Parliament enabled him to render 
 material assistance to the Evangelical cause, at least in 
 some of its philanthropical schemes. Next to William 
 Wilberforce he was the firmest supporter in Parliament 
 of the abolition of the slave-trade. Lord Brougham, 
 who was in Parliament with him, pronounces him to be 
 ' the most eminent in every respect ' of the Wilberforce 
 coterie, and describes him as c a man of strong under- 
 standing, great powers of reasoning and of investiga- 
 1 Life of Nervtqn, pp. 56-8. 
 
The Evangelical Laity 89 
 
 tion ; an accurate and a curious observer, but who neither 
 had cultivated oratory at all, nor had received a refined 
 education, nor had extended his reading beyond the 
 subjects connected with moral, political, and theological 
 learning.' l 
 
 But though the two Thorntons were thus ready to 
 spend and be spent in the interests of Evangelicalism, 
 there is no trace of the spirit of Diotrephes in either of 
 them. They had full confidence in the clergy on whose 
 ministry they attended, and were quite content to afford 
 that aid which was particularly essential — because, as we 
 have seen, the Evangelical clergy were generally strait- 
 ened for means — without assuming any of the airs of 
 dictation. 
 
 An intimate friend and relative of the two Thorn- 
 tons, and a member like them of the so-called ' Clapham 
 wiiiiam sec V was William Wilberforce (1759-1831). 
 wuberforce Like t]ie Thorntons, Wilberforce aided the 
 Evangelical cause largely with his purse, and, like the 
 younger of them, he was of immense service to it as a 
 Member of Parliament. But he did more than this. As 
 an intimate friend of William Pitt the younger, and 
 many other leading men in the State, he was a sort of 
 connecting link between the Church and the world. In 
 fact, he had so many ties which bound him to those 
 who were quite outside the Evangelical circle, that it 
 has been doubted whether he can be called a bond-fide 
 Evangelical at all. But surely all his religious impres- 
 sions were derived from the Evangelical school. Joseph 
 and Isaac Milner, John Newton, and Thomas Scott 
 affected him spiritually more than any other men — and 
 1 Statesmen of the Time of George III. 
 
90 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 it need not be said in what direction their influence 
 would tend — and in his later years he ' sat under' John 
 Venn. It may be that his Calvinism was not so marked 
 as any of theirs was (though they were all very mode- 
 rate Calvinists) ; but take away Evangelical influence, 
 and you take away all the human influence which 
 affected his religion; take away his religion, and you 
 take away all the influence which stimulated and 
 directed him in the great philanthropical work of his 
 life. Nor was it only in the matter of the slave-trade 
 that Wilberforce deeply affected national sentiment. 
 4 Few members/ we are told, i attended with more assi- 
 duity in their places in Parliament. Though his frame 
 was always weak, and his health indifferent, he rarely 
 absented himself from public duty; he had, indeed, a 
 higher motive for its discharge than most men. Though 
 singularly destitute of self-importance, he was sensible 
 that he had gradually risen to a peculiar responsibility, 
 which there were few, if any, to share with him. He 
 was regarded by the religious world as the protector, in 
 the Lower House, of public morals and religious rights. 
 He was justly conscious that this was the highest trust 
 confided to his care, and he was vigilant in proportion. 
 He was never to be found sleeping when any question 
 trenching on public decorum or the interests of religion 
 came before the Legislature.' l 
 
 As to the value of the support which he was able to 
 give, let us take the unexceptionable evidence of one 
 who was, above most men, competent to j uclge ; one 
 who had often heard him speak, and knew him well, 
 
 1 Memoir of William Wilberforce, JEsq., by Rev. T. Piice, prefixed 
 to the edition of the Practical View, fyc. of 1834. 
 
The Evangelical Laity 91 
 
 but one who certainly did not share his religious 
 views, and would not therefore be prejudiced in his 
 favour on their account. ' His eloquence/ writes Lord 
 Brougham, ' was of the highest order. It was persua- 
 sive and pathetic in an eminent degree, but it was 
 occasionally bold and impassioned, animated with the 
 inspiration which deep feeling alone can breathe into 
 spoken thought, chastened by a pure taste, varied 
 by extensive information, enriched by classical allusion, 
 sometimes elevated by the more sublime topics of Holy 
 Writ — the thoughts and the spirit 
 
 That touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire.' 1 
 
 The same writer calls him i the head, indeed the founder, 
 of a powerful religious sect.' This, of course, is absurd. 
 Evangelicalism, — which, by the way, cannot properly be 
 termed a sect at all — was firmly established as a power 
 in the country before William Wilberforce gave in his 
 adherence to it. Lord Brougham was a better judge of 
 parliamentary eloquence than of religious parties ; but 
 his remark is worth quoting, as showing what an able 
 man of the world thought of Wilberforce's religious 
 position. And, though he was neither the head nor the 
 founder of the Evangelical party, he contributed more 
 than any other man could do to its prestige and influ- 
 ence, especially in circles into which its real heads and 
 founders could not easily find access. Like most of the 
 other Evangelical laymen, Wilberforce was lavishly gene- 
 rous with his purse; he is said to have spent from a third 
 to a fourth part of his large income upon acts of charity. 
 
 1 Statesmen of the Time of George III. First Series, vol. ii. 
 Mr. Wilberforce. 
 
92 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 From one point of view the greatest name of fill 
 among the Evangelical laity is that of William Cowper 
 William (1731-1800). Of course the shy recluse of 
 cowper Olney and Weston Underwood took no active 
 part in the work except with his pen, but that, as we 
 shall see in the next chapter, was a very active part 
 indeed. But his name gave credit to the cause. The 
 mere fact that the most elegant writer of the day both 
 in verse and prose (for though he actually published no 
 prose work, his admirable letters fully entitle him to 
 this rank) thoroughly identified himself with Evan- 
 gelicalism, might fairly be quoted in answer to the very 
 common charge that it was only fitted for weak and 
 uncultured minds. It is true that his mind was often 
 unstrung ; and that, when it ivas unstrung, his mania 
 took the form, as it so often does, of religious melan- 
 choly. But it has yet to be proved that the peculiar 
 tenets of Evangelicalism produced, or contributed to 
 produce, his mental derangement ; while it is quite cer- 
 tain that, when his mind ivas sound, those tenets were 
 heartily embraced by him ; that he guided his pure and 
 blameless life by them, and derived from them the 
 greatest consolation and support. 
 
 Two noblemen will complete the list of those laymen 
 who can by any stretch of the term be called leaders of 
 Lords Dart- the Evangelical Bevival. The first is Lord 
 Teignmouth Dartmouth, to whom Newton addressed his 
 ' Twenty-six letters to a nobleman,' with which his 
 ' Cardiphonia ' commences ; and who was so polished 
 a gentleman that Richardson is reported to have said 
 that ' he would have realised his own idea of Sir 
 Charles Grandison.if he had not been a Methodist.' He 
 
The Evangelical Laity 93 
 
 advocated the cause of Evangelicalism botli among the 
 nobility and at Court; and he used his influence to 
 gain preferment for the Evangelical clergy. He is im- 
 mortalised by Cowper in the well-known lines : 
 
 We boast some rich ones, whom the Gospel sways, 
 And one who wears a coronet and prays. 1 
 
 Lord Teignmouth was one of the Clapliam coterie who 
 attended the ministry of John Venn ; he was the first 
 president of the Bible Society, and was much looked 
 up to by the Evangelicals of the second generation. 
 An interesting narrative of his life and happy death 
 was published after his decease and widely circulated. 
 
 Among the ladies who took a prominent part in the 
 
 Eevival the first place must, of course, be given to 
 
 Susanna Weslev. If 'the mother of the 
 
 Susanna ^ 
 
 Wesley "Wesleys was the mother of Methodism,' she 
 was, in one sense, the originator of the whole move- 
 ment. But Mrs. Wesley can scarcely be said to have 
 taken personally any part in the Bevival. Beyond her 
 memorable advice to her son John, in the matter of 
 recognising lay-preachers, there is a singular absence of 
 the name of Mrs. Wesley in connexion with the move- 
 ment. As she died in 1742, she had probably little 
 idea of the proportions which her sons' work was about 
 to assume, particularly as she had already reached aiv 
 advanced age when the Bevival began. The imm< 
 influence which she maintained over her sons to the very 
 end of her life is so well known that we may be quite 
 sure she encouraged rather than discouraged them in 
 their efforts. Indeed, John Wesley expressly tells us 
 
 1 Truth. 
 
94 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 that c wlien lie was between forty and fifty ' [lie made a 
 little mistake here, for he was only thirty-nine when 
 she died] ' he judged himself full as much obliged to 
 obey his mother in everything lawful as he did when he 
 was in his leading-strings.' l So far as moulding the 
 character of her two famous sons, and especially John, 
 went, she may be regarded as a most important factor 
 in the Evangelical Revival, but that is all. 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher (nee Bosanquet) is another lady whose 
 beautiful Christian character sheds a lustre upon the 
 Mrs cause which she heartily embraced, but she 
 
 pietcher again did not take any prominent part in the 
 general work. Her c tender and judicious care ' of her 
 invalid husband helped to prolong his valuable life for a 
 year or two, and during the four years she lived with 
 him she joined cordially in all his good works. Before 
 her marriage, she had devoted both her personal efforts 
 and her fortune (which was large) to the care of the 
 indigent, especially of orphan children ; and she is 
 justly reckoned as one of the saints of Methodism. 
 John Wesley said of her, c she is the only woman in 
 England I judged worthy of Mr. Fletcher ; ' 2 a remark- 
 able testimony, seeing that he placed Mr. Fletcher first 
 among all the Christians he ever knew. 
 
 Less even than Mrs. Wesley and Mrs. Fletcher can 
 Mrs. Newton be regarded as a prominent character in 
 „ the Revival ; but as the almost idolised wife 
 
 Mrs. 7 
 
 Newton f one f £] ie chief leaders she must not be 
 altogether passed over in silence. John IsTewton very 
 characteristically made the public his confidant in what 
 
 1 Sermon On Obedience to Parents. — Sermon XCI. 
 
 2 Sermon CXXXIIL, On the death of Mr. Fletcher. 
 
The Evangelical Laity 95 
 
 he owns to be his inordinate affection for Mary Catlett, 
 years before she became his wife, and years after she 
 had gone to her rest. It was a bold thing to publish his 
 ' Letters to a Wife ' — perhaps a questionable thing in 
 point of delicacy — but there is not one word in them that 
 could offend the most fastidious taste ; and we can cer- 
 tainly gather from them that whatever influence Newton 
 exercised over the course of the Eevival — and it was 
 obviously very great — was shared by Mrs. Newton. 
 1 She was,' he writes in his Preface to the letters, 
 ' my pleasing companion, my most affectionate friend, 
 my judicious counsellor. I seldom or never repented 
 of acting according to her advice. And I seldom acted 
 against it, without being convinced by the event that I 
 was wrong.' And in the Appendix to the same : ' The 
 Bank of England is too poor to compensate for such a 
 loss as mine. I have lost a right hand, which I cannot 
 but miss continually ; but the Lord enables me to go on 
 cheerfully without it.' 
 
 ' Forget her ! No. Can four short years 
 The deep impression wear away 1 
 She still before my mind appears 
 Abroad, at home, by night, by day.' 
 
 Thus he begins one of the set of verses, more touching 
 than better poetry, which he regularly wrote on each 
 anniversary of her death. It is rather provoking that 
 neither his letters nor his verses give us any definite 
 picture of one who exercised so large an influence over 
 him, and therefore indirectly over those events quorum 
 pars magna fait. 
 
 But there is one lady who reallv may rank among 
 
g6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the very foremost promoters of the Evangelical Revival, 
 Hannah More (1745-1833). It was not only by her 
 Hannah writings, which will come before us in the next 
 chapter, nor by her active exertions to raise 
 by education the condition of the labouring population 
 of the West, that Miss More did great service to the 
 Evangelical cause. She also contributed very largely 
 to break down the prejudices against 'Methodists' 
 (which term included, as we have seen, all who were in 
 any way connected with the Evangelical movement). 
 Before she became in any way ' tainted with Methodism ' 
 she was on terms of intimacy with Garrick, Johnson, 
 Burke, Reynolds — in fact, the best literary society in 
 London ; and her ' Methodism ' did not in the least 
 interfere with that intimacy. It is difficult to over- 
 estimate the value of her work in thus helping to 
 bridge over the chasm, which unfortunately never was 
 thoroughly filled up, between the Evangelicals and 
 Methodists and the people of the highest culture of 
 the day ; and Miss H. More's services in this respect 
 deserve the most grateful acknowledgment from all 
 friends of the Evangelical movement. 
 
 Before concluding this sketch of individuals, a 
 word must be said of some who hung, as it were, 
 Dr on the outskirts of the movement, sympa- 
 
 johnson thising with it and helping it on to a cer- 
 tain extent, but not thoroughly identifying themselves 
 with it. One hardly knows whether to place the 
 great Dr. Johnson in this category. It is true that 
 he spoke very contemptuously of his brother-collegian, 
 George Whitefield, and that he perversely justified that 
 very arbitrary expulsion of the six students from 
 
The Evangelical Laity 97 
 
 Oxford on account of their Methodism. But he always 
 respected John Wesley, and enjoyed conversation with 
 him ; and he regarded Hannah More with an almost pa- 
 ternal affection. That his well-known fear of death, in 
 spite of his pious life, may have been removed at the last 
 through Evangelical influence seems highly probable, 
 though it has been indignantly denied. But Dr. John- 
 son was from first to last an old-fashioned High Church- 
 man, and cannot, in the technical sense of the term, be 
 called an Evangelical. 
 
 Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, was a pre- 
 late whom the Evangelicals highly respected. They 
 Bishop were glad to welcome the degree of counte- 
 Porte'us nance which he ventured to show them ; and 
 he undoubtedly sympathised with their many benevolent 
 schemes, and used the power, which his commanding 
 position and high personal character gave him, to favour 
 the Evangelical clergy. The promotion of Sunday 
 schools, the agitation for the abolition of the slave - 
 trade, the newly re-awakened zeal for foreign missions, 
 all found in him a warm and powerful friend. He ex- 
 pressed publicly an almost extravagant admiration of 
 Hannah More and her writings, and made strong efforts 
 to bring about a better observance of the Lord's Day, a 
 favourite project with the Evangelicals ; but he never 
 so far committed himself as to incur the reproach of 
 Methodism — and no thorough Evangelical ever escaped 
 that charge. 
 
 Henry Brooke, the well-known author of the ' Fool 
 others of Quality,' so warmly recommended by John 
 
 who were „ _ _ „ ---. , -.. , 
 
 friendly \\ esley, was a sort of hali-Methodist, but can 
 
 scarcely be identified with the cause. Bishop Lowth, 
 
 C.H, H 
 
98 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 again, showed the deepest respect for John Wesley in 
 his old age, and was certainly no foe to the Evangelical 
 cause. Edward Young, the author of ' Night Thoughts,' 
 was obviously influenced by the Revival when he wrote 
 that gloomy but powerful poem. And, finally, King 
 George III. was always regarded — and justly regarded — 
 by Methodists and Evangelicals as their friend, though of 
 course he only viewed the movement from the outside. 
 It is said that in his old age, after having listened to 
 the music of Charles Wesley the younger, he ' laid a 
 hand on one of the shoulders of the musician and said, 
 "To your uncle, Mr. Wesley, and your father, and to 
 George Whitefield, and the Countess of Huntingdon, 
 the Church in this realm is more indebted than to all 
 others." ' l When Lady Huntingdon complained to 
 him about Archbishop Cornwallis's £ routs ' he told her 
 how highly he estimated her character, zeal, and abili- 
 ties, c which,' he said, 'could not be consecrated to a 
 more noble purpose ; ' and he would hear no complaints 
 against the Methodists. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LITERATURE OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 It was far more by the living voice than by the pen 
 that the Evangelical Revival made its influence felt. 
 sermons:— But the leaders were not altogether inactive 
 Wesley's with their pens, and therefore a chapter must 
 be devoted to the literature which they produced. And 
 
 1 See Wesley Memorial Volume, p. 74. 
 
Literature oe the Revival 99 
 
 as they laid the greatest stress upon preaching, it will 
 be appropriate first to touch upon the sermons which 
 they have bequeathed to us. The most notable are the 
 sermons of John Wesley. These possess an adventitious 
 interest, not only from the startling effects which they 
 undoubtedly produced and from the unique character of 
 the preacher, whose idiosyncrasies they reflect in every 
 page, but also because they are more than sermons ; 
 they are a kind of creed to a very large number of 
 Christian people. The fifty-three discourses published in 
 1771 constitute, with Mr. Wesley's l Notes on the New 
 Testament,' 'the standard doctrines of the Methodist 
 Connexion,' and are referred to as such in the trust-deeds 
 of the Methodist chapels. They are admirable sermons 
 in their way, plain, practical, and earnest, expressed in 
 that pure, forcible language of which John Wesley was 
 a master. They are full of good common-sense, without 
 any tawdry ornament, and without a particle of cant or 
 of offence against good taste. But it is difficult for any- 
 one who reads them in cold blood, to understand what 
 there was in them to produce any of that wild excite- 
 ment which often attended their delivery. The preacher 
 seems to have carefully eschewed both language and 
 topics which would have any tendency to excite. And 
 perhaps nothing shows more strongly the need there 
 must have been for some sort of revival than the mere 
 fact that such plain truths so plainly expressed should 
 have produced the results which they did. But Wesley 
 knew perfectly well what he was about when he adopted 
 this style of preaching. He knew the sort of people he 
 wished to affect and the best way of affecting them — as 
 the result proved. All this should be carefully kept in 
 
 h 2 
 
ioo The Evangelical Revival 
 
 view as we read Wesley's sermons, otherwise a sense of 
 disappointment is inevitable. As specimens of pulpit 
 oratory they cannot for a moment be compared with 
 those of our great classical preachers, such as Jeremy 
 Taylor, Barrow, or South ; or with some of Wesley's 
 contemporaries, Bishop Horsley and others. But the 
 very last thing which Wesley desired was to pose as 
 an orator. What he said of all his writings would 
 apply especially to his sermons. ' I dare no more write 
 in a fine style than wear a fine coat. I should purposely 
 decline what many admire, a highly ornamental style.' 
 
 As to George Whitefield's sermons, it is unfortunate 
 
 for his reputation as a preacher that any specimens 
 
 should have been preserved. It is quite un- 
 
 necessary to spend any time upon them, for 
 
 they can hardly be said to come under the head of 
 
 i literature ' at all. 
 
 But, in fact, all the sermons, both of the Methodists 
 and of the later Evangelicals, were intended for present 
 Newton's, effect, not for future study. It is not, there- 
 
 Scott's, ' . . J ' 
 
 Miiner's fore, surprising that they do not take any 
 place in sacred literature. But the odd point is that 
 none of them seem at all adapted for revival purposes. 
 Take, for instance, those of John Newton. They are 
 full of matter, and not without humour. We can well 
 understand those who heard them going away with a 
 feeling that their souls had been satisfied with good, 
 solid, substantial food; but we cannot understand them 
 going away with a feeling of excitement. The same 
 may be said of the sermons of Joseph Milner, so far as 
 one can judge from the specimens which are extant ; 
 the same of the sermons of Thomas Scott. Compare 
 
Literature of the Revival ioi 
 
 any of these with the sermons of Richard Baxter in the 
 preceding century, or those of Thomas Chalmers in the 
 following one, and the difference will be apparent. 
 
 .Next to sermons we might have expected the 
 Evangelical Revival to have been rich in practical and 
 Practical devotional works. But this was not the case, 
 devotional The two works, indeed, which first set the 
 Hervey's stone rolling — ' The Serious Call ' and ' Chris- 
 tian Perfection ' — will compare favourably, in point of 
 style and intellectual power, with the very best of their 
 kind. But they can hardly be ranked as belonging to 
 the Evangelical school. Their writer was a pronounced 
 High Churchman when he wrote them, and he cer- 
 tainly did not draw nearer to the Evangelicals when he 
 superadded mysticism to his churchmanship. One can 
 readily understand that Hervey's ' Meditations among 
 the Tombs ' and his l Theron and Aspasio ' should have 
 superseded the l Serious Call ' as popular favourites 
 with those who held Evangelical views. The prefer- 
 ence, indeed, does not say much for the intellectual 
 taste of our ancestors; for, from a literary point of 
 view, the two writers stand almost at the opposite poles. 
 But the sentiments of Hervey would naturally be more 
 acceptable, at least to the Calvinist section of the Revi- 
 valists, than those of Law. How anyone could have 
 been edified by the vapid and turgid declamation of 
 Hervey seems inconceivable ; but there is no doubt 
 that his two works, and especially the earlier and more 
 florid one, were immensely popular when they first 
 appeared, and that their popularity long survived the 
 death of their author. 
 
 Romaine's ( Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith ' is a 
 
102 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 performance of a very different calibre from Hervey's. 
 It is a really powerful work in its way, and reminds us, 
 Eomaine's more than any of the Evangelical writings, of 
 amjTri- ' some of the works of the Puritan divines in 
 Faith' the preceding century. Its Calvinism is more 
 pronounced and unguarded than that of any work of the 
 Evangelical leaders ; and we can well understand how 
 it might be perverted into an encouragement of Anti- 
 nomianism. Wilberforce tells us that Newton in his 
 old age ' owned that Eomaine had made many Anti- 
 nomians.' 1 This was, indeed, quite contrary to the 
 author's intention; but it was, none the less, a very 
 likely danger to arise from many of Eomaine's ex- 
 pressions. In style and language, as well as in matter, 
 the book reminds one much more of the seventeenth 
 than of the eighteenth century. But it was a work 
 which was much admired by Eomaine's contemporaries, 
 and by many in later generations. To the modern 
 reader it certainly appears rather dreary reading. Cal- 
 vinism itself is not popular ; and practical and devo- 
 tional works are now expected to deal with strictly 
 practical duties. Eomaine does not do this, at any 
 rate in detail ; he deals chiefly with abstract questions, 
 and deals with them at too great length to please 
 modern taste. But it must be remembered that though 
 ' The Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith ' form really 
 but one work, they were originally three separate 
 treatises written and published at different times. And 
 it should be added that the ' Life, Walk, and Triumph 
 of Faith ' possesses the strength as well as the defects 
 of the earlier Puritanism. It is, perhaps, on the whole, 
 1 See Life of Wilbci'force, by his sons, vol. ii. p. 137. 
 
Literature oe the Revival 103 
 
 the strongest book, as its author was certainly the 
 strongest man who appeared among the Evangelicals. 
 
 It was not, however, and was not likely to be, so 
 useful and acceptable a work as Henry Venn's c Com- 
 venn's plete Duty °f Man.' No one can complain 
 Du°tvS ete * nat this book tended to Antinomianism, or 
 Mau ' that it did not enter sufficiently into the 
 
 duties of daily life. It was, in fact, the direct outcome 
 of the writer's great practical experience in dealing 
 with individual souls ; for Venn had been much con- 
 sulted and had been eminently successful as, what 
 would have been called in the preceding century, a 
 ' casuist ; ' and his work simply put into print the 
 counsel which he had before given orally. Hence, 
 though its opening chapters give us a distinct enough 
 statement of Evangelical doctrine, the greater portion 
 of the book deals with practical duties. Of course 
 Venn would feel that the latter directions would have been 
 quite useless unless based upon the former ; but, unlike 
 Romaine, he devotes the larger space to practice, in- 
 cluding the most minute rules about the moral virtues 
 and relative duties. Regarded as a literary composition 
 it by no means attains a high rank, for its style is 
 somewhat heavy and its arguments are not very pro- 
 found. If we would appreciate its excellence we must 
 take it simply as the counsel of a pious and affectionate 
 friend. The title of the book suggests a comparison 
 and a contrast, which were no doubt intended, between 
 < The Whole Duty of Man ' and ' The Complete Duty of 
 Man.' ' The Whole Duty of Man ' — the authorship of 
 which has always been an interesting puzzle to the 
 curious — had, after the Restoration, been raised to an 
 
104 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 elevation only next to that of the Sacred Volume and 
 the Book of Common Prayer. Bishops had recom- 
 mended it to be used instead of sermons, teachers of 
 charity schools were required to teach Church prin- 
 ciples by its help ; it was translated with the Bible and 
 the Liturgy into other languages ; young clergymen 
 were advised to ' persuade every family in their parishes 
 to read the " Whole Duty of Man " according to the 
 method of the partition therein prescribed,' that is, 
 three times through the year. A violent reaction set 
 in against it with the rise of the Evangelical move- 
 ment. ' Its author knew no more of Christianity than 
 Mahomet,' said Whitefield. It was a ' repository of self- 
 righteousness and pharisaical lumber,' said Cowper — 
 and so forth. One can as little endorse the extravagant 
 censure as the extravagant praise with which the book 
 was successively labelled. It is certainly not accurate 
 to say that the c Whole Duty of Man ' fails to base 
 Christian duties on distinctively Christian doctrines ; 
 but one can well understand that Venn would think 
 that sufficient prominence was not given to the latter. 
 To remedy the defect he wrote his useful treatise, which 
 was deservedly one of the most popular of all the 
 practical and devotional works of the Evangelical 
 school. 
 
 Its popularity, however, was not equal to that of 
 Wilberforce's famous work, which was entitled in full, 
 wiiber- ' ^- Practical View of the Prevailing Religious 
 Critical Systems of Professed Christians in the Higher 
 View ' and Middle Classes in this Country, contrasted 
 
 with Real Christianity.' 'The main object,' to use the 
 author's own language, ' which he had in view was, 
 
Literature of the Revival 105 
 
 not to convince the sceptic or to answer the arguments 
 of persons who avowedly opposed the fundamental 
 doctrines of our religion, but to point out the scanty 
 and erroneous system of the bulk of those who belong 
 to the class of orthodox Christians, and to contrast their 
 defective scheme with a representation of what the 
 author apprehended to be real Christianity.' ! The 
 work was a singularly seasonable one for this reason : 
 it appeared just when the minds of Englishmen had 
 received a shock from the horrors of the French Involu- 
 tion; the abnegation of Divine revelation in France 
 and the setting up of the Goddess of Reason in its 
 place had produced such results that men who had been 
 inclined to toy with scepticism were abruptly checked 
 and driven back to the old religion. A revulsion from 
 rationalism forced them to accept the Christian creeds 
 but not to lead the Christian life, and Wilberforce's 
 work fell like a bombshell among these inconsistent 
 Christians. The Methodist movement had mainly 
 affected the lower and lower-middle classes, and, in 
 spite of good Lady Huntingdon's efforts, the earlier 
 Evangelical or Calvinistic movement had not touched 
 more than the surface of the upper classes. The later 
 Evangelical movement was beginning, but only just 
 beginning, to affect them, and the ' Practical View ' 
 immensely contributed to the result. Written by a 
 layman who was well known as an accomplished 
 debater in Parliament — a man who was on terms of 
 intimacy with the most eminent statesmen of the day, 
 and an eminent statesman himself, a man of wit and 
 talent who had been a brilliant ornament to society, a 
 1 Introduction to the Practical View, p. iii. 
 
106 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 man of extraordinary philanthropy and benevolence, the 
 parliamentary representative of the largest county in 
 England — it came with a force which no work of any 
 clergyman or of any unknown layman could possibly 
 possess. The writer's parliamentary experience also 
 stood him directly in good stead. He knew exactly the 
 sort of minds which he wished to impress, and the best 
 way of impressing them. He had been accustomed to the 
 task of persuading such minds on other subjects by his 
 tongue ; he now essayed to persuade them on the most 
 important subject of all by his pen. Thus the ( Practical 
 View ' was written from a vantage-ground : it com- 
 mended itself apart from its intrinsic merits. These, 
 however, were by no means inconsiderable. No one 
 can read it even now without feeling touched by the 
 simple earnestness of the writer. It was helped, as 
 all such works are, by foolish opposition ; not only did 
 that opposition prevent the interest of the new work 
 from nagging, but it directly recommended its argu- 
 ments. For Englishmen love fair play, and many of 
 the charges brought against the ' Practical View ' were 
 so obviously unfair that they created a reaction in its 
 favour. All this must be taken into account in order 
 to explain the absurd miscalculation which was made 
 about its success, and the fears which the writer himself 
 entertained concerning its reception. He was afraid of 
 1 incurring the imputation of officiousness/ l of deviating 
 from his proper line, and of impertinently interfering 
 in the concerns of a profession to which he did not 
 belong.' l The publisher had so little faith in the 
 project that he would only consent to issue five hundred 
 1 See Introduction, p. ii. 
 
Literature of the Revival 107 
 
 copies, on the condition that Wilberforce would give his 
 name. But the first edition was sold off in a few days ; 
 within half a year the book passed through five editions, 
 and it has now passed through fifty. It was translated 
 into most of the European languages, and the reprints 
 in America are said to have been considerably more 
 numerous than the editions in this country. 
 
 The readiness of the upper classes to receive any 
 stirring appeal to their spiritual consciousness is further 
 Hannah illustrated by the extraordinary success which 
 
 More's J J 
 
 works attended Hannah More's first effort in the 
 
 same direction. Her ' Thoughts on the Manners of the 
 Great ' was published in the very year of the French 
 Revolution (1788). The work was published anony- 
 mously, because ' she hoped it might be attributed to a 
 better person.' The secret of the authorship was, how- 
 ever, soon discovered, and the effect was not spoiled. 
 Seven large editions were sold in a few months, the 
 second in little more than a week, the third in four 
 hours. "When she published a similar work two years 
 later, entitled 'An Estimate of the Eeligion of the 
 Fashionable World,' it was bought up and read as 
 eagerly as its predecessor. In fact all the practical 
 works of Hannah More were immensely popular, and, 
 what was better still, produced great practical results. 
 The ' manners of the great ' are said to have been mate- 
 rially improved in consequence of her treatises on the 
 subject; and her ' Village Politics, by Will Chip,' had 
 an equally good effect upon the humbler classes, who 
 were then much inclined to favour French revolu- 
 tionary principles. As one of the first workers in a 
 field of literature which has since her day been vastly 
 
io8 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 extended, she did much useful service by her cheap 
 Repository Tracts. And in her ' Ccelebs in Search of a 
 Wife/ which was one of the first specimens of the now 
 popular religious novel, she supplied wholesome food for 
 the imagination, instead of the very unwholesome food 
 which was furnished by the coarse romances of the 
 period. One can hardly endorse the extravagant lauda- 
 tions which were lavished upon her as a writer by really 
 competent judges. The generation which still admired 
 Hervey would naturally admire Hannah More ; for, as 
 became the friend and admirer of Dr. Johnson, she was 
 given to long words and ornately polished periods ; but 
 works written with the single aim with which this good 
 woman wrote, must be judged by the effects they pro- 
 duced, not by the canons of literary criticism, and, 
 regarded in this light, she was a wonderfully successful 
 writer. She possessed the same advantage which 
 Wilberforce had in this respect, inasmuch as she pre- 
 served an intimate connexion with people outside the 
 circle of the Evangelical world. ' You have a great 
 advantage, madam,' wrote Newton to her ; ' there is a 
 circle by which what you write will be read, and which 
 will hardly read anything of a religious kind that is 
 not written by you.' Sydney Smith commenced a 
 review of her works by a long mock apology for not 
 treating them as exactly on the same level with the in- 
 spired writings ; and in truth he scarcely exaggerated 
 the estimation in which her works were held. It was 
 said that ' her style and manner were confessedly 
 superior to those of any moral writer of the age ; ' that 
 she was ' one of the most illustrious females that ever 
 was in the world,' c one of the most truly Evangelical 
 
Literature of the Revival 109 
 
 divines of this whole age, perhaps almost of any age not 
 apostolic' We may smile at such extravagant praise ; 
 but let us also be thankful that she always used that 
 marvellous pen of hers to recommend what was good 
 and pure. There are few writers to whom the Evan- 
 gelical cause was more indebted than to Hannah More. 
 Two posthumous works, Adam's ' Private Thoughts ' 
 and Cecil's ' Remains,' were both deservedly popular. 
 Adam's The former consists of extracts from Adam's 
 
 * Private 
 
 Thoughts' ' Private Diary,' 'given to the public by the 
 surviving editor of the posthumous works ' [William 
 Richardson of York] ' in a convenient form,' as being 
 the most interesting part, and therefore the most in 
 demand, of those works. It is, of course, not a syste- 
 matic treatise, but simply a set of aphorisms and pious 
 reflections, being something of the nature — to compare 
 small things with great — of the ' Confessions of St. 
 Augustine ' or the ' De Imitatione ' of Thomas a Kempis, 
 after the Evangelical pattern. The 'Thoughts' were 
 objected to by some as being too full of penitential lan- 
 guage; but, as the editor quaintly remarks, 'had he 
 suppressed the passages objected to, this Register of 
 the Thoughts of the Heart would resemble a register 
 of the weather, in which no mention was made of storms 
 and fogs, and nothing recorded but genial warmth and 
 a clear blue sky. But what is the use of such a register ? ' 
 Some of the aphorisms are wonderfully pointed and 
 racy. For instance, ' I see the devil's hook, and yet 
 cannot help nibbling at his bait.' ' God ! give me 
 what Thou knowest to be good, and Thou alone knowest 
 what is good. Give more than 1 can ask or think. If 
 the reverse of what I ask is what I should ask, give me 
 
 ^ & j 
 
no The Evangelical Revival 
 
 that ; let me not be undone by my prayers.' ' It is much 
 easier to join oneself to a sect than to God.' It is true 
 that this book is of a more melancholy cast than most 
 of the writings of the Evangelicals, who were, as a rule, 
 singularly bright and hopeful. 
 
 This certainly is the character of the little work 
 that we have grouped with Adam's, the ' Remains ' of 
 Cecirs Richard Cecil, which were edited by his friend, 
 
 'Eemains' j^k p ratt# Tiiey are chiefly a collection of 
 the gifted writer's views on various subjects connected 
 with Christianity. Slight and brief as they are, they 
 give us the idea of a culture, a refinement, a thought- 
 fulness, a sense of humour, a dignity, which mark the 
 man's character as effectively as the most elaborate 
 biography could have done. They are not so intro- 
 spective as Adam's * Private Thoughts,' and they dis- 
 close a grasp of principles, and a width of sympathy, 
 with which the Evangelicals are not always credited. 
 
 John Newton's l Cardiphonia ' and ' Omicron ' were 
 in the first instance merely letters written to individual 
 Newton's correspondents ; but they are evidently adapted, 
 phoSa ' and ^ they were not actually written, for a larger 
 'Omicron' auc ~li encej ail d they well deserve to be ranked 
 among the devotional literature of the Evangelical 
 school. In one sense, indeed, almost all the literature 
 of that school may be termed practical or devotional ; 
 for the writers all felt so intensely the importance of 
 practical religion, that they would have deemed the 
 time wasted which was spent on any other kind of 
 writing than that which would affect, directly or in- 
 directly, the spiritual life. 
 
 Take, for instance, a form of literature in which they 
 
Literature of the Revival hi 
 
 were unusually successful — that of biography. The 
 lives were not written simply to give historical facts, but 
 Biographies *° furnish examples or warnings to the reader ; 
 vennfand anc ^ every opportunity of ' improving the oc- 
 Newton casion ' is seized. But this is done very 
 artistically, and does not interfere with the interest of 
 the works. Biographies of all the leaders formed, of 
 course, a leading feature in the Evangelical literature. 
 To refer to them all would be wearisome ; it must, there- 
 fore, suffice to select a few specimens. The lives of 
 Thomas Scott and Henry Venn, by their respective 
 sons, are models in their way ; while they do full justice 
 to their subjects, and are monuments of filial piety, they 
 entirely eschew all fulsome adulation and undue exag- 
 geration ; and, what is perhaps a rarer virtue still, the 
 writers resist the temptation to make their fathers' 
 enemies their own, and to take up the cudgels which, 
 as it were, descended to them as heirlooms. John 
 Newton's eventful life was briefly but effectively told by 
 his accomplished friend, Bichard Cecil ; a great part of 
 this biography is drawn from Newton's own harrowing 
 £ Narrative,' but the biographer has shown, as we should 
 expect, great judgment in his selections from that most 
 pathetic, but sometimes repulsive, story, and his own 
 observations are equally judicious and to the point. 
 
 A more striking autobiography still, though, of 
 course, a less eventful one, than Newton's ' Narrative,' 
 Scott's is Thomas Scott's c Force of Truth,' in which 
 
 Truth' he describes the gradual process by which ha 
 was changed, chiefly through Newton's influence, from 
 an almost avowed Socinian (clergyman though he was) 
 to an orthodox Christian of the Evangelical type. When 
 
ii2 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 it is said c chiefly through Newton's influence,' the in- 
 fluence of a living man as opposed to the influence of 
 books is meant. Scott was much affected by the latter ; 
 and as his experience was, mutatis mutandis, the experi- 
 ence of many others of his school, it is interesting to 
 note the books which touched him. They were, he tells 
 us, Law's c Serious Call ' (of course), Hooker's c Discourse 
 on Justification,' Burnet's ' Pastoral Care,' Beveridge's 
 ' Sermons,' Henry Venn's ' Essay on the Prophecy of 
 Zacharias,' Hervey's ' Theron and Aspasio,' and De 
 Witsius' < Two Covenants.' The ' Force of Truth ' was 
 revised by Scott's parishioner, William Cowper, whose 
 exquisite taste contributed much to the polishing of its 
 style. 
 
 John Wesley was so many-sided a man that it was 
 perhaps impossible for any one biographer to do justice 
 Biographies to him all round. What may be called an 
 Wesley official biography by his right-hand man, Dr. 
 Coke, and Mr. More, was published the year after his 
 death (1792). Of course so hastily arranged a production 
 could do little more than give facts from the Wesleyan 
 Methodist point of view. Life after life, sketch after 
 sketch, and apology after apology, followed, and are still 
 going on up to the present day. The difficulty in 
 regard to this great man seems to be, to combine suffi- 
 cient sympathy with sufficient literary power. From a 
 literary point of view, no work has superseded that of 
 Southey ; but there surely is some force in the witty 
 application of the words of Holy Writ to the bio- 
 grapher : ' Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the 
 well is deep.' As literary productions, Isaac Taylor's 
 ' Wesley and Methodism,' and Miss Julia Wedgwood's 
 
Literature of the Revival 113 
 
 ' Evangelical Reaction ' are at least worthy to rank with 
 Southey ; but these are mere sketches, and sketches 
 from the outside. The real life of Wesley is that which 
 is contained in his £ Journals ; ' it is from these, and 
 these alone, that we can picture to ourselves the real 
 man in all his various and varying phases. 
 
 George Whitefield's ' Journal,' too, gives us the best 
 picture of George Whitefield ; it is, of course, less in- 
 WhitefleWa teresting than John Wesley's ; but the man 
 •journal' himself was a less interesting man. 'The 
 Journal ' was an almost necessary part of the lives of 
 all Methodists and Evangelicals. In many cases these 
 journals are evidently, though unconsciously, conven- 
 tional productions, and tell us little of the idiosyncrasies 
 of the writers ; but it is not so either with Wesley or 
 Whitefield ; the journals of both form a real part of 
 Evangelical literature. 
 
 That tendency to edification which has been noticed 
 as running through all the Evangelical literature was 
 miner's certainly not conducive to its value in some 
 History' departments. It unduly biassed, for instance, 
 those who wrote on the subject of Church History. 
 W^hat is called ' Milner's History of the Church of 
 Christ,' is in reality a curious amalgamation of the 
 works of several writers of the Evangelical school. The 
 first idea was suggested by John Newton, who left a 
 fragment, which Joseph Milner thought of taking up, 
 beginning only where Newton ended. But he deemed 
 it better, on second thoughts, to commence afresh, 
 owning that he had borrowed the idea from Newton. 
 He carried the work on to the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, though even this part was largely revised and 
 C.H. I 
 
ii4 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 corrected by his brother Isaac. The part from the 
 middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the sixteenth 
 century was edited by the Dean from the MSS. left by 
 his brother Joseph. Dean Milner then took up the work 
 on his own account and wrote nine long chapters. Then 
 Scott wrote a ' Continuation of Milner ' in three volumes, 
 treating of the Reformation period and reaching to the 
 Synod of Dort, though this was really a separate work, 
 and is not included in the editions of Milner ; and, 
 finally, a part of Dr. Haweis's ' History of the Church of 
 Christ,' was tacked on to some editions of Milner, so as 
 to bring the work up to date — that is, the close of the 
 eighteenth century. It was peculiarly cruel to the 
 memory of the Dean to attach this last portion, because 
 he had actually written ' Animadversions on Dr. Haweis's 
 History.' But in spite of its composite character, the 
 work is fairly attributed to Joseph Milner, for the hints 
 he received from Newton were very slight, and those 
 who followed took up his lines. 
 
 The project of Joseph Milner was a most laudable and 
 a most seasonable one. It was to be ' an ecclesiastical 
 history on a new plan ; ' that plan being to give the 
 history of real, not merely nominal, Christians. 1 Re- 
 ligious controversies were to be omitted, except those 
 which ' seemed to bear a relation to the essence of Christ's 
 religion.' Genuine piety was the only thing he intended 
 to celebrate. He thought that ecclesiastical historians 
 gave a much larger proportion to the history of wicked- 
 ness than to that of piety in general. Mosheim was 
 a particular offender ; and ' the disagreeable inference ' 
 
 1 It is fair to add that this idea entirely originated with Newton 
 from whom Milner avowedly borrowed it. 
 
Literature of the Revival 115 
 
 which the reading of Mosheim produced upon his mind 
 was, that 'real religion appeared scarcely to have had any 
 existence.' Judging rightly that l the terms " Church " 
 and " Christian " do in their most natural and primary 
 sense respect only good men,' and that ' a succession of 
 pious men in all ages must have existed,' he determined, 
 if he could, to prove in his history ' that in every age 
 there have been real followers of Christ.' 1 If the execu- 
 tion had been equal to the conception, the work would 
 have been invaluable. But it is obvious that the tendency 
 to edification which has been spoken of, would be a 
 dangerous temptation to a man with very strong views 
 of his own. He strives to be fair and to do justice to the 
 piety of Christians of all kinds ; but he makes extremely 
 short work of the piety of those who did not agree with 
 his own peculiar views, and dwells at inordinate length 
 on those who did. Thus Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 
 has one hundred and forty-five pages devoted to him, 
 while Chrysostom has only sixteen and Jerome only 
 eleven. But then ' the peculiar work for which Augus- 
 tine was evidently raised by Providence was to restore 
 the doctrines of divine grace to the Church.' A more 
 outrageous instance still is found in that portion of Dr. 
 Haweis's History which is bound up withMilner's. No less 
 than one-third of the whole space given to Great Britain in 
 the eighteenth century is devoted to Lady Huntingdon, 
 who is introduced in language which George "Whitefielcl 
 himself might have used : ' The noble and elect Lady 
 Huntingdon had lived in the highest circle of fashion ; 
 by birth a daughter of the House of Shirley, by mar- 
 riage united with the Earl of Huntingdon, both bearing 
 1 See Introduction by the Eev. Joseph Milner. 
 
u6 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the Eoyal Arms of England, as descendants from her 
 ancient monarchs,' &c, &c. Surely this is language 
 more worthy of a Court lackey than of an historian of 
 the Church of Christ. Moreover, the whole history of 
 the eighteenth century is confined to the history of the 
 Methodist and Evangelical movement, while all the really 
 great theologians of the century are entirely ignored. 
 
 But to return to Milner. Hannah More was ' much 
 amused at his going whole leagues about to lug in 
 Defects of justification by faith.' The Waldenses, as 
 Miiner ao'reeinff with Milner 's own views, are not 
 
 only treated at disproportionate length, but also with so 
 obvious a bias and such inaccuracy, that Milner drew 
 upon himself (though he did not live to see it) a scath- 
 ing criticism from a far more powerful pen than his 
 own. Dr. Maitland had studied deeply the whole 
 history of the ' Dark Ages ; ' he had the whole story of 
 the Waldenses at his fingers' ends ; no wonder, then, 
 that when he brought his keen, well-stored, lawyer- 
 like mind to bear upon poor Milner, who had only 
 worked up the subject as part of his gigantic task, he 
 found numerous inaccuracies ; and, having little sym- 
 pathy with Milner's religious views, he assailed him 
 remorselessly, and, in fact, demolished him. That excel- 
 lent Evangelical clergyman, Mr. John King of Hull, 
 took up the cudgels in behalf of his deceased friend and 
 neighbour, but he was no match for Dr. Maitland. 
 
 Milner, all through, is rather too anxious ' to im- 
 His desire P rove the occasion.' On whatever century one 
 no improve f ^jg e y es ^ s fi xec "[ the other eye seems always 
 occasion' ^o be steadily fixed upon the latter half of 
 the eighteenth century. He takes every possible and 
 
Literature of the Revival 117 
 
 impossible opportunity of dealing a side-blow at tlio 
 Arminians and schismatics of his own day ; for Milner, 
 though he was called a Methodist, was a most uncom- 
 promising stickler for every point of Church order. 
 Holding also the strongest opinions about the utter 
 depravity of human nature, he would allow no virtues 
 to those who had not received the light of Christian 
 revelation. He is far too honest to suppress facts, but 
 his comments upon facts are often tinged with a quite 
 unconscious unfairness. Thus he handsomely admits 
 the estimable qualities which Antoninus Pius pos- 
 sessed ; but, ' doubtless,' he adds, ' a more distinct and 
 explicit detail of his life would lessen our admiration : 
 something of the supercilious pride of the Grecian, or of 
 the ridiculous vain-glory of the Roman, might appear.' 
 In fact, instead of seeing in these great thinkers of an- 
 tiquity a yearning after the light which Christianity 
 alone can give, he can see nothing in them but the 
 deadliest enmity to Christianity. ' The Church of 
 Christ is abhorrent in its plan and spirit from the 
 systems of proud philosophers.' 'Moral philosophy 
 and metaphysics have ever been dangerous to religion, 5 
 — and much more to the same effect. 
 
 But, in spite of these defects, really competent 
 critics have found pleasure and profit in the pages of 
 Merits of Milner. No less a person than Cardinal New- 
 Miiner nian ] iag |} 0rne a warm testimony to his 
 
 merits. ' I read,' he says, ' Joseph Milner's " Church 
 History," and was nothing short of enamoured of the 
 long extracts from St. Augustine and the other fathers 
 which I found there. I read them as being the religion 
 of the primitive Christians.' Dr. Newman is describing 
 
n8 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the faith of his early clays. Probably, even long before 
 he went over to Eome, he altered his views about 
 Milner ; but his testimony is valuable on one point at 
 any rate. If Milner had had no other merit, this alone 
 would have entitled him to gratitude : that he called the 
 attention of a generation, which had not much know- 
 ledge or appreciation of the early fathers, to their writings. 
 But he had other merits ; and we may well bear with 
 some shortcomings in a Church history which, instead 
 of perplexing the mind with interminable disputes be- 
 tween professing Christians, makes it its main business 
 to detect the spirit of Christ wherever it can be found. 
 It is a real refreshment, no less than a real strengthen- 
 ing of our faith, to turn from Church histories, which 
 might be more correctly termed histories of the abuses 
 and perversions of Christianity, to one which is what it 
 professes to be — a history of the good which Christianity 
 has done. It used to be said that Mosheim wrote the 
 history of the sinners, and Milner that of the saints, of 
 Christendom ; and it is more pleasant and profitable to 
 read about the saints than about the sinners ; though 
 it must be confessed that the historian of the sinners 
 is fuller and more accurate than the historian of the 
 saints. 
 
 The only other work on Church History which need 
 be noticed as emanating from the Evangelical school is 
 Wesley's John Wesley's ' Ecclesiastical History,' which 
 tS lesias " f° rms f° ur volumes in his ' Christian Library : ' 
 History' ^^ ^^ indefatigable worker had far too 
 many irons in the fire to find time for original research ; 
 his work, therefore, is little else than an abbreviation of 
 Mosheim. 
 
Literature of the Revival 119 
 
 One might perhaps have expected that Biblical exe- 
 gesis would have been a favourite field of Evangelical 
 Eibiicai literature ; but this was not the case. Adam 
 aries :— Clark's l Commentary/ though it was com- 
 Coke ' menced some years before the century closed, 
 was not completed until the present century had run 
 through a quarter of its course ; it does not, therefore, 
 come within our purview. Dr. Coke, twenty years earlier 
 (1805), had published a commentary on the Bible in six 
 quarto volumes, which was highly valued. It was 
 rather unfortunate for the fate of the book that it should 
 be followed so soon (a most unusual case) by another 
 and much more elaborate commentary written from 
 precisely the same point of view. John Wesley's c Xotes 
 on the Old and Xew Testament,' like all his writings 
 and all his life, were intended to serve a directly prac- 
 tical purpose. They do not pretend to any depth or 
 originality of criticism ; but, like everything he wrote, 
 they are short, plain, pithy, and to the point, full of 
 good sense, and manly, sterling piety. They were 
 written for those who had neither the leisure nor the 
 mental training to enter very deeply into theological 
 questions, and they are admirably adapted to that end. 
 Like his fifty-three sermons, his ' Notes on the Xew 
 Testament ' have an adventitious interest as forming 
 part of a creed as well as a commentary. 
 
 By far the most elaborate and important of all the 
 works on Holy Scripture produced by the Evangelical 
 Scott's school was Thomas Scott's ' Commentary.' Its 
 
 meTary* success was enormous ; 12,000 copies of the 
 English edition, and 25,200 of the American, were issued 
 during the lifetime of the author, and that in spite of the 
 
120 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 great costliness of the work. It is essentially a ' Family 
 Bible ; ' its value is mainly as a practical and devotional, 
 rather than a critical and exegetical, commentary. 
 Scott fully agreed with the sentiment of his poet 
 parishioner : 
 
 God is His own interpreter, 
 And He can make it plain ; 
 
 and applied it to the Book of revelation as well as to 
 the book of nature. He loves to interpret Scripture by 
 Scripture, and hence his commentary is rather too much 
 like a sort of magnified concordance. But it is a vast 
 monument of industry and piety, and was deservedly 
 much valued by the Evangelicals of the day ; nor has it 
 yet ceased to preserve a deep interest of its own. 
 
 Passing from Biblical and historical to controver- 
 sial literature, we have, alas! only too large a mass 
 „ of writings emanating from the Evangelical 
 
 Literature of & » & 
 
 the caivinis- sc ] 10 ol. For the whole of the literature con- 
 tic contro- 
 versy nected with the unhappy Calvinistic contro- 
 versy falls under this head. But though the volume of 
 it was immense, yet after abstracting what was virtually 
 mere personal abuse, the residuum of what can at all be 
 called literature is very small. To withdraw the veil 
 of obscurity which has now happily been drawn over 
 this very unedifying quarrel in print, would be cruel to 
 the memory of good men. The writers on both sides, 
 but especially on the Calvinistic side, seem to have lost 
 all self-restraint, all sense of dignity — to say nothing of 
 Christian charity — and to have descended into mere 
 Billingsgate. The only two writers who deserve a 
 moment's notice are Fletcher on the Arminian, and 
 
Literature of the Revival 121 
 
 Toplady on the Calvinistic, side. Fletcher's ' Checks to 
 Antinomianism' still retains a high reputation among a 
 certain class ; and, even from a literary point of view, 
 they are deserving of attention. They are written with 
 great elegance and vivacity, and show a considerable 
 sense of humour and satire ; and, as one would expect 
 from the sweet character of the man, they are almost 
 entirely free from any unworthy abuse. In fact, the most 
 cruel part of the work is the republishing of the abusive 
 epithets which Rowland Hill heaped upon the writer. 
 (Rowland Hill's biographer published, in revenge, a 
 collection of some of the flowers of rhetoric employed 
 by the other side.) But, after all, Fletcher's ' Checks ' 
 are rather thin productions. Let anyone read them, 
 for instance, side by side with Waterland's detached 
 remarks on the same subject from the same point of 
 view, and he will see at once the different calibre of the 
 two men. The one is at best but a slight skirmisher, 
 the other a mighty warrior wielding a most powerful 
 weapon. Augustus Toplady was a really able and well- 
 read man, and his writings on the Calvinistic question 
 show great logical powers and considerable research ; 
 but they are marred by the most scurrilous abuse of 
 those who disagreed with him, and have long ceased to 
 hold any place in literature. 
 
 Before quitting this very unedifying subject, one 
 remark must be made. The exceedingly poor stuff 
 superiority which the writers on both sides produced 
 ot . i] ' e ought to show us how large a debt of grati- 
 
 evuleuce- o o o 
 
 writers tude is due to those who have received scant 
 recognition from many writers about the religious Re- 
 vival in the last century. It was men like Butler, 
 
122 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Waterlandj Warburton, Law, Sherlock, and Charles 
 Leslie, who were the real defenders of Christianity 
 on the intellectual side. It has already been remarked 
 how thoroughly these men prepared the way for the 
 Kevival by beating down the opponents of Christianity 
 from all sides. But this was not the end ; the snake 
 was only scotched, not killed. Very powerful opponents 
 of Christianity arose when the Revival was in its mid- 
 course ; and again it was men of the type of the old 
 ' evidence- writers ' who came to the rescue. Priestley 
 was a formidable antagonist on the Unitarian side ; but 
 Horsley was far more than a match for him. Hume 
 was a still more formidable one ; and, if Paley can hardty 
 be said to have crushed him, at any rate the Arch- 
 deacon was much more competent to meet him than 
 any Methodist or Evangelical. Whom, again, of the 
 latter class can we compare in point of theological grasp 
 with Bishop Lowth, or Bishop Home, or Bishop Watson, 
 or Mr. Jones of Nayland, or many others who might be 
 named ? Of course the Revivalists had other and, what 
 they deemed, more important work to do ; and we can 
 hardly say what they might have done had they given 
 their minds to the intellectual work ; but, as a matter 
 of fact, the intellectual work had to be done, and it was 
 not they who did it. It is curious to observe how John 
 Wesley seems to have felt this ; for, in the references to 
 the books which he read, in his Journal, there is hardly 
 one allusion to any book that came from the Methodist or 
 Evangelical School, but a great number to those written 
 by old-fashioned Churchmen. 1 No one could write more 
 
 1 There is one exception to John Wesley's silence about Evange- 
 lical literature : he thinks Fletcher the finest writer of the age ; 
 
Literature of the Revival 123 
 
 forcibly or logically in his way than John Wesley him- 
 self. His ' Appeal ' and ' Further Appeal ' l to men of 
 reason and religion ' are admirably clone ; but he would 
 have been the first to own that his writings were not of 
 the calibre of Butler, Law, Waterland, and the rest. 
 Everything he wrote was full of good, practical, com- 
 mon sense ; but Wesley-like, it was mostly written for 
 one definite and limited purpose — viz., to supply such 
 mental pabulum for his followers as they needed. What 
 he says, in his own abrupt, not to say defiant, style of 
 his sermons, might be. said of the design of almost all 
 his literary work : ' I design plain truth for plain 
 people ; therefore, of set purpose, I abstain from all 
 nice and philosophical speculations, from all perplexed 
 and intricate reasonings, and, as far as possible, from 
 even the show of learning. Nothing appears here in 
 an elaborate, elegant, or rhetorical dress. I mention 
 this, that curious readers may spare themselves the 
 labour of seeking for what they will not find ' (Preface). 
 The mental activity which enabled him, amidst all his 
 practical labours, to abridge works of all kinds — from 
 ' The Apostolical Fathers ' to ' The Fool of Quality '—to 
 write a ' Treatise on Medicine,' to compile a l System of 
 Natural Philosophy,' to edit a magazine, to compose 
 1 Notes on the Old and New Testament,' to give to the 
 world his sentiments in the form of pamphlets on 
 such burning questions as the American War, to break 
 a lance (though most unwillingly) with Calvinists, with 
 Socinians, with Mystics, is simply amazing ; but it 
 was quite beside his purpose to elaborate any original 
 
 in which opinion the present writer must venture, with all humility, 
 to disagree with him. 
 
124 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 work which would be of much permanent literary 
 value. 
 
 The most valuable part of the Evangelical literature 
 was its hymns. Regarded merely as literary composi- 
 tions, many of Charles Wesley's hymns attain 
 tersofthe a very liisrli standard of excellence. They will 
 
 Revival:— J ° . . J , 
 
 Charles bear, and indeed require, the closest analysis, 
 in order to discover their hidden beauties. 
 The writer, with a true poet's eye, catches some one 
 leading incident or striking idea, and works it out 
 thoroughly, without any confusion of metaphor, without 
 any fancifuliiess, without any offence against good taste, 
 in all its details. 
 
 This will be better seen by an illustration or two. 
 Charles Wesley felt, with a true poetic instinct, that the 
 grand and mysterious incident of Jacob's wrestling with 
 the angel was one which would make a fine subject for 
 sacred verse, and so he uses it for the groundwork of 
 two of his finest hymns : ' Come, thou traveller 
 unknown ! ' and ' Soldiers of Christ, arise ! ' It is wonder- 
 ful how, in both these hymns, he works out without 
 any forced interpretation each detail of the wonderful 
 story, and gives a Christian meaning to it. Take again 
 that more popular hymn still, ' Jesu, lover of my soul.' 
 The analogy of the drowning man is admirably carried 
 out in its every part. This characteristic excellence of 
 Charles Wesley's hymns can hardly have been sufficiently 
 appreciated. Otherwise, well-meaning adapters would 
 never have set about the very unpromising task of 
 altering them, even verbally ; for the chances are that 
 the alteration, even of a word, will be, so far, a spoiling 
 of the hymn. Let us take two very glaring instances : 
 
Literature of the Revival 125 
 
 Hark ! how all the welkin rings 
 Glory to the King of kings ! 
 
 wrote Charles Wesley ; 
 
 Hark ! the herald-angels sins* 
 Glory to the new-born King ! 
 
 wrote the modern reviser, and completely spoilt the 
 couplet. Charles Wesley's ' Glory to the King of kings ! ' 
 beautifully corresponds to the angels' song, ' Glory to 
 God in the Highest ' — the modern version does nothing 
 of the sort. Any earthly king that is born might be 
 called 'the new-born king,' but none but the Deity 
 could be called ' the King of kings.' Thus the doctrine 
 of the true Divinity of Our Blessed Lord — a point on 
 which the writer would lay the greatest stress, since 
 Socinianism was rife at the time — is clearly stated in 
 the original , but ingeniously eliminated from the revised? 
 version. Again, 'Hark! how all the icelliin rings' 
 recalls the beautiful words of the first psalm for Christ- 
 mas Day, 'The Heavens declare the glory of God' — a 
 point which, to a strong Churchman like Charles Wesley, 
 would be no slight one ; the reviser contrives both to 
 spoil the poetry and to miss the allusion. 
 
 Come, let us join our friends above 
 
 Who have obtained the prize, 
 And on the eagle wings of love 
 
 To joys celestial rise, 
 
 wrote Charles Wesley ; 
 
 Let saints on earth in concert sing 
 With those whose work is done ; 
 
 For all the servants of our King 
 In Heaven and earth are one. 
 
126 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 wrote the modern reviser, and spoilt tlie poetry, the 
 spiritedness, the point, and the Scripturalness of the 
 whole verse. Charles Wesley turns our thoughts to 
 the apostle of love, whose emblem is the eagle, and 
 who, eagle-like, soars through love, the greatest of 
 Christian graces, into regions higher than those into 
 which his fellow-evangelists penetrated. Charles Wesley, 
 by adopting the first person plural, and by the expres- 
 sion c our friends above,' brings far nearer home to us 
 the article of the creed, c I believe in the communion of 
 saints ' — which is really the subject of the whole hymn — 
 than the bare statement of doctrine in the third person, 
 to which the modern version is reduced, can possibly 
 do. One can only account for these and many other 
 changes in Charles Wesley's hymns by the theory that 
 our hymnologists have been so desperately afraid of the 
 conventionalities that they shrank from retaining every 
 bold expression, and were content to sacrifice sense, 
 taste, doctrine, poetry, anything, so as to keep within 
 the limits of tame, prim propriety. 
 
 Many other gems of sacred poetry besides Charles 
 Wesley's we owe to the Evangelical Revival. Toplady's 
 Topiady ' Rock of Ages,' as beautiful and as popular as 
 and others j. j ie mos £ beautiful and most popular of Wesley's 
 hymns, is its direct outcome. So, too, is his hardly less 
 beautiful, though less popular 
 
 When sickness and disease invade 
 This trembling house of clay; 
 
 which acquires an additional and plaintive significance, 
 when we remember that the writer's own ' trembling 
 house of clay ' was constantly invaded by sickness and 
 
Literature of the Revival 127 
 
 disease. Olivers' ' Tlie God of Abraham praise ! ' Per- 
 ronet's c All hail the power of Jesu's name ! ' Cowper's 
 1 Hark ! my soul, it is the Lord,' ' ! for a closer walk 
 with God,' i God moves in a mysterious way,' and many 
 others of his hymns, are really classical compositions. 
 
 Indeed, it would be scarcely claiming too much if 
 we set down the whole of Cowper's original poetry (the 
 cowper's translation of Homer is of course not included) 
 poetry as belonging to the literature of the Evangelical 
 
 Revival. ISTo doubt the fire of his genius would have 
 burnt brightly, whatever his religious sentiments might 
 have been. In the productions of his elegant pen we 
 should, under any circumstances, have recognised at 
 least the disjecti membra poetce. But, as a matter of 
 fact, his Christian convictions were the mainspring which 
 set the whole machinery of his poetical work in motion. 
 It was this which gave coherence and symmetry and soul 
 to it all. Abstract the religious element from his com- 
 positions, and they all fall to pieces ; but, in fact, it is 
 impossible to do so. With the exception of one or two 
 lighter pieces, there is an undercurrent of Christian senti- 
 ment running through and inseparable from them all. 
 Mr. Abbey, whose marked dislike of the particular form 
 which Cowper's religious sentiments took renders his 
 testimony unexceptionable, fully admits this : ' The best 
 and most characteristic features of Cowper's poetry are 
 very closely related to the strong Christian feeling which 
 actuated him. Without it his writings might not have 
 been deficient in sweetness and pathos, but they would 
 have been deprived of that which conferred upon them 
 those higher qualities which made his poems a turning- 
 point in eighteenth-century literature. His thorough 
 
128 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 earnestness, his transparent simplicity of moral aim, his 
 devoted love of all goodness, his shrinking aversion 
 from all forms of evil, his lively sense of a divine 
 purpose and significance in all created works — these 
 principles, operating in a sensitive and poetical tem- 
 perament, were just what was wanted to give his poetry 
 that simplicity, reality, and vigour which contrasts most 
 favourably with the formalities and artificial graces 
 which had been too popular before.' If this be true, as 
 unquestionably it is, then to the Evangelical Revival is 
 due the best poetry of the time, for Cowper's religion 
 was entirely due to Evangelical influence. 
 
 Mr. Lecky thinks that the literature of the Evangelical 
 Revival has scarcely obtained an adequate recognition in 
 General literary history. This may be true, but it was not 
 the Sera? wr itten for that purpose. The object for which 
 ture the Methodists and Evangelicals wrote was sim- 
 
 ply to rouse men's consciences and to direct their lives ; 
 ajid-this. object they did to a great extent attain. Their 
 writings must be regarded as a following-up of their 
 preaching ; and those who were affected by the preach- 
 ing found in the writings exactly what they wanted. 
 Those on the other hand who had never been affected 
 by the preaching were not likely to be affected by the 
 writings. Hence, in part at least, the contemptuous 
 jtone which outside critics have adopted towards Evan- 
 gelical literature. When writers and critics view every- 
 thing from an entirely different point of view there can 
 be no harmony between them. You might as well 
 expect a blind man to enjoy a beautiful landscape, or a 
 deaf man to be charmed with the sound of sweet music, 
 as expect those who were outside the Evangelical circle 
 
Literature of the Revival 129 
 
 to appreciate Evangelical literature. ' Perhaps some of 
 the writers were rather too apt to assume that all those 
 were blind who did not see with their eyes, and deaf 
 who did not hear with their ears. This is almost the 
 inevitable result of intense earnestness ; it is apt to 
 degenerate into narrowness. The man who has no 
 particular opinions can afford to regard all opinions 
 with philosophic impartiality ; but what he gains in 
 breadth he loses in depth. At the same time it was 
 a distinct misfortune that the idea should ever have 
 been allowed to prevail that religion was alienated 
 from intellect. ' Every man of the world,' writes 
 Hannah More, c naturally arrogates to himself the 
 superiority of understanding over every religious man. 
 He, therefore, who has been accustomed to set a high 
 value on his intellectual powers must have made very 
 considerable advance in piety before he can acquire a 
 magnanimous indifference to this usurped superiority of 
 another.' l And again, ' It must be owing to a very 
 fortunate combination of circumstances if a man can at 
 once preserve the character of parts and piety, and retain 
 the reputation of a man of sense after he has acquired 
 that of a Christian.' 2 This was the opinion of a sym- 
 pathiser with the movement ; and her opinion is amply 
 borne out by the remarks (far too numerous to quote) of 
 those who stood outside it. It must be owned that the 
 Methodists and Evangelicals had themselves to blame 
 to a great extent that it was so. The forerunner of the 
 Eevival, William Law, set the example of depreciating 
 
 1 'Thoughts on the Manners of the Great.' — Hannah More's 
 WorJis, vol. xi. p. 42. 
 
 2 Works, vol. xi. p. 157. ' Eeligion of the Fashionable World.' 
 C.H. K 
 
130 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 c human learning.' He is never weary of dwelling on the 
 unprofitableness of all studies which are not directly 
 concerned with religion. In a man of great intellectual 
 power and wide and varied culture such utterances 
 only provoke a smile ; but when men of no intellectual 
 power and no culture at all take up the cry, one is apt 
 to be exasperated. It was a very convenient doctrine 
 for men who had neither the training nor the talents 
 nor the tastes to make any mark in the learned world 
 themselves to hold that such eminence was worthless ; 
 but the doctrine is a mischievous one — mischievous to 
 the men themselves, to the men they sneered at, and 
 to the men who were neither learned nor serious. It is 
 absurd to call men like John and Charles Wesley, 
 Fletcher, Coke, Cecil, Romaine, Newton, Venn, Joseph 
 and Isaac Milner, and others that might be named, 
 mere ignorant bigots, for they were all men of culture 
 and attainments ; but some of them (not all) were much 
 too apt to depreciate what, after all, is one of God's 
 highest gifts, intellectual power ; and when the cry 
 was taken up by lesser men, the result unfortunately 
 was that to the outer world the Evangelical cause 
 became identified with weakness of intellect and 
 deficiency of culture. i A symbol of the religion of 
 the illiterate/ writes one of the ablest exponents of 
 the movement. ' Philosophers have called them fools/ 
 writes another. ' Its literature has few readers among 
 the highly educated classes/ writes a third. 
 
The Results of the Revival 131 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 Some — and those the most important — of the results of 
 the Revival it is impossible to tabulate under any defi- 
 Morai and nite formula. Of these it may be said, as John 
 result/ Wesley said of William Law's practical trea- 
 tises : ' Of how great service these have been in reviving 
 and establishing true, rational, scriptural religion cannot 
 fully be known till the Author of that religion shall de- 
 scend in the clouds of Heaven.' Of the faith which 
 enabled a man to abandon the cherished habits of a life- 
 time and to go forth ready to spend and be spent in his 
 Master's service ; which nerved him to overcome the 
 natural fear of death, and, indeed, to welcome the last 
 enemy as his best friend who would introduce him to the 
 better land he had long been living for ; which made the 
 selfish man self-denying, the discontented happy, the 
 worldling spiritually-minded, the drunkard sober, the 
 sensual chaste, the liar truthful, the thief honest, the 
 proud humble, the godless godly, the thriftless thrifty — 
 we can only judge by the fruits which it bore. That 
 such fruits w&re borne is surely undeniable. But it is 
 obviously impossible to describe such cases in detail. 
 We must be content to indicate those results which 
 may be summed up in a general and definite form. 
 
 1. On the Young. — John Wesley, with that true 
 practical instinct which was one secret of his power, 
 Wesley's saw that in order to make his work effectual, 
 education he must begin at the right end of life ; and, 
 therefore, from the very commencement of his labours 
 
132 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 he laid great stress upon the influence that was to be 
 brought to bear upon children. In fact, he anticipated 
 by almost half-a-century the establishment of Sunday 
 Schools, setting up one, which was held in the church, 
 in his parish in Georgia. On his return to England 
 one of his earliest acts after the date which he assigns 
 to the Revival, was to obtain possession of a school at 
 Kingswood in 1740; and to provide for the wants of 
 this school he himself prepared several text-books : ' A 
 Short Latin Grammar,' ' A Short English Grammar,' 
 ' A Short Roman History,' and ' A Concise History of 
 England.' It cannot, however, be said that his efforts 
 either at Kingswood or elsewhere with children were 
 either judicious or successful. In fact they were very 
 much the reverse. One would have thought that his 
 own early training at Epworth rectory under his in- 
 comparable mother would have taught him better. He 
 might have remembered that though the strictest dis- 
 cipline was enforced, there was nothing there of those 
 absurd regulations which entirely prohibited all play ; 
 that he had never learned there that most fallacious 
 maxim of his, c He that plays when he is a boy, will 
 play when he grows to be a man ; ' that there was 
 nothing there of that unwholesome excitement which 
 he too much encouraged, of those rigorous fastings 
 which were calculated permanently to injure the health 
 of growing children ; of that working upon the tender 
 nature of the young, the accounts of which in his Jour- 
 nal are sometimes positively revolting. But Wesley, 
 in this as in many other respects, toned down in his 
 later years ; his errors in the treatment of the young 
 were errors of the judgment, not of the heart. He 
 
The Results of the Revival 133 
 
 always loved little children dearly ; and he took a warm 
 interest in the Sunday Schools which were beginning 
 to be established everywhere when he was an old 
 man. 
 
 The first establishment of these Sunday Schools 
 cannot be attributed to the Revival, bat the Revival 
 Sunday gave an enormous stimulus to the scheme, 
 the Revival The Wesleyan Societies took up the Sunday 
 Schools warmly, and the Evangelical clergy were the 
 very life and soul of them in their several parishes. 
 Hannah More, ably assisted by her sister, Patty, was 
 most persistent, in spite of much opposition, in her 
 efforts to promote the education of the young in the 
 neighbourhood of Cheddar ; and, in fact, the whole of 
 the Evangelical school paid marked attention to this 
 most important point. 
 
 2. The Abolition of the Slave-trade is almost en- 
 tirely due to Evangelical principles. 3^ nne doing full 
 The siave- justice to the noble efforts made by the 
 trade Quakers many years before the work of "Wil- 
 
 liam Wilberforce, by Thomas Clarkson, by both Pitt 
 and Fox — it was not often that those two great rival 
 statesmen agreed, but they did on this point — by Lord 
 Grenville, by Earl Grey, by Henry Brougham, and by 
 others, we jnust s till ajjnikjthat the real success of the 
 effortjyas due to the unw earied energy of Wilberforce ; 
 th at the energy of_ Wilberforce was both awakened and 
 sustained by his religious convictions ; and that his 
 religious convictions were entirely due to the Evan- 
 gelical school. His most efficient helper in Parliament 
 was Henry Thornton, also a noted Evangelical ; and 
 Zachary Macaulay and all the so-called ' Clapham sect ' 
 
134 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 took up the cause most warmly. Nor must we forget 
 the indirect but very real aid which was given to the 
 scheme by the Evangelical poet, William Cowper. His 
 writings were read by many who never read a line of 
 directly Evangelical literature, and he thus tended to 
 form public opinion in a way which those who were 
 only known as Evangelicals could not possibly do. 
 
 3. The Religious Tract Society was the direct re- 
 sult of the Evangelical Revival. It was founded in 
 Religious 1799, Rowland Hill bein^ the chairman of its 
 
 Tract 
 
 society first committee. This was not, of course, the 
 first attempt to make use of this species of literature 
 to permeate the masses. The Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge was already a century old, and 
 had, from the beginning of its existence, circulated 
 tracts. Indeed, the virtual originator of the Society, 
 Dr. Bray, is said to have c sent to America upwards of 
 thirty-four thousand books and tracts, to be dispersed 
 among the inhabitants.' l John Wesley had been a 
 diligent writer and systematic distributor of tracts 
 more than fifty years before the Society was born. In 
 1745, he says: 'We had within a short time given 
 away some thousands of little tracts among the com- 
 mon people, and it pleased God thereby to provoke 
 others to jealousy ; insomuch that the Lord Mayor had 
 ordered a large quantity of papers, dissuading from 
 cursing and swearing, to be printed and distributed 
 among the train-bands.' His preachers c were fur- 
 nished with these short, plain messengers of mercy, as 
 part of the equipment with which their saddle-bags 
 
 1 PuUlcli Spirit illustrated in the Life and Designs of Dr. Bray, 
 p. 80. 
 
The Results of the Revival 135 
 
 were stored.' * Indeed, lie had actually established, in 
 conjunction with Dr. Coke, a sort of Tract Society in 
 1782, which he called 'The Society for the Distribution 
 of Eeligious Tracts among the Poor.' Hannah More 
 had written a series of tracts which she published 
 periodically until 1798 (the year before the birth of 
 the Society), under the title of the i Cheap Expository 
 Tracts.' But the Religious Tract Society was the 
 largest and most permanent of the institutions, the 
 exclusive function of which was to circulate tracts. 
 
 4. Two Bible Societies were the results of the interest 
 in the Holy Scriptures awakened by the Revival. The 
 Bible first in date was the Naval and Military Bible 
 
 Iwand Society, which was founded in 1780, and was 
 Military probably occasioned by the effect produced 
 by Methodism upon the British Army, which has been 
 already noticed. Within twenty years of its foundation 
 it had circulated no less than thirty thousand copies of 
 the Bible. 
 
 The British and Foreign Bible Society was not 
 founded until 1804, but the circumstances which led to 
 British and i ts formation date from 1787, when a London 
 Bibie ga clergyman was applied to by a brother clergy- 
 society man i n ^yal es for a supply of Bibles in the 
 Welsh tongue. It was found that there was a great 
 scarcity of Welsh Bibles. This led on to the more general 
 plan of supplying Bibles elsewhere, and hence arose the 
 foundation of a society, c of which the sole object shall 
 be to encourage a wider diffusion of the Holy Scriptures.' 
 The names of those who were most prominent in its 
 
 1 See The Wesley Memorial Volume, edited by Dr. J. O. A. Clark 
 (New York), pp. 315, 316 — * Wesley and his Literature.' 
 
136 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 establishment will be sufficient to show how closely it 
 was connected with the Evangelical Kevival. We 
 find among them Lord Teignmouth its first president, 
 Josiah Pratt one of its first secretaries, — both strong, 
 Evangelical Churchmen — William Wilberforce, Charles 
 Grant (afterwards Lord Glenelg), Thomas Charles, a 
 clergyman, who was also a Calvinistic Methodist. It 
 is fair, however, to add that the first person who sug- 
 gested a general circulation of the Scriptures, as opposed 
 to a mere supply of Welsh Bibles, was Joseph Hughes, 
 a Baptist minister, and therefore not of course connected 
 with the Revival. Also among its first vice-presidents 
 were the Bishops of London, Exeter, and St. David's, the 
 two latter of whom can in no way, and the first can 
 only in a very modified way, be reckoned as belonging 
 to the Evangelical school. 
 
 5. The work of Foreign Missions received an im- 
 mense stimulus from the Evangelical Kevival. The 
 Foreign Revival itself may be said to have originated 
 
 Missions : — . „ . _ 1 _ , . . 
 
 wesieyan in a foreign mission, ior the Wesley s visit to 
 Georgia was intended especially for missionary work, 
 though very little work in that direction was done. In 
 1786, Dr. Coke, whose speciality was missionary work, 
 issued an ' Address to the Pious and Benevolent, propos- 
 ing an Annual Subscription for the Support of Mission- 
 aries in the Highlands and adjacent Islands of Scotland ; 
 the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, and Newfoundland ; the 
 West Indies, and the Provinces of Nova Scotia and 
 Quebec.' ' A Mission intended to be established in the 
 British Dominions in Asia ' was also projected, but, for 
 a time, postponed. This led to the establishment in 
 17S7 of what were termed 'Missions established by 
 
The Results of the Revival 137 
 
 the Methodist Society.' At the Conference of 1790, a 
 committee of nine preachers, of which Dr. Coke was 
 chairman, was appointed to take charge of the matter. 
 Among the first subscribers are found the names of 
 many leading Evangelicals : William Wilberforce, the 
 two Thorntons, Berridge of Everton, the Earl of Dart- 
 mouth, and others; but it was not till 1817 that 'The 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society,' under its present title 
 and with its present organisation was founded. It has 
 so thriven that in England the Church Missionary 
 Society alone exceeds it in annual collections for the 
 foreign field — a very creditable fact considering that 
 Methodism has for the most part drawn its converts 
 from the less opulent classes of society. Dr. Coke, it 
 should be said, was himself a missionary. He visited 
 Nova Scotia, and also some of the West India Islands, 
 for the express purpose of instructing the negroes, and 
 in 1804 he published an interesting account of the 
 difficulties he and his fellow-Methodists met with, en- 
 titled ' Eise, Progress, and Present State of the 
 Methodist Missions.' 
 
 The ' London Missionary Society ' was also the out- 
 come of the Evangelical Revival. It was founded in 
 London 1795 on a broad basis, which included Dis- 
 sockty ary senters as well as Churchmen (all Methodists, 
 it should be remembered, whether Wesleyan, Welsh 
 Calvinistic, or English Evangelical, would then fall 
 under the latter head). Henry Venn the younger thus 
 describes its formation : — 'In 1795, some of the clergy 
 usually termed Evangelical united with Dissenters in 
 establishing the London Missionary Society upon the 
 principle of an union of all Denominations of Orthodox 
 
138 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Christians. The first meeting for its establishment 
 was held 21st September, but the great body of the 
 Evangelical clergy could not unite in the plan.' The 
 Evangelicals never held other than a friendly attitude 
 towards the London Missionary Society. It became, 
 however, more and more exclusively Dissenting, and is 
 now supported mainly by the Congregationalists, whose 
 special organ for missionary purposes it is. 
 
 But, of course, the most characteristic and distinctive 
 product of the Evangelical Kevival in the department 
 church of Foreign Missions was the Church Missionary 
 society Society, founded in 1799. It will not be out 
 of proportion to describe its rise at some length, and in 
 doing so it will be impossible to do better than to 
 borrow largely from the account of one who, of all men 
 in the world, had a right to speak with authority on 
 such a point — Henry Venn, the son of the virtual 
 founder, and himself, for many years, the most indefa- 
 tigable and efficient clerical secretary of the Society, 
 particularly as his account also gives us incidentally a 
 vivid and interesting picture of the life and mind of the 
 Evangelicals of that day. ' The immediate origination,' 
 he writes, ' of the Church Missionary Society is closely 
 connected with the history of a Society, formed by a few 
 London clergy for religious intercourse and improve- 
 ment, whose leading object was the investigation of 
 religious truth ; in reference to which design they 
 adopted the title of the " Eclectic Society." This society 
 held its first meeting 16th January, 1783, at the Castle 
 and Falcon, Aldersgate Street, and consisted of the 
 Rev. John Newton, Rev. H. Foster, Rev. R. Cecil, and 
 Eli Bates, Esq.' He then gives some interesting rules 
 
The Results of the Revival 139 
 
 adopted by the society, one of which was that no visitors 
 were to be admitted unless balloted for at a previous 
 meeting, the single exception being the case of a 
 missionary. The question appointed for discussion on 
 October 30, 1786, was: ' What is the best method of 
 planting and propagating the Gospel in Botany Bay ? ' — 
 with a view to the Rev. R. Johnson [a missionary] 
 whose company was desired for the next evening.' 
 Then in 1789, February 16, we have the question dis- 
 cussed : ' What is the best method of propagating the 
 Gospel in the East Indies ? ' And in the autumn of 1791, 
 i What is the best method of propagating the Gospel in 
 Africa ? ' The next notice which has been discovered of 
 any united counsel or effort on the part of the Evan- 
 gelical clergy in this cause is in connection with a 
 clerical meeting held at Rauceby in Lincolnshire [it is, 
 by the way, a curious fact that Lincolnshire played a 
 prominent part in the foundation both of the Society 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and 
 also of the Church Missionary Society], on May 6 and 7, 
 1795. The Rev. Mr. Pugh was incumbent of Rauceby ; 
 and the clerical meeting was attended by the Rev. T. 
 Robinson (Leicester), the Rev. S. Knight (Halifax), the 
 Rev. C. Simeon (Cambridge), all leading Evangelicals. 
 At this meeting Mr. Pugh stated that a legacy of 4,000/. 
 had been left ' to be laid out to the best advantage to 
 the interests of true religion.' The matter was laid 
 before the Eclectic Society in London, at which Mr, 
 Simeon proposed the question : ' With what propriety, 
 and in what mode, can a Mission be attempted to the 
 Heathen from the Established Church ?' The difficulty 
 of procuring proper men, the uncertainty of obtaining 
 
140 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 the sanction of the heads of the Church, the fear of 
 interfering with the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and other points, were 
 discussed ; but the result was that this conversation 
 proved the foundation of the Church Missionary Society. 
 The name was not adopted until ] 812. It was at first 
 called the Missionary Society for Africa and the East. 
 On February 18, 1799, the subject was again brought 
 before the Eclectic Society, and John Venn, who was 
 in the chair, formally proposed the formation of a 
 Missionary Society, and laid down some excellent 
 principles for its establishment. He was supported 
 by Josiah Pratt, Charles Simeon, and others, and at 
 another meeting, on April 12, under the presidency of 
 Mr. Venn, the society was established, — with what 
 success it is unnecessary here to record. 
 
 6. Another very real and beneficial result of the 
 Evangelical Revival was the large share it had in 
 Eevoiutiou- checking the growth of the revolutionary and 
 sceptical sceptical spirit which seemed likely to spread 
 checked from France into England at the close of the 
 eighteenth century. _The deistical opinions passed over 
 from England into France, and, having been exploded 
 in the former country, appeared in a much more aggra- 
 vated form, and mixed up with social questions as they 
 luid^ not been here, in the latter. Indeed, they soon 
 passed beyond the stage of deism altogether, and^cub- 
 minated in the total abnegation of Christianity and 
 the setting up of the goddess Reason. The influence of 
 such men as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Condillac, and 
 all the Encyclopedists was incomparably greater and 
 
The Results of the Revival 141 
 
 more d estructice-ikaa-tliat of iiii^of the_Englishjdeists. 
 They had also grievances and abuses to work upon, 
 such as the latter had not, and their sentiments, having 
 thoroughly revolutionised France, travelled over into 
 this country, and, by. the instrumentality of men like 
 Thomas Paine, would undoubtedly have affected the 
 lower and middle classes far more deeply and widely 
 thaii.they did, had it not been for the counter-influences 
 of the Evangelical Revival. It is not pretended that 
 the Revival was the sole cause of their very different 
 reception here and in France. The very excesses 
 which they produced in France caused here a reaction 
 of feeling among many cultured men, who were not in 
 the least touched by the Revival. Coleridge, Southey, 
 Wordsworth, and others at first deeply sympathised 
 with the rising spirit of liberty in France before it de- 
 generated into licence ; and Edmund Burke, though he 
 never showed so marked a sympathy with the French 
 Revolutionists, may be fairly presumed, from his ante- 
 cedents, to have been so far in accord with them as to 
 regard with a favourable eve the first efforts against 
 oppression and tyranny across the Channel. But all 
 these great men, when they saw the reckless course 
 which things took, experienced a violent revulsion of 
 feeling, for which the Evangelical Revival was as- 
 suredly in no degree responsible. The refined writings 
 and feelings, however, of such men as these did not in 
 the least affect the masses. And it was of incalculable 
 benefit to the nation that such a power as Methodism 
 existed just at the time when otherwise the revolu- 
 tionary torrent would have swept away multitudes in its 
 course. In fact, Methodism was a sort of safety-valve 
 
1 42 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 through which many let off their superfluous steam. 
 Many a man, who, under different circumstances, 
 would have been haranguing about the rights of man, 
 was happily preoccupied with a far more noble subject 
 — the love of God. But this was not all. Nothing 
 distinguished more markedly the earlier Puritanism 
 from the later Methodism than the very different atti- 
 tudes which they adopted in regard to social and 
 political questions. John Wesley and John Fletcher 
 took, as we have seen, a very decided stand on the 
 Loyalist side, in the matter of the American war. They 
 did not live long enough to see the far more destructive 
 effects of the revolutionary spirit in France; but they 
 fullyjnipressed their loyal and conservative spirit upon 
 their followers ; and none of the Methodists showed the 
 slightest trace of sympathy with revolutionary prin- 
 ciples in England. Their influence, which over the 
 lower classes was very large and constantly increasing, 
 was all exercised in a totally different direction. As to 
 the Evangelicals, they were anti-revolutionary to a 
 man, and contributed much towards keeping the upper 
 classes free from the contagion. Few of them, indeed, 
 meddled directly with the subject at all ; but their 
 whole tone of mind, and the whole tendency of their 
 teaching, were of a strictly loyal character. Hannah 
 More, with the strong approbation of the whole 
 Evangelical party, published her ' Village Politics, or 
 Will Chip,' in 1792, with the express object of check- 
 ing the growth of French Revolutionary principles 
 among the lower classes ; and so great was the effect of 
 this work that it was considered to have contributed 
 largely to prevent a revolution in England. Moreover, 
 
The Results of the Revival 143 
 
 the sale of her poetical works is said to have been 
 1 much promoted by the zeal of some good people, who 
 believed that in the outbreak of the French Revolution 
 her writing's were calculated to be of great service.' 
 Cowper's poetry was all of an intensely loyal character. 
 No one who read him would mistake his attitude ; 
 and sometimes, as in the pleasing lines ' On the Queen's 
 visit to London, the night of March 17, 1789,' he 
 touches directly upon the subject. 
 
 7. The effects of the Evangelical Revival upon the 
 Church of England were very marked. Mr. Lecky 
 Effects on goes so far as to say that the__JEyangelicals 
 of England 'gradually changed the whole spirit of the 
 English Church. Thev infused into it a new fire and 
 passion of devotion, kindled a spirit of fervent philan- 
 thropy, raised the standard of clerical duty, and com- 
 pletely altered the whole tone and tendency of the 
 preaching of its ministers.' But it must not be for- 
 gotten that there was never wanting a large body of 
 quiet, pious, old-fashioned Churchmen, who had no sym- 
 pathy with the Calvinism of the Evangelicals ; but, in 
 their own way, were doing a vast amount of good. The 
 mere fact that such men as Edmund Burke, Samuel 
 Johnson, 1 Robert Southey, men with a deep sense of re- 
 ligion, were perfectly satisfied with the Church as it was, 
 and were in no way touched by the Revival, is a proof 
 of this. The ablest theological writers of the day, such 
 as Bishop Horsley, Bishop Lowth, Bishop Home, Mr. 
 Jones of Nayland, Archdeacon Paley, were not found 
 
 1 At any rate Dr. Johnson was not affected by the Revival until 
 just before his death; the remark in the text applies to the whole 
 course of his life. 
 
144 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 among the Evangelical party. Nevertheless the Revival 
 did largely affect the Church, and that in two ways : 
 first, by adding to its body a number of most earnest, 
 active, self-denying men of blameless lives, who would 
 have been an honour to any religious community, and 
 who were deeply attached to what they considered to be 
 the teaching of the Church ; and secondly, by directing 
 the attention of those who held aloof from the move- 
 ment to truths which had been too much placed in the 
 background. We have evidence of its influence in this 
 direction, even as early as 1758, when Archbishop 
 Seeker in his charge to the Diocese of Canterbury 
 speaks of ' the new sect pretending to the strictest 
 piety,' and urges his clergy ' to emulate what is good 
 in them, avoiding what is bad ; to edify their parishioners 
 with awakening, but rational and scriptural, discourses ; 
 to teach the principles, not only of virtue and natural 
 religion, but of the Gospel, not as almost refined away 
 by the modern refiner, but the truth as it is in Jesus, 
 and as it is taught by the Church.' He then impresses 
 upon them the duty of vindicating such doctrines as those 
 of the Trinity, Christ's Sacrifice, and Sanctification by the 
 Spirit, and adds, ' The truth, I fear, is that many, if not 
 most, of us have dwelt too little on these doctrines in 
 our sermons ; by no means, I believe, as disbelieving or 
 slighting them, but partly from knowing that formerly 
 they had been inculcated beyond their proportion, 
 and even to the disparagement of Christian obedience, 
 partly from fancying them so generally received and 
 remembered that little needs to be said but on social 
 obligations ; partly, again, from not having studied 
 theology deeply enough to treat of them ably and 
 
The Results oe the Revival 145 
 
 beneficially. God grant it may never have been 
 for want of inwardly experiencing their importance. 
 But, whatever the cause, the effect hath been lamentable. 
 Our people have grown less and less mindful (1) of 
 the distinguishing articles of their creed ; (2) as will 
 always be the case, of that one which they hold in 
 common with the heathens ; they have forgotten, in 
 effect, their Creator as well as their Redeemer and 
 Sanctifier ; seldom or never worshipping him, or think- 
 ing of their souls in relation to him; but flattering 
 themselves that what they are pleased to call a moral 
 and harmless life, though far from being either, is the 
 one thing needful. Our vindication will be to preach 
 fully and frequently these doctrines, yet so as to reserve 
 a due share to the duties of common life, which, it is 
 reported, some of our censurers do not. We must en- 
 force them mainly by Christian motives.' 
 
 No apology is, it is hoped, needed for quoting at some 
 length this passage and those which follow. We are far 
 too apt to despise these old eighteenth-century divines as 
 mere legalists, who did not understand, and therefore, of 
 course, laid no stress upon, the distinctive doctrines of 
 Christianity. Nothing can be more untrue ; they did 
 understand and appreciate them ; and if many of the 
 clergy did not duly enforce them, Archbishop Seeker 
 gives us the true causes — in what lucid, dignified, and 
 deeply earnest language, the appreciative reader of the 
 above admirable passage need not be told. 
 
 To the same effect Archdeacon Paley in his seventh 
 William charge, many years later, comments upon the 
 Paiey preaching of that period : ' We are setting up 
 
 a kind of philosophical morality, detached from religion, 
 
 a 11. l 
 
146 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 and independent of its influence, which may be culti- 
 vated, it is said, without Christianity, as well as with it, 
 and which, if cultivated, renders religion and religious 
 institutions superfluous. We are in such haste to fly 
 from enthusiasm and superstition, that we are approach- 
 ing to an insensibility to all religious influence. I do 
 not mean to advise you to bring men back to enthu- 
 siasm, but to retard, if you can, the progress towards 
 an opposite and worse extreme.' l 
 
 And, once more, Bishop Horsley, in his first 
 charge to the diocese of S. David's, dwells on the same 
 Bishop subject in that pure, clear, and incisive style 
 
 Horsiey £ ^^ \ ie was so consummate a master : 
 i A dread of the pernicious tendency of some extravagant 
 opinions, which persons more to be esteemed for the 
 warmth of their piety than the soundness of their judg- 
 ment, have grafted in modern times upon the doctrine 
 of justification by faith — opinions which seem to eman- 
 cipate the believer from the authority of all moral law, 
 hath given credit to another maxim, which I never hear 
 without extreme regret from the lips of a divine, either 
 from the pulpit or in familiar conversation, namely, 
 that practical religion and morality are one and the 
 same thing, that moral duties constitute the whole or 
 by far the better part of practical Christianity. This 
 reduces practical Christianity to heathen virtue. These 
 maxims, as far as they are received, have a per- 
 nicious influence on the ministry of the Word, and 
 have contributed much to divest our sermons of the 
 genuine spirit and savour of Christianity, and to reduce 
 them to mere moral essays. Moral duties enforced 
 
 1 See vol. vii. « Charge VI.V in Paley's WorJis in 7 vols. 
 
The Results of the Revival 147 
 
 by sucli arguments nowhere appear to so much advan- 
 tage as in the writings of the heathen moralists, and 
 are quite out of place in the pulpit. The system 
 chiefly in request with those who seem most in earnest 
 in this strain of preaching is the strict but imprac- 
 ticable and sullen morality of the Stoic. Thus it too 
 often happens that we lose sight of that which is our 
 proper office, to publish the word of reconciliation. We 
 make no other use of the high commission we bear 
 than to come abroad, one day in the seven, dressed in 
 solemn looks and in the garb of holiness, to be the apes 
 of Epictetus. I flatter myself we are in a state of re- 
 covery from the delusion. The compositions which are 
 at this day delivered from our pulpits are, I think, in 
 general of a more Christian cast than were often heard 
 thirty years since, when I entered the ministry. Still 
 the dry strain of preaching is too much in use. It has 
 been the fashion to suppose a want of capacity in com- 
 mon people to be carried any great length in religious 
 knowledge. Creation, preservation, and future punish- 
 ment the vulgar may comprehend; but the Trinity, 
 Incarnation, Expiation, Intercession, and Communion 
 with the Holy Spirit are supposed above their reach.' 
 
 Such passages as the above (to which many more 
 of a like tenor might be added) have a direct and 
 Effects on m ost important bearing upon the Evangelical 
 SiTo 110 Revival, because they show how that Revival 
 Sufth? influenced men who had no particular sym- 
 Eevivai pathy with it, and how it drew the notice of 
 Churchmen generally to truths which had been, not so 
 much forgotten, as assumed to be universally admitted, 
 and therefore not requiring special enforcement — a most 
 
 l 2 
 
148 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 fallacious notion. If anyone thinks that the fear of 
 Bishop Horsley expressed in the first clause of the above 
 extract was uncalled-for, he has only to turn to Thomas 
 Scott's sermons, not against Calvinism, but against the 
 prevalent abuses of Calvinism, and he will soon see that 
 there was cause enough for alarm. Or, let him take 
 the same writer's account of the spiritual state of Olney : 
 ' There are above two thousand inhabitants in this town, 
 almost all Calvinists, even the most debauched of them, 
 the Gospel having been preached among them for a 
 number of years by a variety of preachers, statedly and 
 occasionally, sound and unsound, in church and meeting. 
 The inhabitants are become like David, wiser than their 
 teachers ; that is, they think themselves so, and in an 
 awful manner have learned to abuse Gospel notions, to 
 stupefy their consciences, vindicate their sloth and 
 wickedness, and shield oft' conviction.' Most assuredly, 
 however, the general result of Evangelical principles 
 was not to make men slothful and selfish; on the 
 contrary, these principles infused a spirit of active 
 philanthropy into the Church, which had been, since 
 the time of good Robert Nelson, too dormant. Proofs 
 of this have been given in the account of the various 
 societies which were established ; but their energetic 
 charity did not stop there ; it embraced a vast range of 
 subjects. It is said of the good men of Clapham that 
 ' schools, prison discipline, savings' banks, tracts, village 
 libraries, district visitings, and church buildings, each 
 for a time rivalled their cosmopolitan projects. Every 
 human interest had its guardian, every region of the 
 globe its representative.' And the same spirit of active 
 benevolence spread among the Evangelicals throughout 
 
The Results of the Revival 149 
 
 the country. In fact, it is undeniable that they aroused 
 within the Church, not only a spirit of fervent piety, 
 but also a practical energy, which extended to good 
 works of all kinds, and not always of an exclusively 
 religious character. 
 
 At the same time, it was inevitable that another 
 movement should arise, supplementary rather than 
 a ?uppie- antagonistic to the Evangelical movement, if 
 nlovemcnt people honestly desired to be guided by the 
 inevitable church's directions. For, to say the least of 
 it, the Evangelicals only brought into prominence one 
 side of the Church's teaching. No one can enter 
 thoroughly into the Church's meaning, who does not 
 follow out carefully and reverently the course prescribed 
 in the Church's year. Now the Evangelicals obviously 
 did not attach the slightest value to the Church's course. 
 Take any of the numerous volumes of sermons, or any 
 of the devotional works they have left us, and you will 
 find, as a rule, that course simply ignored. We could 
 not have a better illustration than the Olney Hymns. 
 The preface clearly intimates that they were written 
 primarily, though not exclusively, for use in public 
 worship. The compiler (and composer of the majority 
 of them), the excellent John Newton, ' more particularly 
 dedicates them to his dear friends in the parish and 
 neighbourhood of Olney, for whose use the hymns were j 
 originally composed.' They may therefore be regarded \ 
 as a specimen of the way in which a thoroughly repre- 
 sentative Evangelical clergyman would train his parish- 
 ioners to be good Churchpeople. Book I. is filled with 
 hymns on c Select Passages of Scripture,' that is, hymns 
 on texts from every book in the Bible in turn, from 
 
150 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Genesis to Revelation ; of this little need be said, except 
 what Fuller said of Sternhold and others, that their 
 ' piety was better than their poetry, and they had drank 
 more of Jordan than of Helicon.' But Book II. beo-ins 
 with a number of hymns on l Seasons,' — presumably 
 Church Seasons, as they are written by a clergyman for 
 the edification of his parishioners, and to be used by 
 them in the Church services. The first season then, it 
 appears, is the ' New Year,' which is markedly omitted 
 in the Prayer-book, the Church's year beginning at 
 Advent. After an inordinately large number of hymns 
 on this season, which is no Church season at all, the 
 next seasons are winter, spring, summer, hay-time, 
 harvest. Then it seems to have dawned upon the good 
 man that the Church, of which he was a minister, says 
 something about Christmas ; so we have three hymns — 
 only three, while the New Year has at least thirty — 
 more or less appropriate to Christmas, and then we pass 
 on to another Church season, i Saturday evening,' and 
 then to one more, ' The Close of the Year.' Positively 
 not one word in the ' Seasons ' of Advent, Epiphany, 
 Lent, Good Friday, Eastertide, Whitsuntide ! 
 
 We pass from ' Seasons ' to ' Ordinances,' and among 
 these are seven — only seven — c Sacramental Hymns/ 
 Newton on anc ^ mos t of these have very little to do with 
 'Ordinances' ^iq Sacraments. One says naturally ' Sacra- 
 ments,' but it would appear that, according to Newton, 
 there was only one Sacrament ; for not one word is 
 there about Baptism in any of these ' Sacramental 
 Hymns.' Indeed, it would seem as if Baptism were 
 not only no Sacrament, but not even an ' Ordinance,' 
 for there is nothing about it in the ' Ordinances.' The 
 
The Results of the Revival 151 
 
 present writer will hardly be suspected of prejudice 
 against Newton, whose character he admires and loves ; 
 but really, if this is a specimen of Church teaching, 
 something supplementary, at any rate, was required. 
 
 Neither Methodists nor Evangelicals expressed them- 
 selves in the least degree dissatisfied with the doctrines 
 cimrch svs- °f the- Church of England. They did not 
 fuu/carriea wish, like the Puritans of the seventeenth 
 out century, to alter either liturgy, articles, or 
 
 rubrics ; but tlitiy had no sense whatever of the beauty 
 and symmetry of her system ; they made no attempt to 
 carry out that system in all its details ; and, above all, 
 they placed, to say the least of it, those two Sacraments, 
 which the Church expressly teaches her little children 
 to regard ' as generally necessary to salvation,' on a far 
 lower level than any unprejudiced student of the Prayer- 
 book could possibly do. 
 
 Oddly enough the one man who did show a marked 
 
 appreciation of the Church's system is also the one man, 
 
 who, unintentionally it may be, but very really, 
 
 leys appre- is responsible for the greatest secession from 
 
 ciation of * . ° . 
 
 the cimrch the Church in modem times, John Wesley. 
 This appreciation is shown by innumerable 
 passages in his Journals — passages, by-the-way, which 
 occur quite as frequently after 1738 as before. Here 
 are a few specimens: 'Easter, 1777 — During the 
 Octave I administered the Lord's Supper every morn- 
 ing after the example of the Primitive Church.' < Christ- 
 mas, 1773 — We had many opportunities of celebrating 
 the Solemn Feast Days' [that is, of course, Christmas 
 Day, S. Stephen's, S. John the Evangelist's, and Holy 
 Innocents'] ' according to the design of their institution.' 
 
:sthetic 
 
 'ft 
 
 152 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 (There is a similar entry in 1774.) 'Nov. 1, 1767 — 
 Being All Saints' Day (a festival I dearly love) I could 
 not but observe the admirable propriety with which the ' 
 Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are suited to each other.' 
 'Nov. 1, 1766 — God, who hath knit together His elect j 
 in one communion and fellowship, gave us a solemn * 
 season in praising Him for all His Saints.' ' Friday, 
 Oct. 12, 1739 — We had a refreshing meeting with 
 many of our Societies, who fail not to observe, as health 
 permits, the weekly fast of our Church, and will do so, 
 by God's help, as long as they call themselv r es members 
 of it. And would to God all who contend for the rites 
 and ceremonies of the Church, perhaps with more zeal 
 than meekness of wisdom, would first show their own 
 regard for her discipline in this more important branch 
 of it.' And so one might go on quoting, almost ad 
 infinitum ; but one might search in vain for any such 
 expressions of appreciation in the writings of others 
 connected with the Evangelical Revival, with the ex- 
 ception perhaps of Charles Wesley. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that in external mat- 
 ters such as the architecture and adornment of churches 
 want of the Evangelical Revival did nothing. Con- 
 
 taste sidering the general bad taste in the arts 
 
 which prevailed during the eighteenth century, it is 
 perhaps as well that the desire to meddle with those 
 grand old Gothic buildings which are the glory of 
 England was not encouraged. One trembles at the 
 very thought of such buildings being hacked about to 
 suit the taste of the last century. The erection of a 
 hideous gallery, in order to accommodate the crowds 
 who flocked to hear their favourite preacher was generally 
 
The Results of the Revival 153 
 
 tlie extent of the defacement which, was effected ; and 
 happily such defacement could be removed, without 
 having done any serious damage, when a better taste 
 set in. There was no disposition to follow the evil 
 example of the Puritans of the seventeenth century, 
 whose injuries to our parish churches are irreparable. 
 The Methodists proper were content with their own 
 c preaching-houses,' and the Evangelicals, so long a3 
 they had pulpit to preach in, and space to hold the 
 congregation, who came to hear them, were content to 
 leave the buildings alone. 
 
 The effects of the Revival upon the Dissenting 
 interest were at least as marked as upon the Church of 
 Effects on England. That interest was at a very low 
 
 the Dissent- ,, , , _, . , , T Z. , 
 
 ing interest ebb when the Revival began. Isaac lay lor 
 asserts with truth that ' it was rapidly in course to be 
 found nowhere but in books ; ' and what there was of it 
 was in a very unsatisfactory condition. Latitudina- 
 rianism and Socinianism had deeply affected most of 
 the sects. Calamy, himself a Dissenter, laments that 
 1 the heats among Dissenting ministers were perfectly 
 scandalous,' and there was an exodus of many of their 
 best men — Seeker and Butler, subsequently two of our 
 most distinguished prelates, among the number — to the 
 Church. Both Methodists and Evangelicals largely re- 
 vived the drooping cause. Much as John Wesley was 
 attached to the Church of his baptism, it is clear that 
 some of his leading principles were more adapted to 
 make men Dissenters than Churchmen. He calls it ' a 
 glorying peculiar to us ' that ' there is no other Religious 
 Society under Heaven which requires nothing of men 
 in order to admission to it but a desire to save souls : 
 
154 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 not opinions — we tliink and let think; nor modes of 
 worship, &c.' Whether there were any other society or 
 not, the Church of England with its creeds and ritual 
 was certainly not that society. Still more would White- 
 field's preaching encourage men at least as much to 
 become Dissenters as Churchmen. Henry Venn was 
 at one time in the habit of attending an Independent 
 meeting. John Newton at first thought of joining 
 some Dissenting communion ; and if his difficulties in 
 obtaining Holy Orders had not been removed, he would 
 have done so. William Wilberforce sometimes attended 
 other places of worship than the Church. William 
 Grimshaw actually built a Methodist chapel and a 
 house for the preacher in his own parish, and within 
 a stone's-throw of the parish church. In short, jjhe_ 
 Evangelicals, like the Methodists, regarded the Church 
 of England simply as one out of many Protestant bodies, 
 and as this was the Dissenting, not the Church, view 
 the principles obviously led to the increase of Dissent. 
 Lady Huntingdon's college at Trevecca can 
 
 Trevecca 
 
 really be regarded as little else than a train- 
 ing college for Dissenting ministers. It is true that 
 her object was to have her students trained in such a 
 way that they might enter any ministry ; but it is 
 obvious that such a vague training would be more 
 likely to make them Dissenters than Churchmen. And 
 as a matter of fact it did. Berridge warns her of this 
 in a very outspoken and characteristic fashion ; and he 
 also implies that his own and kindred clergymen's efforts 
 would have the same effect. His prophecy soon became 
 history, and is worth quoting in full : ' You say the 
 Lord is sending many Gospel labourers into the Church. 
 
The Results of the Revival 155 
 
 True, and with a view of calling His people out of it, 
 because, when such ministers are removed by death or 
 transferred to another vineyard, I see no fresh Gospel 
 labourers succeed them, which obliges the forsaken 
 flocks to fly to a meeting. And what else can they 
 do ? If they have tasted of manna and hungered for 
 it they cannot feed on heathen chaff, nor yet on legal 
 crusts, though baked by some starch Pharisee quite up 
 to perfection. What has become of Mr. Venn's York- 
 shire flock ? What will become of his Yelling flock, or 
 of my flocks at our decease ? Or what will become of 
 your students at your removal ? They are virtual Dis- 
 senters now, and will be settled Dissenters then. And 
 the same will happen to many, perhaps most, of Mr. 
 Wesley's preachers at his death. He rules like a real 
 Alexander, and is now stepping forth with a flaming 
 torch ; but we do not read in history of two Alexanders 
 succeeding each other. " But," you reply, " some of my 
 best preachers leave me in my lifetime." Perhaps they 
 may. God did well in sending some preachers from 
 the Methodist mint among the Dissenters to revive a 
 drooping cause. Be glad, my lady ! Lift not up your 
 hand against them for the Lord's sake, nor yet for 
 consistency's sake, because your students are as real 
 Dissenting preachers as any in the land, unless a gown 
 and bands can make a clergyman.' l i Our ministers 
 must come,' writes her ladyship in 1781, c recom- 
 mended by that neutrality between Church and Dissent — 
 secession.' And again in 1782 : — ' Mr. Wills's secession 
 from the Church (for which he is the most highly 
 
 1 Quoted in The Life anil Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon, 
 by a member of the houses of Shirley and Hastings, vol. ii. p. 423. 
 
156 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 favoured of all from the noble and disinterested motives 
 that engaged his honest and faithful conscience for the 
 Lord's unlimited service) brings about an ordination of 
 such students as are alike disposed to labour in the 
 place and appointed for those congregations. The 
 method of these appears the best calculated for the 
 comfort of the students and to serve the congregations 
 most usefully, and is contrived to prevent any bondage 
 to the people or minister. The objections to the Dis- 
 senters' plan are many, and to the Church more; 
 that secession means the neutrality between both, and 
 so materially offensive to neither.' 1 Her ladyship's 
 position is really as odd as her style, which is saying 
 much. Neutrality was an impossibility, the distinction 
 which she draws between secession and separation from 
 the Church being surely a distinction without a difference. 
 And the result proved it. Of Wales, where the Coun- 
 tess's college was, the biographer of Whitefield asserts 
 with perfect truth : ' The History of Methodism is the 
 History of Dissent.' 2 It is said that Venn, on leaving 
 Huddersfield, sanctioned the erection and assisted in 
 building a meeting-house, ' and when another vicar 
 came, from whom he would never have wished the 
 people to secede, few returned to the parish church.' 3 
 It is needless to multiply proofs, though it could easily 
 be done ; but one can well understand how it came 
 about that, whereas at George I.'s death, the propor- 
 tion of Dissenters to Churchmen was about one to 
 twenty-five, by 1800 it was computed to be one to 
 
 1 Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon, vol. ii. p. 467. 
 
 2 Philip's Life and Times of George Whitefield, pp. 112 and 128. 
 8 Life of Henry Venn, p. 1G3. 
 
The Results of the Revival 157 
 
 four ; and how the four Protestant sects had become 
 Legion. 
 
 To trace out the history of the Evangelical Revival 
 in its bearing upon the present century would be an 
 Later his- interesting, but far more difficult, task than 
 movement that attempted in these pages. Questions 
 would arise which happily do not fall within the pro- 
 vince of the present inquiry. Has Methodism drifted 
 away from its old moorings, or is the Methodism of to- 
 day really a carrying out of the work intended by John 
 Wesley ? Is there a reasonable probability of its ever 
 1 looking unto the rock from whence it was hewn, and to 
 the hole of the pit whence it was digged,' and return- 
 ing to the Church of England? Is Evangelicalism 
 within the Church a decaying power? Do the prin- 
 ciples of Newton, Eomaine, Venn, Scott, and the rest, 
 still flourish, or are they so modified that their earlier 
 exponents would hardly know them ? These questions 
 would have to be manfully grappled with by the his- 
 torian of the Evangelical movement in the nineteenth 
 century ; but they do not come within the scope of the 
 eighteenth. For it is no mere arbitrary line which may 
 be said roughly to divide the centuries. The fact that 
 the life of the founder of Methodism wab prolonged 
 to the last decade of the eighteenth century makes 
 the close of that century a convenient landmark for 
 dividing the earlier from the later phase of the move- 
 ment. For John Wesley kept the reins in his hands to 
 the very last; his death, therefore, naturally marks a 
 new point of departure. The first generation of Evan- 
 gelicals had pretty nearly done their work by the time 
 that the eighteenth century closed. Uxoriare aliquis y 
 
158 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 who can and will, calmly and dispassionately, yet 
 with a true sympathy with its good points, describe 
 the work of both sections of this important movement 
 in its later development. 
 
 One question must, however, be briefly discussed. 
 What was the strength of the Evangelical party in the 
 Church of England at the close of the eighteenth 
 Position of century ? Two great writers of our own day 
 seiicais at have joined issue on this interesting question. 
 of the & Mr. Lecky boldly asserts that ' by the close 
 century of the century the Evangelical party were 
 incontestably the most numerous and the most active 
 party in the English Church.' Whether this be ' in- 
 contestable ' or not, it has at any rate been contested ; 
 and that by no less a man than Mr. Gladstone, who 
 enters minutely into statistics to show that this was 
 not the case. If instead of the words ' party ' and 
 ' numerous,' one might substitute ' influence ' and 
 ' definite,' the historian's assertion would, perhaps, be 
 nearer the truth. For a vast number of people had 
 been affected by Evangelical influence who would cer- 
 tainly not have ranged themselves with the Evangelical 
 party. And Evangelical influence was certainly more 
 definite than any other religious influence at that 
 time. ' Nothing,' it has been cynically said, c is more 
 fallacious than facts — except figures.' While we fully 
 admit the accuracy and pertinency of Mr. Gladstone's 
 statistics, while we own that the Evangelical party were 
 in possession of comparatively few important posts in 
 the Church, and that its professed adherents were 
 strong only in proprietary chapels, fashionable water- 
 ing-places, and exceptional parishes scattered here and 
 
The Results of the Revival 159 
 
 there throughout the country, we may certainly demur 
 to the assumption that such statistics were the measure 
 of the influence which they exercised. The truth 
 seems to be that by the close of the century, the 
 Evangelical party were more compact, that they knew 
 their own minds better, that they were more aggressive — 
 or, to use Mr. Lecky's epithet, more active — than any 
 relisrious school in the Church. Before the Tractarian 
 movement, High Church principles in the spiritual 
 sense, though they never ceased to have many adhe- 
 rents — as they could hardly fail to have, while men had 
 the Prayer-book in their hands and professed to be 
 guided by its rules — exercised very little influence upon 
 the nation at large. The late Bishop Blomfield is said 
 to have remarked that after William Law's Letters to 
 the Bishop of Bangor, no writer asserted the doctrine 
 of Apostolical Succession until the Tractarians arose. 1 
 This and kindred doctrines were in abeyance rather 
 than lost. On the other hand, Broad Church principles 
 had fallen into discredit since the utter failure of the 
 attempt of Archdeacon Blackburne and others to relax 
 the obligation to the subscription of the Articles. The 
 dominant party, so far as high position was concerned, 
 seem to have had no very distinctive lesson to teach. 
 They might be ranged under what has been irreverently 
 termed ' High and dry,' on the one side, and i Low and 
 slow ' on the other. The Evangelicals, on the contrary, 
 knew what they were aiming at perfectly well, and had 
 a very definite system to teach. To the popular mind 
 they certainly represented religious earnestness, and 
 
 1 My authority for this statement is the late Bishop of Lincoln, 
 Dr. Wordsworth, 
 
i6o The Evangelical Revival 
 
 activity in the Church. The very fact that the epithet 
 1 serious ' was applied to them, and, in spite of much 
 sneering, was recognised as belonging to them by those 
 outside the circle, shows that they were considered the 
 religious party. To be ' serious ' and to be ' Evangeli- 
 cal ' were only different ways of saying the same thing. 
 They might dispute among themselves, chiefly on the 
 knotty points of Calvinism ; but they had become 
 rather ashamed of the melancholy exhibition which had 
 been made in the great Calvinistic controversy, and 
 there was little left of the old bitterness which had been 
 shown thirty years before ; and they were quite ready 
 to sink all minor differences, and present one united 
 phalanx to the common foe. They influenced enor- 
 mously, both in direct and in indirect ways, public 
 opinion generally and the views of individuals who 
 would by no means identify themselves with the party. 
 Nor was it a slight advantage to them that they had — it 
 is difficult to ascertain how, when, and where — gradu- 
 ally got affixed to them the name ' Evangelical.' Every 
 Christian must own that to be really Evangelical is to 
 be really Christian. By friend and foe alike they were 
 recognised as ' the Evangelicals.' Assuming Christianity 
 to be true, that really was settling the whole question ; 
 to be opposed to Evangelical religion was to be opposed 
 to Christianity. Once more, in many religious move- 
 ments, the leaders are wont to be succeeded by a weaker 
 generation. It was not so in this case. The second 
 generation of Evangelicals, which had come to the 
 front before the century closed, was equal to the first. 
 Venn the son was worthy of Venn the father ; so 
 were the second Thornton, the second Scott, and others. 
 
The Results of the Revival 161 
 
 The names of King, Knight, Hoare, Stephen, Jowett, 
 Bickersteth, Pratt — where shall we stop ? — were great 
 and good names. There was not the slightest trace of 
 the school degenerating or becoming superseded. In 
 short it would be no exaggeration to say that, morally f 
 and spiritually, though by no means intellectually, the a 
 dominant religious power, both inside and outside the 
 Church of England at the close of the eighteenth 
 century was that which had been evoked by the Evan- 
 gelical Revival, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE REVIVAL. 
 
 Every religious movement must expect to meet with a 
 certain amount of opposition at its outset; and the 
 opposition Evangelical Revival was certainly no excep- 
 
 to'the & J . . \ 
 
 Methodists' tion to the rule. Indeed, the opposition to it 
 was so marked, so persistent, and came from so many 
 different sources, that it cannot be dismissed without 
 careful investigation. And though the remarks which 
 follow will apply more directly to the earlier Methodism 
 than to the later Evangelicalism, yet, looking at the 
 matter from an eighteenth-century point of view, the 
 two cannot in this respect be separated ; for the obloquy 
 which attached to the former extended equally to the 
 latter. Protest as they would against the confusion, 
 the Evangelicals, to the end of the century and beyond 
 it, were always grouped with the Methodists by those 
 who stood outside the circle of both. Bearing, there- 
 C.H. M 
 
1 62 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 fore, in mind that much which will now be said can 
 only properly apply to the earlier phase, though it was 
 as a matter of fact applied to both, let us first consider 
 the evidences of the opposition, and then try to discover 
 the reasons of it. 
 
 The grossest and most popular form of opposition 
 was that of mob riots. In the Black Country, espe- 
 cially at Birstal, "Walsall, and Wednesbury, at 
 
 Mob riots J ' . . ' ^ ' 
 
 Hampton, at Devizes, m many parts or Corn- 
 wall, and elsewhere, Wesley and the Methodists were 
 positively persecuted ; and Charles Wesley and G eorge 
 Whitefield often met with no better treatment. They 
 were sometimes actually in danger of their lives. 
 Sometimes — one blushes to relate it — these riots were 
 instigated by the clergy; they were rarely stopped, 
 as they ought to have been, by the magistrates. The 
 only places where, as a rule, the Methodists could get 
 common justice done to them were the higher secular 
 courts and the Royal Palace. John Wesley, in his 
 ' Loyal Address to the King ' in 1 744, described the 
 Methodists, with perfect truth, as c a people scattered 
 and peeled and trodden under foot.' Drums were 
 beaten, horns blown, guns let off, peals of bells rung, 
 hounds let loose, to drown the voices of the preachers. 
 Fire-engines were played upon them, stones and other 
 missiles hurled at them. ' What evil,' asks Wesley in 
 his ■ Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion ? 
 (a short piece, but one of the most effective he ever 
 wrote), ' have we done to you, that you should join the 
 common cry against us ? Why should you say, " Away 
 with such fellows from the earth ! it is not fit that they 
 should live " ? ' And in his ' Farther Appeal ' (a sequel 
 
Opposition to the Revival 163 
 
 to the former and quite equal to it), c Warm men cry 
 out to the people wherever one of us comes, " A mad 
 dog ! a mad dog ! " if haply we might fly for our lives, 
 as many have done before us.' To attempt to account 
 for the fury of a mob is an utterly hopeless task. 
 Probably, as at Ephesus of old, c the more part of them 
 knew not wherefore they were come together.' All the 
 more shame to those who took advantage of the people's 
 ignorance to instigate them to deeds of violence ! 
 
 Without then discussing further the conduct of the 
 mobs who may be incited to create disturbances for 
 opposition anything or nothing, it will be better to draw 
 of moralises attention to the opposition which was raised 
 by many who at any rate must have known what they 
 were doing, and can hardly be supposed to have set 
 themselves against good, knowing that it was good. 
 Take, for example, the case of .Hogarth the painter. 
 His talents were all enlisted on the side of virtue against 
 vice. A strong moral purpose runs through all his 
 admirable pictures. The - Industrious and Idle Appren- 
 tices ' were, in their way, doing the work of the Wesleys 
 and Whitefield. Yet he more than once attacked both. 
 His_very last work, the picture entitled 'Credulity, 
 Superstition, and Fanaticism,' was drawn expressly_ to 
 caricature and counteract the effects of their preaching. 
 Dr. Johnson, again, was, it need scarcely be said, the 
 sworn foe of vice and irreligion. He respected John 
 Wesley and loved his society, and he was just enough 
 to own that Colley Gibber's play, the ' Hypocrite,' 
 was not applicable to the Methodists. But observe 
 how contemptuously he speaks of his fellow-collegian : 
 ' Whitefield never drew as much attention as a mounte- 
 
1 64 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 bank does ; lie did not draw attention by doing better 
 than others, but by doing what was strange. I never 
 treated Whitefield's ministry with contempt ; I believe 
 he did good; he had devoted himself to the lower 
 classes of mankind, and among them he was of use. 
 But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to 
 knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such 
 pretensions.' With what perverse ingenuity, again, he 
 defends one of the most unjustifiable of all the outrages 
 perpetrated against the Methodists, the expulsion of the 
 six students from St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, in 1768 : 
 1 Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. 
 What have they to do at a university who are not 
 willing to be taught, but presume to teach ? Sir, they 
 were examined, and found to be ignorant fellows. They 
 might be good beings, but they were not fit to be at 
 Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in a field, but we 
 turn her out of a garden.' Is there any trustworthy 
 evidence that these young men, who were expelled 
 from Oxford simply because they would not desist 
 from praying and exhorting in private rooms, were 
 unwilling to be taught ; or that they were really and 
 fairly examined and found inferior to the general run 
 of students ? 
 
 Let us turn from the moralist to the judge. Lord 
 Northington, speaking from the judicial bench — a place 
 judicial where, of all others, language ought to be 
 opposition ca ] m anc [ measured — said, in pronouncing 
 judgment against a Methodist preacher : ' Bigotry and 
 enthusiasm have spread their baneful influence among 
 us far and wide, and the unhappy objects of the con- 
 tagion almost daily increase. Of this not only Bedlam, 
 
Opposition to the Revival 165 
 
 but most of the private mad-houses are melancholy and 
 striking proofs.' 
 
 The popular historians of the day write in an 
 equally condemnatory tone. This is the way in which 
 Popular Tindal in his ' Continuation of Eapin's History 
 historians up to t ^ e p resen t Time' [1763], speaks of the 
 new phenomenon: 'This year' [1739] 'was distin- 
 guished by the institution of a set of fanatics under the 
 name of Methodists, of which one Whitefield, a young 
 clergyman, was the founder.' [Mark here again an 
 illustration of what has been said in a former chapter, 
 viz. that Whitefield, not Yfesley, was regarded by 
 contemporaries as the most prominent character among 
 the_ Methodists.] ' Striking in with the common fana- 
 tical jargon and practices of enthusiasm, he soon found 
 himself at the head of such a number of disciples as 
 might have been dangerous to the public repose, had 
 they attempted to disturb it.' After honestly admitting 
 the loyalty of the Methodists he adds : ' The estab- 
 lished clergy, instead of imitating the practice of former 
 times, were far from persecuting himself and his fol- 
 lowers, and wisely treated him at first with reserve, and 
 afterwards with silent contempt. This moderation had 
 not the desired effect ; it set the founder to encroach on 
 parochial churches without the consent of the incum- 
 bents, to the great danger of the peace of society.' 
 Another contemporary historian, Smollett, writes in a 
 similar tone : ' Imposture and fanaticism still hung 
 upon the skirts of religion. Weak minds were seduced 
 by the delusion of a superstition styled Methodism, 
 raised upon the affectation of superior sanctity, and 
 maintained by pretensions to Divine illumination. Many 
 
1 66 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 thousands in the lower ranks of life were infected with 
 this enthusiasm by the unwearied exertions of a few 
 obscure preachers, such as Whitefield and the Wesleys,' 
 — Whitefield again put first. 
 
 Clerical evidence may perhaps be suspected of preju- 
 dice. Professional jealousy of the irregular workers 
 clerical ma y b e thought to account for the hard judg- 
 opposition ment f the clergy upon the Methodists. Still, 
 will anyone seriously contend that men of deep Chris- 
 tian conviction, like Bishop Benson, Bishop Gibson 
 (whom, in spite of his bitter antagonism, John Wesley 
 with a noble generosity described as a ' great man, who 
 is I trust now in a better world,' and ' a man eminent 
 for piety and learning ; ) — Bishops Home, Seeker, and 
 Horsley, and the great Dr. Waterland, deliberately op- 
 posed Methodism, although they knew it to be a work 
 of God ? The hostility of such clergymen as Bishops 
 Lavington, Warburton, and Hurd, and Mr. Polwhele, 
 was of a different character from that mentioned 
 above ; but still no unprejudiced person can think that 
 in opposing Methodism they were consciously fighting 
 against God. 
 
 What may be called the religious opposition to the 
 Revival was not confined to the Church. In the journals 
 opposition of both the Wesleys and of Whitefield we find 
 senters" constant reference to the opposition of Dis- 
 senters. The amiable Doddridge, who was perhaps a 
 little too anxious to please everybody, was evidently 
 embarrassed by the friendship of Whitefield. He had 
 not the heart to exclude him from his house or even 
 from his pulpit at Northampton, but he plainly lets us 
 see that it would have been much more satisfactory to 
 
Opposition to the Revival 167 
 
 him if his inconvenient friend had kept at a distance. 
 But even the half-hearted sanction which Doddridge 
 accorded to the Methodists drew upon him the severe 
 displeasure of his Dissenting brethren. Dr. Watts, 
 though he afterwards became friendly with Lady Hunt- 
 ingdon and the Methodist leaders, strongly disapproved 
 of Doddridge's conduct, and rebuked him roundly, on 
 the ground that he was losing caste by his intimacy 
 with Whitefield. c I am sorry,' he writes, ' that since 
 your departure I have had many questions asked me 
 about your preaching in the Tabernacle, and sinking the 
 character of a minister, and especially of a tutor, so low 
 thereby. I find many of our friends entertain this 
 idea ; but I can give no answer, as not knowing how 
 much you have been engaged there. I pray God to 
 guard us from every temptation.' Whitefield's bio- 
 grapher thus describes the opposition he met with from 
 Dissenters : ' Bradbury lampooned him, Barker sneered 
 at him, Watts was silent, Coward's trustees were inso- 
 lent to Doddridge because he countenanced him.' They 
 called him ' honest, crazy, confident Whitefield.' Dod- 
 dridge was obliged to assure his friends that he c saw no 
 danger that any of his pupils would prove Methodists/ 
 Neal wrote to Doddridge on his commendation of 
 Whitefield's sermon, saying that he ' could not recon- 
 cile it with the low incoherent stuff he used to hear him 
 utter at Kennington Common.' Doddridge replied that 
 he must look upon it as an unhappy circumstance that 
 Whitefield came to Northampton when he did, as he 
 perceived that, in conjunction with other circumstances, 
 it had filled town and country with astonishment and 
 indignation. As to the Wesleys, they were too strict 
 
1 68 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Churchmen to embarrass the Dissenters with any over- 
 tures of friendship ; but as we have already seen from 
 John Wesley's Journal, from which many other extracts 
 might have been quoted, his relations to the Dissenters 
 were, as a rule, by no means cordial. 
 
 The opposition to the Revival was both reflected in 
 and encouraged by the standard literature of the day. 
 opposition Pope in his own incisive fashion satirised the 
 men "' new preachers in general, and Whitefield in 
 particular, in the ' Dunciad ' : 
 
 So swells each windpipe ; ass intones to ass, 
 
 Harmonic twang ! of leather, horn, and brass : 
 
 Such as from labouring lungs the enthusiast blows 
 
 High sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose, 
 
 Or such as bellow from the deep divine ; 
 
 There, Webster ! peal'd thy voice, and Whitefield ! thine. 
 
 Webster, by the way, was a writer in the ' Weekly Mis- 
 cellany,' a paper bitterly opposed to the Methodists. 
 So Pope's blows were impartially administered to both 
 sides. In Junius' Letters reference is made to the 
 ' whining piety ' of Whitefield. Methodism is ridiculed 
 by Anstey in ' The New Bath Guide.' The excellent 
 ' Parson Adams ' in ' Joseph Andrews ' is represented 
 by Fielding as contrasting his own sermons with those 
 of Whitefield, ' though,' he says, 'I was once his well- 
 wisher.' i I am myself,' he adds, l as great an enemy 
 to the luxury and splendour of the clergy as he can be. 
 I do not, more than he, by the flourishing estate of the 
 church, understand the palaces, equipages, dress, furni- 
 ture, rich dainties, and vast fortunes of her ministers. 
 Surely those things which savour so strongly of this 
 world, become not the servants of One Who professed 
 
Opposition to the Revival 169 
 
 His kingdom was not of it. But when he began to call 
 nonsense and enthusiasm to his aid, and set up the 
 doctrine of faith against good works, I was his friend no 
 longer; for surely that doctrine was coined in hell, 
 and none but the devil himself could have the confi- 
 dence to preach it.' In ' Amelia,' Mr. Booth is robbed 
 by a Methodist in prison, who ' had, as the phrase of 
 the sect is, searched him to the bottom. In fact, he 
 had thoroughly examined every one of Mr. Booth's 
 pockets ; from which he had conveyed away a pen-knife 
 and an iron snuff-box, these being all the moveables 
 which were to be found.' Smollett satirises the Me- 
 thodists in his picture of the Methodist footman in 
 ' Humphrey Clinker.' And to turn to another kind of 
 literature, Foote caricatured Whitefield in his play of 
 the ' Minor.' One is thankful to find Archbishop 
 Seeker protesting against the performance of this play. 
 'Did I tell you,' wrote Horace Walpole to Montagu, 
 'that the Archbishop tried to hinder the "Minor" from 
 being played at Drury Lane ? For once the Duke of 
 Devonshire was firm, and would only let him correct 
 some passages, and even of these the Duke has re- 
 stored some. Foote says he will take out a licence to 
 preach Tarn Cant against Tom Cant.' Seeker, however 
 in point of fact, would not correct the 'Minor,' as 
 suggested by the Duke, because he said he had no wish 
 to see an edition announced by the author as corrected 
 and prepared for the press by the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 Thus on all sides the Revival met with bitter 
 opposition ; but that opposition did not produce one 
 result which has been popularly but most erroneously 
 
170 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 attributed to it. It has been said that the Wesleyans 
 were thrust out of the Church. But what shadow of a 
 Methodists foundation is there for such a charge ? When, 
 Softie^ now ) where, was it done? The assertion 
 cimrcii j g a p Ure figment of the imagination. If in 
 this, as in so many other particulars, people would but 
 turn from second-hand accounts to John Wesley's own 
 Journal they would find that, so far from this being the 
 case, the relations between Wesley and the Church of 
 his baptism were far more close and amicable in his 
 old age than they were at the beginning of his career 
 as a Revivalist. In fact it will be seen from the above 
 quotations that the opposition was far more against 
 Whitefield than against Wesley. And it is this which 
 brings in the Evangelicals, as opposed to the Wes- 
 leyans, for their share of the odium which was attached 
 to the Revival ; because they were universally regarded 
 as the legitimate offspring of the Whitefield, not the 
 Wesley, section of the movement. This is, of course, so 
 far true in that they were Calvinists, not Arminians ; 
 but the points in Whitefield's career, which stirred up 
 so much opposition against him, were not applicable to 
 the majority of Evangelicals. 
 
 How are we to account for all this opposition to the 
 Revival ? Was it that c men loved darkness rather 
 causes of than light because their deeds were evil ? ' 
 siiioB )po This is the explanation which some have 
 given, but it is not a charitable one, and, what is more 
 to the point, it is not a true one. The very names of 
 those who have been already mentioned among the 
 opponents is sufficient to show this ; and, if we look 
 into the reasons given, we shall surely find that the 
 
Opposition to the Revival lyi 
 
 opposition was not purely and simply that opposition 
 which must always exist between the world and the 
 Church, between the flesh and the Spirit. 
 
 In this, as in so many other cases, men are apt to 
 judge the past by the light of the present; to assume 
 Yearning that the people of the eighteenth century 
 in the could see with the eyes of the people of the 
 
 eighteenth , , -,- P . 
 
 century nineteenth. In common iairness we are 
 bound to try and put ourselves in the position of those 
 who lived during the time of the Revival, and see how 
 the Revivalists would naturally appear to them. And 
 in doing so we shall at once see one reason why the 
 movement could hardly fail to be regarded with sus- 
 picion even by good men. No fact is more patent to 
 the student of Church history in the eighteenth century 
 than the intense yearning for rest which prevailed. 
 After the many changes and turbulent discussions, both 
 in the religious and the political world, during the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, the nation in the 
 eighteenth century was above all things anxious to be 
 quiet. Hence, in the domain of politics, its placid 
 acceptance of the first two Hanoverian Kings, whose 
 chief merit was that they let the country govern itself; 
 hence its satisfaction with the policy of a Walpole and 
 his feeble successors, who took for their motto ' quieta 
 non movere ; ' hence its contentment with the some- 
 what sleepy state of religion both inside and outside the 
 Church of England. ' Our happy establishment in 
 Church and. State/ the favourite phrase of the day, 
 truly expressed the national sentiment. Now it is per- 
 fectly true that the Evangelical Revival had not the 
 least intention of disturbing the happy establishment ; 
 
172 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 but it is equally true that 'quiet' was the very last 
 epithet that could be applied, at least to the early 
 Methodists. Their incessant bodily restlessness was 
 but a picture of their mental and spiritual activity. To 
 ' rest and be thankful ' was the very last thing that 
 they desired. Hence, the movement was unpopular for 
 the very same reason that popery was unpopular and 
 deism was unpopular ; each in its way tended to dis- 
 turb the prevailing quiet. Bishop Gibson, in one of his 
 pastorals, very characteristically classes the Methodists 
 with deists, papists, ' and other disturbers of the king- 
 dom of God.' 
 
 But it was not merely a vague suspicion of its 
 tendency to disturb the prevailing quiet which raised 
 Hatred of opposition to the Hevival. It was also 
 Puritanism c l iar g e d with a definite design to resuscitate 
 doctrines and practices which were extremely obnoxious 
 to the majority of the nation. The reaction, for in- 
 stance, against the hated reign of the Saints, had by 
 no means"""spent its^force at the time of the Bevival ; 
 and there is no commoner charge against the Revival 
 than that of attempting to restore this reign. One can 
 easily see how this idea arose ; for the points of agree- 
 ment between Methodism and Puritanism are obvious 
 enoug h. Whitefield expressed a strong sympathy with 
 the old Puritans, whose memory he had learned to love 
 in_America. Wesley's tone of mind, it is true, was in 
 many respects utterly antagonistic to Puritanism ; but 
 there were not wanting superficial resemblances be- 
 tween his system and theirs. The later Evangelicals 
 were, most of them, partial to Puritan divinity — Owen, 
 Howe, Baxter. Flavel, Manton. and the rest were all 
 
Opposition to the Revival 173 
 
 favourites with them. All the Methodists were, as a 
 matter of fact, suspected of a wish to revive the Puri- 
 tanism of the seventeenth century. ' The nonsensical 
 New Light,' wrote Horace Walpole in 1748, 'is ex- 
 tremely in fashion, and I shall not be surprised if we 
 see all the cant and folly of the last age.' ' I have been 
 lately reading,' wrote Bishop Warburton, ' the trials 
 and last behaviour of the Regicides. They were mostly, 
 you know, enthusiasts ; but, what surprised me, of the 
 same kind with the Methodists. . . . Though the 
 Methodists ought not to be persecuted, yet that the 
 clergy are right in giving no encouragement to this 
 spirit appears from the dismal effects it produced among 
 the fanatics in Charles I.'s time, who began with the 
 same meekness and humility with these.' And asfain : 
 ' I tell you what I think would be the best way of ex- 
 posing these idle fanatics — the printing of George 
 Fox's journal, and Ignatius Loyola, and Whitefield's 
 journal in parallel columns.' ' What think you of our 
 new set of fanatics called the Methodists ? I have 
 seen Whitefield's journal, and he appears to me as mad 
 as ever George Fox the Quaker was.' Archdeacon 
 Balguy, in his charge at Winchester in 1760, speaks of 
 1 the growth of the modern sect of Puritans, who to all 
 the nonsense of a Calvinistical creed have added the chi- 
 merical claims to inspiration.' Messrs. Bogue and Ben- 
 nett, the joint historians of the Dissenters, assert that 
 1 thousands expressed their, delight to see Puritanism 
 revived by a minister of the Church of England. White- 
 field found himself at home among these descendants 
 of the Puritans.' But it is needless to multiply evi- 
 dence upon a point which must be clear to all who have 
 
174 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 even a superficial acquaintance with the histories of 
 Methodism and Puritanism. 
 
 Oddly enough the very opposite charge to that of 
 Puritanism was, at least, as frequently brought against 
 Bus jicion of ^ ne l eac "l ers °f the Revival. They were inces- 
 Eomanism san tly accused of verging towards Kome. ' If,' 
 said Whitefield, 'I am Eoman Catholic, the Pope must 
 have given me a large dispensation.' And well might 
 he say so — for there was not one point (except such 
 points as those on which all Christians are agreed) in 
 common between him and the Romanists. Against the 
 Wesleys the charge was not perhaps so utterly absurd 
 on the face of it. For, as we have already seen, there 
 were in John Wesley in especial certain proclivities 
 which, even at the present day, would be thought by 
 some (though most unjustly) to savour of Romanism. 
 Southey's account of the matter is curiously illustrative 
 of the disuse into which some of the plain rules of the 
 Church had fallen in his day, and also of the writer's 
 own mind on the subject. ' Wesley,' he says, ' would 
 have revived a practice which had fallen into disuse 
 throughout all the reformed churches, as being little 
 congenial to the spirit of the Reformation. The society 
 at Bristol passed a resolution that all the members 
 should obey the Church to which they belonged by 
 observing all Fridays in the year as days of fasting or 
 abstinence. This probably gave currency to, if it did not 
 occasion, a report that he was a papist, if not a Jesuit.' 
 One is tempted to ask, Had Dr. Southey ever seen a 
 Book of Common Prayer ?- — because there the rule 
 stands in black and white, whatever may be the prac- 
 tice of c all the reformed churches ' or ' the spirit of 
 
Opposition to the Revival 175 
 
 the Reformation.' Bishop Lavington's elaborate com- 
 parison between the c Enthusiasm of Methodists and 
 Papists' proved, in the author's opinion, the tendency 
 of Methodism to demonstration. He was convinced 
 that the ' peregrinations of the Methodists would lead 
 them to Rome, whither the)' seemed to be setting their 
 faces.' ' Your progress,' he wrote to Wesley, ' is that 
 of a crab, directly backwards. Nor can I discern any 
 perfection but the perfection of Jesuitism.' And again : 
 ' We may see in Mr. Wesley's writings that he was 
 once a strict Churchman, but has gradually relaxed 
 and put on a more Catholic spirit, tending at length to 
 Roman Catholicism. People of every communion are 
 among his disciples, and he rejects with indignation 
 any design to convert others from any communion, and, 
 therefore, not from popery.' Bishop Warburtor c saw 
 the exact resemblance there was between his [Wesley's] 
 saints and those of the Church of Rome at the time of 
 the new birth.' ' This,' he sagaciously remarks, ' might 
 lead reflecting men to conclude that the original of both 
 was the same.' The keen scent of Protestants sniffed 
 Popery in all sorts of Methodist arrangements. c One 
 of these artful teachers,' wrote Dr. Scott in 1743, i has 
 ordered the tickets for his people to be impressed with 
 the crucifix ; and this, with their confessions and other 
 customs, intimates a manifest fondness for the institu- 
 tions of the Church of Rome.' Bishop Smalbroke, in 
 his charge to the clergy at Lichfield in 1746, declares 
 that i if the false doctrines of the Methodists prevail, 
 they must unavoidably create a general disorder in our 
 Constitution, and, if so, favour the return of popery 
 itself.' 
 
176 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 This last expression, f a general disorder in our 
 Constitution ' points to a ground of alarm which was 
 Fear of eminently characteristic of the eighteenth 
 jacobitism century. It was quite as much a political 
 as a religious scare which made men see traces of Popery 
 in the Revival. ' The Pope and the Pretender ' were 
 constantly bracketed together, and the two were not 
 separated in the charge against the Revivalists which 
 we are now considering. In 1744 both Charles and 
 John "Wesley were suspected, without the slightest 
 reason, of being engaged in the plot which, as a matter 
 of fact, was then brewing. A ridiculous accusation was 
 laid against Charles Wesley of having spoken treason- 
 able words, and witnesses were summoned before the 
 magistrates at Wakefield to depose against him. He 
 had ' prayed the Lord to bring home his banished ones,' 
 and some believed, or pretended to believe, that he 
 referred to the Jacobites. The charge was too absurd 
 to be substantiated even before the most prejudiced 
 tribunal. But the panic did not cease. ' Every Sun- 
 day,' says Charles Wesley, ' damnation is denounced 
 against us, for we are papists, Jesuits, seducers, and 
 bringers-in of the Pretender.' In fact, so strong was 
 the feeling on the point that, when a proclamation was 
 issued commanding all Romanists to leave London, 
 John Wesley thought it expedient to postpone a 
 journey and remain in town, lest he should be sus- 
 pected of having quitted in consequence of the pro- 
 clamation. 
 
 Nor was it only the enemies of the Revival who de- 
 tected Popery in some of the doings of the Wesleys. 
 The famous Minutes of the Conference of 1770, which 
 
Opposition to the Revival 177 
 
 were thought to attribute too much to good works, 
 alarmed ' Lady Huntingdon and many other Christian 
 Lad Hunt fri en d s (real Protestants).' The Countess felt 
 protectant ^ er c ^ ut 7 to ^ Q c l ear - She wrote to Charles 
 alarm Wesley, declaring that the proper explanation 
 
 of the Minutes was, ' Popery unmasked/ ' Thinking,' 
 she added, ' that those ought to be deemed papists 
 who did not disavow them, I readily complied with a 
 proposal of an open disavowal of them.' In fact, if 
 Wesley was not a Papist, the only reason was because 
 Popery did not go far enough for him. ' The men of 
 the world,' writes Fletcher in his ' Third Check to An- 
 tinomianism,' ' hint sometimes that he is a papist and 
 a Jesuit; but good, mistaken men have gone much 
 farther in the present controversy. They have pub- 
 lished to the world that they ' do verily believe his 
 principles are too rotten for even a papist to rest upon ; 
 that it may be supposed popery is about the midway 
 between Protestantism and him ' — and so forth. 
 
 John Wesley had hardly patience to answer all 
 these ridiculous imputations. With natural indignation 
 joim wes- in his J Appeal to Men of Reason and Reli- 
 ckdmer 3 gion ' he brushes them aside with the simple 
 argument : ' ! ye fools, whosoever ye are, high or low, 
 Dissenters or Churchmen, clergy or laity, who have 
 advanced this shameless charge, when will ye under- 
 stand that the preaching of justification by faith alone, 
 the allowing no meritorious cause of justification but 
 the death and righteousness of Christ, and no condi- 
 tional or instrumental cause but faith, is overturning 
 popery from the foundation ? ' This sentence had, of 
 course,, no reference to Lady Huntingdon and her 
 C.H. N 
 
1^8 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 friends, but to much earlier assailants. It is, however, 
 applicable to all. The later Evangelicals do not appear 
 to have been ever suspected of Popery; there is some 
 limit to human absurdity. 
 
 We have mentioned the Pope and the Pretender 
 as being coupled together, but we must not forget 
 Diabolical ^ na ^ there was another member of the Trium- 
 agency virate, and some people opposed the Revival 
 because they believed in very truth that some of its phe- 
 nomena were due to his instigation. ' I really think,' 
 writes Mr. Polwhele in his Introduction to Bishop 
 Lavington's famous treatise, ( it would scarcely be un- 
 candid to resort to the sacred text for a definition of a 
 Methodist — ras fizOohzias rov &ia/36\ov — Methodism 
 of the devil ! ' The bishop himself is less hesitating ; he 
 attributes the origin of many parts of Methodism point- 
 blank, without the slightest circumlocution, to satanic 
 agency ; and Bishop Warburton does the same in his 
 ' Doctrine of Grace.' 
 
 All the causes of the opposition to the Revival 
 hitherto mentioned, although they were quite sincerely 
 Extrava- adduced, were absurd on the face of them. 
 Methodists But it must be confessed that there were 
 others which were better grounded. When men's feel- 
 ings are roused to a high pitch of excitement, it is not 
 always easy to keep them within the bounds of prudence 
 and reason. That extravagances accompanied the early 
 spread of Methodism, that results sometimes followed 
 which savoured of the rankest fanaticism, and which 
 were positively noxious both to the souls and bodies of 
 those who were possessed, few except the extremest 
 partisans will deny. Indeed, we need go no farther 
 
Opposition to the Revival 179 
 
 than the admissions of the leaders of the Revival them- 
 selves for a proof of this. In reference to the wild 
 extravagances of Maxfield and Bell, which arose from 
 a perversion of Wesley's favourite doctrine of Christian 
 perfection, Fletcher of Madeley wrote : ' Allowing that 
 what is reported is one-half mere exaggeration, one- 
 tenth of the rest shows that spiritual pride, stubbornness, 
 presumption, arrogance, party spirit, uncharitableness, 
 prophetic mistakes, in short that every sinew of enthu- 
 siasm, is now at work in many of that body.' John 
 Wesley admits that ' in some nature mixed with grace,' 
 and that ' Satan mimicked this work of God.' (He is 
 referring to the physical symptoms in Berridge's church 
 at Everton.) Whitefield owned that ; many young per- 
 sons ran out before they were called ; others were 
 guilty of great imprudences.' Now, if the leaders of the 
 Revival felt this, how must the matter have appeared 
 to people who were regarding the movement from the 
 outside with no friendly eye ? Can one not easily con- 
 ceive how in an age which was morbidly sensitive about 
 anything which it vaguely called enthusiasm, which was 
 suspicious of whatever tended to disturb the prevailing 
 quiet, reports of cases of fanaticism would be made the 
 worst of, and eagerly spread, and would thus throw dis- 
 credit upon the whole movement ? People who, if they 
 had known such men as the Wesleys, Fletcher, and 
 Whitefield, would have respected them — even if they 
 could not altogether agree with them — learnt to shrink 
 from them as pestilent and seditious fellows, who 
 would turn the world upside down, and who deserved 
 to be crushed as nuisances to society. And almost lu- 
 dicrously unjust as such ideas were, still it is doubtful 
 
 n2 
 
i So The Evangelical Revival 
 
 whether the leaders of Methodism were exactly the 
 sort of men who were adapted to stay the evil of all 
 this fanaticism and extravagance. Whitefield, besides 
 being a rash, impulsive man, without much discrimina- 
 tion or good judgment, was also hardly strong enough 
 •a man to lay the spirit which he had raised, or to keep 
 it within due bounds. John Wesley, a far stronger 
 man than Whitefield, could doubtless have more easily 
 checked the extravagances of his disciples ; but unfor- 
 tunately his very virtues sometimes disqualified him 
 for estimating the true state of the case. He was al- 
 ways ready to hope for the best of everyone ; he had a 
 strong tendency from his youth upwards to believe too 
 readily in the intervention of the supernatural. Guile- 
 less and truthful as the day himself, he was willing 
 to believe that others were like him, and hence he 
 not seldom became the dupe of designing knaves and 
 plausible hypocrites. ' My brother,' said Charles, ' seems 
 born for the benefit of knaves.' 
 
 But were the leaders themselves quite free from 
 giving just grounds for opposition to the movement? 
 insubordi- After al ^j Wesley and Whitefield, and Ber- 
 imtionof rid^e and Grimshaw, tvere ordained ministers 
 
 clerical ~ 
 
 Methodist? f tj ie Church of England ; they had promised 
 at their ordination to obey those who were set over 
 them, and this they certainly did not do. It was all 
 very well for Wesley to say that ' the world was his 
 parish,' but the simple answer is that it was not. To 
 appreciate the true state of the case, let us conceive the 
 analogous case of an army. Suppose that certain 
 soldiers thought that they could manage a battle or 
 skirmish better than the commanding officer, and set 
 
Opposition to the Revival 181 
 
 out to fight independently on their own account; would 
 it be very unreasonable if the authorities failed to 
 appreciate this arrangement? Wesley, indeed, ex- 
 plained the anomaly by contending that he had only 
 bound himself to obey the ' godly admonitions ' of his 
 ecclesiastical superiors ; but then, was he to constitute 
 himself as the sole authority as to what were godly 
 admonitions or not ? It certainly is not to be wondered 
 at that those in whose hands the real authority rested 
 should be provoked at this setting of their authority 
 at defiance. And perhaps it is also not to be wondered 
 at that they should have hinted that the proper course 
 would have been for those priests who would not obey 
 the rulers of the Church to withdraw themselves from 
 the Church. At any rate their remaining in the 
 Church was obviously a further cause of exasperation 
 against them. ' If/ argues Bishop Warburton, ' we 
 show ourselves thus rightly disposed in favour of this 
 divine principle of toleration, when the law hath left 
 offenders against Church government to the justice of 
 its rulers, much more shall we be disposed to suffer 
 the honest sectary, who hath legally qualified himself 
 for the enjoyment of his religious liberty, to possess 
 it without trouble or control.' ' Every prudent society/ 
 wrote another, probably Bishop Gibson, * must desire 
 that they would withdraw from her bosom who by 
 sheltering themselves in it can wound and sting her 
 more effect ually.' 
 
 One more objection to the early Methodists must be 
 noted, viz. that they pronounced dogmatically upon 
 deep questions, which had puzzled far more thoughtful 
 and better-read men. ( What wonder/ said Bishop 
 
1 82 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Home, in a sermon preached before the University of 
 Oxford in 1761, c antinomianism is rampant when men, 
 instead of having recourse to the catholic doctors of the 
 ancient Church, extract their theology from the latest 
 and lowest of our sectaries ; if, instead of drawing living 
 water from the fresh springs of primitive antiquity, 
 they take such as comes to them at second hand from 
 Geneva, and Clement and Ignatius pass for moderate 
 divines compared to the new lights of the Tabernacle 
 and the Foundry ? ' The answer was, so far as Wesley 
 was concerned, that he did endeavour to draw water from 
 the fresh springs of primitive antiquity, and thought as 
 little of Geneva as did the Bishop himself. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REVIVAL. 
 
 In one sense, if we might take the express and reiterated 
 assertions of the leaders of all sections of the Revival, 
 Doctrines, ^ ne whole of the subject of this chapter might 
 chuTchtii 6 be summed up in one short sentence : ' The 
 England doctrines of the Revival were the doctrines of 
 the Church of England.' Methodists and Evangelicals 
 alike agreed on this point, that they held no tenets 
 except those which were to be found in the authorised 
 formulas of the Church of England. They might be 
 abused by the clergy, but they appealed from the pulpit 
 to the prayer-desk, and asked whether these things 
 were so. John Wesley tells us, in his Journal, [ Sep- 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 183 
 
 tember 13, 1739: — A serious clergyman desired to 
 know in what points we differed from the Church of 
 England. I answered, " To the best of my knowledge 
 in none." He asked, " In what points, then, do you 
 differ from the other clergy of the Church of England ? " 
 I answered, " In none from that part of the clergy who 
 adhere to the doctrines of the Church." ' And again, 
 i October 15, 1739. — From Acts xxviii. 22, I simply 
 described the plain old religion of the Church of Eng- 
 land, which is now almost everywhere spoken against 
 under the new name of Methodism. 5 If it be thought 
 that he modified his intense convictions on this point in 
 later years (though the extracts quoted, be it observed, 
 were written after his conversion), let us turn to his 
 striking sermon on the ministerial office, preached only 
 two years before his death. ' In God's name, stop ! . . . 
 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 God hath put upon you, 
 and frustrate the design of Providence, the very end for 
 which God raised you up.' This, be it observed, was 
 some years after he had ' set apart ' ministers. And 
 this is the man who is described by a modern historian 
 as a ' great schismatic who wished to organise a system 
 capable of rivalling the Established Church ' (Buckle) ! 
 If it be thought that he was deceiving himself, let us see 
 what is said by one of his most intimate and appreciative 
 friends in his old age, a keen observer and thinker, one 
 who, if any man was, was capable of judging, and who 
 was not prejudiced in favour of his views, for he dis- 
 
1 84 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 agreed with, many of them. ' He was/ wrote Mr. 
 Alexander Knox after Wesley's death, 'a Church of 
 England man even in circumstantials ; there was not a 
 service or a ceremony, a gesture or a habit, for which he 
 had not an unfeigned predilection.' In fact he took a 
 conscious pride in contrasting the teaching of that part of 
 the Eevival of which he was the recognised leader, with 
 the teaching both of other Kevivals and of other sections 
 of this one. Witness the remarkable sermon which he 
 preached on laying the foundation stone of the City 
 Road Chapel. 'One circumstance,' he says, 'attending 
 the present Revival of religion is, I apprehend, quite 
 peculiar to it. It cannot be denied that there have 
 been several revivals of religion in England since the 
 Reformation. But the generality of the English nation 
 were little profited thereby, because they that were the 
 subjects of those revivals, preachers as well as people, 
 soon separated from the Established Church, and formed 
 themselves into a distinct sect. So did the Presby- 
 terians first; afterwards the Independents, the Ana- 
 baptists, and the Quakers; and after this was done, 
 they did scarce any good, except to their own little 
 body. But it is not so in the present Revival of religion. 
 The Methodists (so termed) know their calling. Their 
 fixed purpose is — let the clergy or laity use them well or 
 ill by the grace of God — to endure all things, to hold on 
 their even course, and to continue in the Church, maugre 
 men or devils, unless God permits them to be thrust 
 out.' He then contrasts the conduct of his own fol- 
 lowers with those of Mr. Ingham, Mr. Whitefield ('who 
 conversed much with Dissenters, and contracted strong 
 prejudices against the Church '), Mr. W. Cudworth, and 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 185 
 
 Mr. Maxfield, and c lastly a school set up near Trevecca, 
 where all who were educated (except those that were 
 ordained — and some of them, too), as they disclaimed all 
 connection with the Methodists so they disclaimed the 
 Church also ; nay, they spoke of it upon all occasions 
 with exquisite bitterness and contempt.' In contrast 
 with all these, l none of whom have any manner of 
 connection with the original Methodists/ ' we,' he con- 
 cludes, 'do not, will not, form any separate sect, but 
 from principle remain, what we have always been, true 
 members of the Church of England.' And that he 
 might put his sentiments into a more permanent form, 
 he distinctly wrote, in his short history of Methodism, 
 ' Those who remain with Mr. Wesley are mostly Church 
 of England men. They love her articles, her homilies, 
 her liturgy, her discipline, and unwillingly vary from 
 it in any instance.' 
 
 Even in regard to Whitefield, in spite of his having 
 'contracted strong prejudices against the Church,' in 
 whitefield spite of his foolish raillery against the ' let- 
 
 ntirl the r , -1 i . i t 
 
 church ter-learned clergy, and ' the fat, downy doc- 
 tors of the Establishment,' there is no trace of his 
 recommending any variation of doctrine from that of 
 the Church. 
 
 And as to ' the school near Trevecca ' where Lady 
 Huntingdon's ministers were educated, Dr. Haweis 
 
 O 7 
 
 Lady Hunt- wrote, after the Countess's death, to one who 
 connexion desired information on the subject of their 
 teaching : ' You ask of what Church we profess our- 
 selves ? "We desire to be esteemed as members of 
 Christ's Catholic and Apostolic Church, and essentially 
 one with the Church of England, of which we regard 
 
1 86 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 ourselves as living members. The doctrines we sub- 
 scribe — for we require subscription, and, what is better, 
 they are always truly preached hj us — are those of the 
 Church of England in the literal and grammatical 
 sense. Nor is the liturgy of the Church of England 
 performed more decently in any Church.' 
 
 The Evangelicals to a man professed that they 
 taught nothing and desired nothing but the plain doc- 
 Doctrine of trine of the Church of E norland. They found 
 
 the Evan- ° . J . 
 
 geiicais the best expression of their wants m her 
 deeply spiritual liturgy; they valued her articles and 
 her homilies as the fullest and most lucid expositions 
 of their own belief; and they were as strongly opposed 
 as the highest of High Churchmen to the attempts made 
 by Archdeacon Blackburne and others to alter or relax 
 the obligation of her ministers to subscribe to all her 
 formularies. 
 
 Thus it would seem that in doctrine all were agreed ; 
 and that all who took part in the Revival might join 
 Disagree- hands not only with one another, but also with 
 doctrine all Churchmen, (who, in profession at least, 
 constituted the vast majority of the nation,) over the 
 venerable teaching of their common mother. But 
 in point of fact this was very far from being the 
 case. Not only in matters of order and practice, but 
 also in distinctly doctrinal questions, both the different 
 sections of the Revival violently disagreed with one 
 another, and the ' Orthodox ' (as the term was some- 
 times used in distinction to the Revivalists) as violently 
 disagreed with both. This chapter, therefore, instead 
 of being reduced to one brief sentence, will necessarily 
 have to be extended to several pages, in order that it 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 187 
 
 may give at all an adequate idea of the doctrines of the 
 Revival. 
 
 The best method will be, first of all to state, as con- 
 cisely as possible, the points on which all the Revivalists 
 points on were agreed, and on which the Evangelical 
 
 which aU D ._ * ° 
 
 agreed system laid the greatest stress ; some 01 them 
 
 were agreed to by all Christians, or at least by all 
 Churchmen, but had been, as it were, held in reserve 
 or at least had little prominence given to them, in 
 the period immediately preceding the Revival ; while 
 others were strongly demurred to by many divines of 
 the day. All, then, who were connected with the 
 Evangelical Revival insisted upon (1) the total de- 
 pravity of human nature. They held that the Image 
 of God in the soul of man was not only defaced but 
 e/faced by the Fall ; that, in the language of the ninth 
 article of the Church of England, ' man is very far ' (as 
 far as possible, qudm longissime) l gone from original 
 righteousness.' (2) The doctrine of the atonement, or 
 the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, which was made not 
 only in behalf of, but instead of, sinful man, and was 
 the sole meritorious cause of man's acceptance with 
 God. (3) The doctrine of grace, or God's free, unde- 
 served mercy, as the sole originating cause of man's 
 salvation, (-1) The doctrine of justification by faith 
 alone, as the sole instrumental cause of man's salvation ; 
 faith was the hand stretched forth to accept the prof- 
 fered mercy. It will be seen that the interpretation 
 of this doctrine was a fruitful source of dispute among 
 the different sections of the Revival, but the doctrine 
 itself, as stated above, would have been accepted by 
 all. (5) The absolute need of a conscious conversion 
 
1 88 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 or regeneration — the words appear to have been used 
 synonymously — in every man. This was Wesley's 
 'New Birth,' of which more will be said presently. 
 (6) The total inability of man to turn to God without 
 the aid of His Holy Spirit. (7) The sanctification of 
 man by God's Holy Spirit. (8) The witness of the 
 Spirit, whereby man has an inner consciousness that 
 he is in a state of grace. (9) The plenary inspiration 
 of all the canonical books of Holy Scripture. 
 
 These were the main points on which all were agreed ; 
 others might of course be added, such as the obligation 
 of the Lord's Day or Christian Sabbath, these words being 
 used synonymously ; the obligation of the two Sacra- 
 ments of the Gospel, though it is necessary to add that 
 very different views were held about them from those 
 which were held by the Anglo-Catholic school, and that 
 they certainly hold no very prominent place in the 
 Evangelical system. 
 
 On other points there were great and acrimonious 
 differences between the two sections of the Kevival; 
 The 'New but, before we consider these, it will be desir- 
 ■ Birth ' able to dwell a little more at length upon 
 
 that doctrine wdiich produced such striking results 
 upon the multitudes who listened with breathless ex- 
 citement to the impassioned utterances of the new 
 preachers from the commencement of the Kevival. 
 That doctrine is, of course, the doctrine of the * New 
 Birth.' This is popularly supposed to be the great 
 burden of the early Revivalists' preaching, 1 but Wesley 
 
 1 See, for instance, Bishop Fitzgerald's essay on ' The Evidences ol 
 Christianity,' in Aids to Faith, § 8 : ' Whitefield and the "Wesleys 
 began their work by preaching the NEW .piRTH, &c,' 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 189 
 
 at tiny rate put one other doctrine on a par with it. 
 He begins his famous sermon on the New Birth, 
 (Sermon XLV.) : — ' If any doctrines within the whole 
 compass of Christianity may be properly termed funda- 
 mental, they are doubtless these two, the doctrine of 
 justification, and that of the new birth ; the former re- 
 lating to that great work which God does for its in 
 forgiving our sins ; the latter to the great work which 
 God does in us in renewing our fallen nature. In 
 order of time neither of these is before the other ; in 
 a moment we are justified by the grace of God, through 
 the redemption that is in Jesus, we are also " born of the 
 Spirit ; " but in order of thinking, as it is termed, justi- 
 fication precedes the New Birth. We first conceive His 
 wrath to be turned away, and then His Spirit to work 
 in our hearts/ Hence the two cannot in his view be 
 practically separated ; and hence the assertion that the 
 New Birth was the primary object of his preaching, 
 though logically incomplete, is practically correct and 
 adequate. But how did Wesley as a Churchman recon- 
 cile this with the plain teaching of the Church on Holy 
 Baptism as the Sacrament of Regeneration ? He did 
 not evade the question, but manfully grappled with it, 
 and justified his insistence upon the necessity of the 
 New Birth for careless sinners, by contending that they 
 had lost the germ of life which was once kindled in 
 them. ' I do not,' he says, ' now speak of infants ; it is 
 certain our Church supposes that all who are baptized 
 in their infancy are at the same time born again ; and 
 it is allowed that the whole Office for the Baptism of 
 Infants proceeds upon this assumption. Nor is it an 
 objection of any weight against this that we cannot 
 
190 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 comprehend how this work can be wrought in infants. 
 For neither can we comprehend how it is wrought in a 
 person of riper years.' But he appeals to those who 
 having been baptized were living in habitual sins in 
 language so striking and stirring that it is worth quot- 
 ing : ' Perhaps the sinner himself, to whom in real 
 charity we say, " You must be born again," has been 
 taught to say, " I defy your new doctrine ; I need not 
 be born again ; I was born again when I was baptized. 
 What ! would you have me deny my baptism ? " 
 I answer, first, there is nothing under heaven which 
 can excuse a lie ; otherwise I should say to an open 
 sinner, "If you have been baptized do not own it. 
 For how highly does this aggravate your guilt ! How 
 will it increase your damnation ! Was you devoted 
 to God at eight days old, and have you been all these 
 years devoting yourself to the devil ? Was you, 
 even before you had the use of reason, consecrated 
 to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? 
 and have you, ever since you had the use of it, been 
 flying in the face of God and consecrating yourself to 
 Satan?"' 
 
 Closely connected with this doctrine of the New 
 Birth was that of the direct personal guidance by the 
 Guidance of Holy Spirit of each individual Christian, 
 spirit which was held by all alike who took part in 
 
 the Evangelical Revival. And here again they could 
 appeal ' from the pulpit to the prayer-desk.' For if 
 we are taught to pray, ' Cleanse the thoughts of our 
 hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit,' and hope 
 that our prayers shall be answered, then surely the 
 Christian is not presumptuous in hoping that he will 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 191 
 
 be directly guided by the Holy Spirit, Who will not 
 suffer him to be led into any serious error. 
 
 At the same time it is not unreasonable to think 
 that the intense conviction of this truth led, indirectly 
 Caivmistic a ^ ^ eas ^) to the tone * n which the unhappy 
 controversy differences between the different sections of 
 the Revival were discussed. For if each combatant felt 
 that he was led by God's Holy Spirit to the conclusion 
 at which he arrived on questions which seemed to him 
 to be of vital importance, he would naturally believe 
 that those who had come to an opposite conclusion 
 were fighting against the Holy Spirit, and that, there- 
 fore, no language could be too strong to be used against 
 them. It is needless to repeat here the very strong 
 language that was used on both sides, but especially the 
 Calvinistic. It will suffice to note that the so-called 
 Calvinistic controversy embraced most, if not all, of the 
 points on which the disputants were at issue. For it 
 is a great mistake to suppose that the Calvinistic con- 
 troversy turned wholly or even mainly upon that mys- 
 terious subject of predestination and election. 
 
 The chief question was : c Is justification by faith 
 alone, or justification by faith and works — that is, the 
 justification ei 'id ence °f works, not the merit of them — the 
 by faitu truth?' It should be said that long before 
 this famous controversy burst forth in all its fury it 
 had been objected to the doctrine of justification by 
 faith alone, as stated by Whitefield and others, that it 
 might prove injurious to morality ; and no less a per- 
 sonage than Dr. Waterland (the ablest controversialist, 
 perhaps, of the eighteenth century) met by anticipation 
 this objection in his ' Summary View of the Doctrine of 
 
192 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 Justification,' which was published together with the 
 same writer's sermons on ' Several Important Subjects 
 of Religion and Morality' by Joseph Clarke in 1742, in 
 order to meet the danger : so it will be seen how early 
 in the Evangelical Revival the objection was raised. 
 The editor says in the Preface : ' There hath of late 
 years sprung up among us a sect of men who are reviv- 
 ing the Solifidian doctrine, contending that we are so 
 justified by faith alone as to exclude good works from 
 being necessary conditions of justification , admitting 
 them to be only necessary fruits and consequences of it. 
 Bishop Bull's works, being wrote in Latin, and so of no 
 service to unlearned readers from whom this sect of 
 men gather their converts, there seemed to be wanting 
 some treatise in English on this subject, which might 
 set that important point of doctrine in a clear light to 
 common Christians.' Nearly fifty years later (1790), 
 Bishop Horsley insinuates the same charge when he 
 speaks of ' opinions which seem to emancipate the 
 believer from the obligation of all moral law' (Fif- 
 teenth charge of the Bishop of S. David's) ; so does 
 Bishop Tomline in his ' Refutation of Calvinism ; ' so 
 does William Law in his ' Dialogue between a Methodist 
 and a Churchman,' and so did many other orthodox 
 divines. It was no doubt the intensely practical 
 character of John Wesley's mind which led him to lay 
 so much stress upon the subject, and there certainly 
 was some reason to fear the danger complained of. We 
 have only to turn to the sermons of one who was himself 
 a decided Calvinist, Thomas Scott, to be convinced of 
 this, for he felt it to be his special mission to contend 
 against it. 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival ig 
 
 J 3 
 
 This, however, though the main point, was not by 
 any means the only point at issue between the Calvinists 
 other points anc ^ tne Arminians. Both names, by-the-way, 
 in dispute we re misnomers ; for many of the so-called 
 Calvinists (Whitefield among the number) knew little 
 or nothing about John Calvin, while all the so-called 
 Arminians would have strongly disagreed with many 
 parts of the teaching of Arminius. The dispute included 
 all the five points of the Quinquarticular controversy 
 and many other collateral issues. Are a certain number 
 predestined to eternal life ? Are all others destined to 
 eternal condemnation ? [Perhaps a logical result of the 
 former question being answered in the affirmative, but 
 not admitted — at any rate, not dwelt upon — by many 
 of the Calvinists.] Have all a day of grace ? Is justi- 
 fication a result of sanctification, or does it precede it, 
 or are the two identical? Is Christ's righteousness 
 imputed or imparted to the believer, or both ? Is it 
 possible to attain to a state of sinless perfection on 
 earth ? Is God's grace indefectible, so that one who is 
 once a believer must always be a believer, and, no 
 matter what sins of infirmity he may fall into, is his 
 final perseverance certain? Are there two justifica- 
 tions — the one by faith at the time of conversion, the 
 second by the evidence of works at the Day of Judg- 
 ment ? Are we to work for life or from life ? Has the 
 expression ' a finished salvation ' any other mean- 
 ing than that of t a finished redemption ' ? Is the 
 liberty of the will consistent with the operations of 
 divine grace ? Did Christ die for the whole world, or 
 practically only for the elect ? These are some, and 
 only some, of the profound doctrinal questions agitated 
 
 C.H. O 
 
194 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 in the Calvinistic controversy in which Augustus Top- 
 lady, John Berridge, Sir Richard Hill, and Rowland 
 Hill, were the most prominent writers on the one side, 
 John Fletcher, John Wesley (though very sparingly), 
 Thomas Olivers, and Mr. Sellon on the other. 
 
 It is only fair to say that the now almost-forgotten 
 writings which appeared on both sides of the question — 
 caivimsts or gather questions — would give a most unjust 
 sefvesTi- y i ew °f tne general attitude of the writers. It 
 thSrwrit- * s particularly necessary to bear this in mind 
 ings with regard to the Calvinists who have been 
 
 blamed (and justly), for outrivalling their antagonists 
 in abuse. The fact is that both sides, but especially 
 the Calvinists, became intoxicated with the excitement 
 of the dispute, and to do the party anything like justice 
 we must appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. 
 Let us begin with one who died long before the con- 
 troversy reached its height — in fact, before it commenced 
 in its later phase — James Hervey. He was not only a 
 Calvinist of the Calvinists, but he wrote a treatise, 
 'Theron and Aspasio,' which was for many years a 
 text-book of Calvinism. And yet observe how modestly 
 and moderately he writes in his own private letters on 
 the mysterious subjects involved in the dispute : ' Pre- 
 destination and reprobation, I think of with fear and 
 trembling ; and if I should attempt to study them I 
 would study them on my knees.' And again : l As for 
 points of doubtful disputation, those especially which 
 relate to particular or universal redemption, I profess 
 myself attached neither to the one nor the other. I 
 neither think of them myself nor preach of them to 
 others. If they happen to be started in conversation^ 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 195 
 
 I always endeavour to divert the discourse to some more 
 edifying topic. I have often observed them to breed 
 animosity and division, but never knew them to be 
 productive of love and unanimity. Therefore I rest 
 satisfied in this general and indisputable truth, that the 
 Judge of all the earth will assuredly do right.' It is 
 fair to say that these letters were written in 1752 and 
 1747 respectively, 1 and that 'Theron and Aspasio' was 
 written some years later than either, but there is no 
 reason to believe the s:ood man altered his sentiments. 
 
 Again, we must not for a moment suppose that the 
 spirit of the Calvinistic controversy was at all the spirit 
 Moderate °^ wna ^ i s called ' moderate Calvinism ' — the 
 Calvinism Calvinism, that is, of a Venn, a Newton, a 
 Scott, a Cecil, a Milner. This spirit is well described 
 by the accomplished biographer of Henry Venn : ' He 
 [Venn] had hitherto been a zealous Arminian, hostile to 
 Calvinism, which he considered repugnant to Scripture 
 and reason ; but the experience he now had of the 
 corruption of his nature, of the frailty and weakness of 
 man, of the insufficiency of his best endeavours, led him 
 to ascribe more to the grace of God, and less to the 
 power and free-will of man. This change gave a 
 tincture to his preaching ; he exalted in higher strains 
 the grace and love of God in Christ, and spoke less of 
 the power and excellence of man. But his Calvinism 
 stopped here. It was not the result of a theory em- 
 braced by reading books of that class; he did not 
 attempt to reconcile difficulties which are found in that 
 system; he did not enforce as necessary upon others 
 those particular views w^hich he had himself imbibed ; 
 1 See Tyerman's Oxford Metlwdists, pp. 270 and 2.54. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 he did not break the bond of brotherly love and union 
 with those of his friends who were still zealous Armi- 
 nians ; and, above all, it did not lead him to relax his 
 views on the necessity and nature of holiness : ' in short, 
 he was a 'moderate Calvinist' — a term which was much 
 cavilled at in the hot da}~s of the-Calvinistic controversy, 
 but which really expressed the form which the Calvinism 
 of the Evangelical school ultimately assumed. Let us 
 see what the term really meant. By 'moderate Cal- 
 vinism ' is understood that frame of mind which loved 
 especially to dwell upon man's utter unworthiness of 
 the least of God's mercies, upon his entire helplessness 
 in spiritual things, and his need of God's grace ' pre- 
 venting him that he may have a good-will, and follow- 
 ing him when he has that good-will.' It is well 
 expressed in that beautiful old hymn of Toplady 
 (0, si sic omnia /) : 
 
 Nothing in my hand I bring, 
 
 Simply to Thy Cross I cling ; 
 
 Naked, come to Thee for dress, 
 
 Helpless, look to Thee for grace ;. 
 
 Vile, I to the Fountain fly, 
 
 Wash me, Saviour, or I die ! 
 
 The spiritual pride which extreme Calvinism is apt 
 to engender, by teaching the elect to regard themselves 
 as heaven's peculiar favourites, was utterly alien to the 
 spirit of these moderate Calvinists. The exclamation, 
 4 Why me, why me ? ' so frequent among the earlier 
 Calvinists, is never found in their writings. They did 
 not love to write and talk about what Wesley calls 
 'their dear decrees.' They never dwelt upon the 
 awful doctrine of reprobation, nor did they ever deny 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 197 
 
 that the most hardened had, or might have had, a day of 
 grace. To associate Antinomianism in any shape or 
 form with the teaching of such men is simply ridicu- 
 lous. Their doctrine was so carefully guarded that it 
 was hardly possible to pervert it to the purposes of 
 licentiousness. ' Venn,' writes his biographer, with 
 pardonable indignation, ' was assailed with the old 
 insinuation that he preached the doctrine of faith alone 
 to the neglect of works, though his whole life was a 
 refutation of such a falsehood ; and the lives of those 
 who received his doctrine became so exemplary and 
 strict that they were immediately accused of carrying 
 holiness to an unnecessary length.' The fallacy of sup- 
 posing that such Calvinism leads to the depreciation of 
 good works is solved by undeniable facts. These so-called 
 Calvinists were, as we have already seen, the originators 
 or supporters of every philanthropic, no less than of 
 every religious, effort which was made. Neither did they 
 dwell on the gloomy and repulsive side of Calvinism. 
 They were most of them bright, genial, cheerful men, 
 with a considerable sense of humour, not the least like 
 the gloomy Puritan of the Balfour of Burleigh type. They 
 did not love to discuss minutely the unfathomable diffi- 
 culties which the question involves. ' Instead,' wrote 
 Cecil, and he expressed the sentiments of them all, ' of 
 attempting any logical and metaphysical explanation of 
 justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, 
 all which attempts have human infirmity stamped upon 
 them, I would look at the subject in the great and 
 impressive light in which Scripture places it before me. 
 The thing is declared, not explained. Let us not, 
 therefore, darken a subject which is held forth in pro- 
 
193 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 minent light by our idle endeavours to make it better 
 understood.' In short, their system produced a singu- 
 larly fine type of Christian character, very humble and 
 loving, active and self-denying, so pure and blame- 
 less that those who were most opposed to their doctrine 
 have owned that they were personally good men. 
 
 We cannot better conclude this sketch of the doc- 
 trines of one important section of the Evangelical Ee- 
 Kewton*s vival than by quoting a kind of creed which 
 creed one f ^] ie mos t lovable of them all, John 
 
 Newton, wrote in a private letter to a friend : ' I be- 
 lieve that sin is the most hateful thing in the world ; 
 that I and all men are by nature in a state of wrath 
 and depravity, utterly unable to sustain the penalty or 
 to fulfil the commands of God's Holy Law ; and that 
 we have no sufficiency of ourselves to think a good 
 thought. I believe that Jesus Christ is the chief 
 among ten thousand ; that He came into the world to 
 save the chief of sinners, by making a propitiation for 
 sin by His death, by paying a perfect obedience to the 
 law in our behalf, and that He is now exalted on high 
 to give repentance and remission of sins to all that 
 believe ; and that He ever liveth to make intercession 
 for us. I believe that the Holy Spirit (the gift of God 
 through Jesus Christ), is the sure and only guide into 
 all truth, and the common privilege of all believers ; 
 and under His influence, I believe the Holy Scriptures 
 are able to make us wise unto salvation, and to fur- 
 nish us throughly for every good work. I believe that 
 love to God, and to man for God's sake, is the essence 
 of religion and the fulfilling of the law ; that without 
 holiness no man shall see the Lord ; that those who, by 
 
The Doctrines of the Revival 199 
 
 a patient course of well-doing, seek glory, honour, and 
 immortality, shall receive eternal life ; and I believe 
 that this reward is not of debt, but of grace, even to 
 the praise and glory of that grace whereby He has 
 made us accepted in the Beloved. Amen ! ' [Letter to 
 Mr. 0. (Okeley ?) in ' Cardiphonia.'] These were his 
 positive tenets. Let us add his sentiments as to the 
 way in which controversy should be conducted with 
 those who differ from them : ' Of all people who engage 
 in controversy, we who are called Calvinists are most 
 expressly bound by our own principles to the exercise of 
 gentleness and moderation. If, indeed, they who dif- 
 fer from us have the power of changing themselves^ 
 if they would open their own eyes and soften their own 
 hearts, then we might with less inconsistence be offended 
 at their obstinacy ; but if we believe the very contrary 
 to this, our part is, not to strive, but in meekness to 
 instruct those who oppose, " if perad venture God will 
 give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the 
 truth." If you write with a desire of being an instru- 
 ment of correcting mistakes, you will, of course, be 
 cautious of laying stumbling-blocks in the way of the 
 blind, or of using any expressions that may exasperate 
 their passions, confirm them in their prejudices, and 
 therefore make their conviction, humanly speaking, 
 more impracticable.' [Letter XIX., c Omicron.'] 
 
 How thoroughly Newton acted up to these princi- 
 ples has been already seen in the account of his gentle 
 but most effective treatment of Thomas Scott's case. 
 
2co The evangelical Revival 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL COMPARED WITH 
 OTHER MOVEMENTS. 
 
 We have already seen how John Wesley contrasted the 
 movement of which he was the chief leader with other 
 Evangelical movements in England which bore a super- 
 unique ficial resemblance to it. And, no doubt, in 
 many points, the Evangelical Revival in the eighteenth 
 century was unique. Attempts at a reformation both 
 of manners and doctrine within the Church had been 
 frequent, but none of them were quite like this one. 
 It was not, for instance, at all analogous to that of 
 Wiclif and the Lollards. These were avowedly dis- 
 satisfied with many of the doctrines, or abuses of doc- 
 trine, and still more with many parts of the constitution 
 of the Church as it then stood. The Evangelical 
 Revival arose from no dissatisfaction with any of these 
 things. 
 
 Still less did it resemble the Reformation of the 
 sixteenth century. For though that Reformation was 
 The Re- a ^-formation, not the erection of a new 
 formation Church, still the changes it proposed — and 
 effected — were much more fundamental than any at 
 which the Evangelical Revival aimed. In the sixteenth 
 century the secular arm played a conspicuous part ; in 
 the eighteenth it did not; or, when it did, it was 
 against, not for, the Revival. No new articles, no 
 change or even improvement of the liturgy, no altera- 
 tions of government or discipline, were even dreamed 
 of by the Revivalists , they had none of the highest 
 
Compared with other Movements 201 
 
 authorities to help them, and few on their side. Indeed, 
 the differences were so great that the two movements 
 hardly admit of a comparison. 
 
 In some respects still less did it resemble the great 
 Puritan wave which swept over the country in the 
 Puritanism seventeenth century, upsetting in its course 
 seventeenth f° r a snort while — a very short while — the 
 century Church of England as a national establish- 
 ment. The Revivalists, especially the Evangelicals, 
 appealed to the doctrines of the reformers, but they 
 never appealed to those of the Puritans ; indeed, they 
 thoroughly disapproved of their whole course, though 
 they might admire some of their devotional writings. 
 To call them the ' new Puritans ' as is frequently done 
 is a thorough, though not unnatural, misnomer. For 
 the Revivalists had no quarrel whatever with the 
 theory of religion as it was professed by the Established 
 Church. They only sought to reduce that theory into 
 practice. They have been depreciated for not doing 
 what they never attempted or wished to do. The 
 Revival has been described by an able writer of our 
 own day as c the new Puritanism, excluding all the most 
 powerful intellectual elements, and, therefore, of neces- 
 sity a faint reflection of the grander Puritanism of the 
 seventeenth century.' It may be admitted that the 
 Evangelical divines by no means reached the intellec- 
 tual stature of the Puritan divines ; it may be admitted 
 also, that the two sets of men had many objects in 
 common, which have been already noted in the third 
 chapter of this work. But the difference of attitude 
 may surely account to some extent for the difference of 
 intellectual power that was displayed. Intellectual 
 
202 Tim Evangelical Revival 
 
 power is more conspicuous when the main object .is 
 destruction than when it is construction. The object of 
 the Evangelical Eevival was wholly constructive, except 
 in the sense that the ' pulling down of the stronghold 
 of sin and Satan ' is destructive. They desired to pull 
 down nothing else, either literally or figuratively. They 
 had no desire to pose as iconoclasts ; nor to destroy 
 our constitution either in Church or State. But that 
 they did not do what they never proposed to do does 
 not argue want of power. It is certainly true that 
 on matters which were not concerned with the work 
 of destruction, such as Biblical exegesis, devotional 
 literature, &c, the earlier generation showed far greater 
 strength than the later ; but, on the other hand, the 
 later were a more lovable set of men. However, com- 
 parisons are proverbially odious ; let it suffice to note 
 that the points of contrast were at least as marked as 
 the points of resemblance between the Evangelicals and 
 the Puritans. 
 
 To find a movement which really resembled the 
 Evangelical Revival we must travel outside the limits 
 German °^ our own ^ auc ^- The Pietist movement in 
 pietism Germany in the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, of which Spener was the originator, and the 
 University of Halle the centre, really did present some 
 remarkable features of resemblance to our Evangelical 
 Revival. The Halle Pietists, like our own Methodists and 
 Evangelicals, aimed chiefly at throwing some life into 
 the dry bones of the prevailing orthodoxy. Religion 
 in Germany had become, to use a favourite German ex- 
 pression, c ossified.' The Pietists, as their name implied, 
 simply sought to raise the spirit of piety ; they were 
 
Compared with other Movements 203 
 
 satisfied witli the Lutheran doctrines which were taught, 
 and with the ecclesiastical constitution which was 
 established. Their weak side represented in an exag- 
 gerated form the weak side of our own Kevivalists. 
 They rather discouraged theological studies of the 
 severer kind, they depreciated human arts and sciences, 
 they were very precise about things indifferent, they 
 condemned indiscriminately the most harmless amuse- 
 ments, they showed a tendency to resolve religion too 
 much into a morbid analysis of each man's self-con- 
 sciousness, and they were certainly not in touch with 
 the higher intellectual elements which were just begin- 
 ning to develop themselves to such a remarkable extent 
 in G ermany . These defects, though not wholly wanting, 
 were less conspicuous in the English movement. Hence, 
 in part at least, the difference between the results. 
 German Pietism soon yielded to the withering blast of 
 nationalism which blew over from England into Ger- 
 many. English Evangelicalism has held its own for 
 more than a hundred years ; and the essential features 
 of its system will be traceable so long as England con- 
 tinues to be a Christian nation. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABOLITION 
 
 Abolition of Slave Trade, 133, 
 134 
 
 Adam, Thomas, of Wintering- 
 ham, 47, 83, 109 
 
 American War, Wesley on the, 
 28 
 
 Anne, Queen, 4 
 
 Antinomianism, 25 
 
 ■ Appeals,' Wesley's, 23, 162 
 
 Band Meetings, 56 
 Benson, Bishop, 24, 31, 166 
 Berridge, John, of Everton, 42, 
 
 62-64, 154 
 Bible Societies, Naval and 
 
 Military, 135 
 — — , British and Foreign, 
 
 135, 136 
 Bohler, Peter, 15, 21 
 Bolingbroke, Viscount, 31 
 Broke, Henry (' Fool of 
 
 Quality'), 97 
 
 1 Calm Address ' (Wesley's), 28 
 Calvinism, 25, 50, 76, 102, 148 
 Calvinistic Controversy, 62, 67, 
 
 120,121,191-195 
 * Cardiphonia,' Newton's, 110, 
 
 199 
 Cecil, Richard, 78-80, 109, 111, 
 
 197 
 
 DIALOGUE 
 
 • Checks to Antinomianism/ 
 
 Fletcher's, 121 
 'Christian Perfection,' Law's, 
 
 101 
 Christian Perfection, Wesley 
 
 on, 25, 50, 179 
 Church History, Milner's, 51, 
 
 113-118 
 Church Missionary Societv, 
 
 138-140 
 Circuit- Stewards, 57 
 Clapham Sect, 133, 14S 
 Clarke, Dr. Adam, 43, 119 
 Class Meetings, 54 
 
 • Coelebs in Search of a Wife/ 
 
 H. More's, 108 
 Coke, Dr., 17, 42, 43, 119, 135, 
 
 136 
 Commentary, A. Clarke's, 119 
 — , Dr. Coke's, 119 
 — , T. Scott's, 119, 120 
 ♦Complete Duty of Man,' H. 
 
 Venn's, 103, 104 
 Conference, Wesleyan, 57 
 Cornwall, Revivals in, 52, 83 
 Cowper, William, 73, 92, 127, 
 
 128, 134, 143 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, 92 
 Deists, The, 7 
 
 • Dialogue between a Methodist 
 
 and a Churchman,' W. Law's, 
 192 
 
206 
 
 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 DISSENTERS 
 
 Dissenters and Methodists, 
 
 153, 151 
 Doddridge, 166 
 
 1 Ecclesiastical History,' 
 Wesley's, 118 
 
 Epworth Kectory, 9, 10, 132 
 
 Evangelical Clergy, 20, 25, 59 
 and passim 
 
 Evangelicalism and Method- 
 ism, 44, &c. 
 
 Evidence-writers, 122 
 
 Fielding's Novels, 168, 169 
 .Field-preaching, 17, 22 
 Fletcher, John, of Madeley, 37- 
 
 40, 121 and passim 
 — , Mrs., 94 
 Foote, the Actor, 169 
 'Force of Truth,' Scott's, 45, 
 
 111, 112 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 31 
 
 Geoege III., King, 9S 
 Georgia, 13-15 
 Georgian Era, The, 13-15 
 Gibson, Bishop, 23, 24, 172 
 Graves, Kichard, 32 
 Grimshaw, William, 60-62, 
 154 
 
 Halle Pietists, 202 
 Harris, Howell, 52 
 Haweis, Dr., 115, 185 
 Hervey, James, 59, 60, 101 
 Hill, Rowland, 121, 134, 194 
 — , Sir Richard, 194 
 Hogarth, William, 163 
 Home, Bishop, 28, 166 
 Horsley, Bishop, 146, 147, 166, 
 
 192 
 Hume, David, 30 
 Huntingdon, Countess of, 29, 
 
 MODERATE 
 
 40-43, 63, 98, 115, 151-156, 
 177, 185 and passim 
 
 Hymn Writers, 124-127 
 Hymns, C. Wesley's, 34, 35 
 
 Jacobitism and Methodism, 
 
 176 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 96, 97, 
 
 163 
 Jones, Griffith, 52 
 Journal, Wesley's, 16, 28, 113, 
 
 170 
 — , Whitefield's, 113 
 Justification by Faith, 191, 
 
 192 
 
 King, John, of Hull, 116 
 Kingswood, 31, 132 
 Knox, Alexander, 184 
 
 Lavington, Bishop, 178 
 Law, William, 7-9, 12, 15,16, 
 25, 129 
 
 • Life, Walk, and Triumph of 
 
 Faith,' Romaine's, 101, 102 
 Lincoln College, Oxford, 11 
 London Missionary Society, 
 
 137, 138 
 Love Feasts, 55 
 Lowth, Bishop, 28, 97 
 Loyal Address, Wesley's, 162 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, Wes* 
 ley on, 27 
 
 « Meditations among the 
 Tombs,' Hervey 's, 101 
 
 Methodism and Evangelical- 
 ism Compared, 45, Sec. 
 
 Milner, Joseph, 80, 81, 113-118 
 
 — , Dean Isaac, 81, 82, 114 
 
 Mob Riots, 162 
 
 Moderate Calvinism, 195-198 
 
Index 
 
 207 
 
 MOBA 
 
 Moravians, The, 15, 16, 21, 25 
 
 More, Hannah, 95-97, 107-109, 
 129, 135 
 
 Nelson, John, 44 
 
 'New Birth,' The, 188-190 
 
 Newton, John, 69-74, 100, 108, 
 110, 111,113, 154,198, 199 
 
 — , Mrs., 71, 94, 95 
 
 Northington, Lord, 1G4 
 
 'Notes on the New Testament,' 
 Wesley's, 99, 119 
 
 Oglethorpe, General, 13 
 Olney, 73, 148 
 Olney Hymns, 149-151 
 'Omicron,' Newton's, 110, 199 
 Oxford Methodists, 11-14 
 
 Paley, Archdeacon, 145 
 Parochial Work, Wesley on, 50 
 Pembroke College, Oxford, 31, 
 
 32 
 Perronet of Shoreham, 43 
 Pietism, German, 202, 203 
 Pope, Alexander, 168 
 Porteus, Beilby, Bp. of London, 
 
 97 
 Potter, Abp., 23, 24 
 ' Practical View,' Wilber- 
 
 force's, 104-107 
 Pratt, Josiah, 110, 136 
 Prideaux, Dean, 28 
 ' Private Thoughts,' Adam's, 
 
 109 
 Puritanism, 27, 44, 45, 78, 172, 
 
 173, 201, 202 
 
 Quarterly Tickets, 56 
 
 Reformation in 16th Century, 
 200 
 
 THERON 
 ' Refutation of Calvinism,' Bp. 
 
 Tomline's, 192 
 Religious Societies, The, 2, 3, 
 
 17, 21, 83 
 ♦Remains,' Cecil's, 110 
 Richardson of York, 48, 84 
 Robinson of Leicester, 49, 84 
 Romaine, William, 64-6S, 101- 
 
 103 
 Romanism and Methodism, 
 
 174-178 
 Rowlands, Daniel, 52 
 
 Scott, Thomas, 45, 73-78, 111, 
 
 119, 120, 148 
 Seeker, Abp. 144, 145, 166, 169 
 ' Serious Call,' Law's, 7-9, 101 
 Sermons, John Wesley's, 99 
 — , G. Whitefield's, 100 
 — , Newton's, 100 
 Simeon, Charles, 84, 139 
 Smalbroke, Bp., 175 
 Societies, Bible, 135, 6 
 — , Church Missionary, 138-140 
 
 — for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, 2, 53, 134 
 
 — for Propagation of the Gos- 
 pel, 3, 53 
 
 — for Reformation of Manners, 
 53 
 
 — , Religious Tract, 134 
 
 — , The Methodist, 52-58 
 
 — , The Religious, 17, 21, 23, 
 
 53, 83 
 — , Wesleyan Missionary, 137 
 Socinianism, 74 
 ' Sortes BiblicaV 19 
 Southev, Robert, 16 
 ' Spiritual Quixote, The,' 32 
 Stillingfleet's ' Irenicon,' 18 
 Sunday Schools, 132, 133 
 Superintendents, Wesleyan, 57 
 
 Teignmouth, Lord, 93, 136 
 ♦ Theron and Aspasio,' Hervey's, 
 59, 101, 194, 195 
 
208 
 
 The Evangelical Revival 
 
 THORNTON 
 Thornton, Henry, 88, 89 
 - , John, 73, 86-88 
 
 Venn, Henry, 50, 08, 69, 103, 
 104, 111, 154, 156, 197 
 
 — , John, 69, 140 
 
 'Village Politics,' H. More's, 
 107, 142 
 
 Wales, Revivals in, 52 
 Walker of Truro, 47, 50, 82, 83 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 5 
 — , Horace, 29, 169 
 Walsh, Thomas, 43 
 Warburton, Bp., 33, 173, 178 
 Watch Nights, 55 
 Waterland, Dr. 191, 192 
 Watts, Dr. Isaac, 167 
 4 Weekly Miscellany, The,' 168 
 Wesley, John, 9-29, 38, 39, 99, 
 
 YOUNG 
 
 112, 113, 122-124, 132, 134, 
 
 151, 152, 157, 174, 175, 177, 
 
 181 and passim 
 Wesley, Charles, 11, 17, 19, 34- 
 
 36, 124-126, 176 
 — , Samuel (the elder), 13 
 — , Samuel (the younger), 13 
 — , Susanna, 93, 94 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society, 
 
 137 
 Whitefield, George, 18, 19, 22, 
 
 29-34, 50, 100, 163, 165, 168, 
 
 170 and passim 
 1 Whole Duty of Man, The,' 28, 
 
 103, 104 
 Wiclif and Lollards, 200 
 Wilberforce, William, 81, 89- 
 
 91, 101-107, 133, 134, 154 
 
 Young, Edward 
 Thoughts '), 98 
 
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 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. cloth 
 extra, gilt edges. 
 
 Dwellers in the Arctic Regions (from 
 ' The Sea and its Living Wonders '). 
 With 29 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 
 2s. Gd. cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 
 Winged Life in the Tropics (from ' The 
 Tropical World'). With 55 Illustra- 
 tions. Crown 8vo. 2*. 6d. cloth extra, 
 gilt edges, 
 
 without Hands '). With 28 Illustra- 
 tions. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. cloth extra, 
 gilt edges. 
 
 Wild Animals of the Bible (from ' Bible 
 Animals'). With 29 Illustrations. 
 Crown 8vo. 3*. Gd. cloth extra, gilt 
 edges. 
 
 Domestic Animals of the Bible (from 
 'Bible Animals'). With 23 Illus- 
 trations. Crown 8vo. 3*. bd. cloth 
 extra, gilt edges. 
 
 Bird Life of the Bible (.from 'Bible 
 Animals'). With 32 Illustrations. 
 Crown 8vo. 3*\ Gd. cloth extra, gilt 
 edges. 
 
 Volcanoes and Earthquakes (from ' The j Wonderful Nests (from ' Homes with- 
 
 Subterranean World '). With 30 
 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2*. Gd. 
 cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 Wild Animals of the Tropics (from ' The 
 Tropical World '). With 66 Illustra- 
 tions. Crown 8vo. 3*. 6d. cloth extra, 
 gilt edges. 
 
 out Hands '). With 30 Illustrations. 
 Crown 8vo. 3*. Gd. cloth extra, gilt 
 edges. 
 Homes Under the Ground (from 
 ' Homes without Hands '). With 
 28 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3*. Gd. 
 cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 
 CHEMISTRY ENGINEERING, 8c GENERAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Arnott's Elements of Physics or Natural Philosophy. Crown 8vo. 12*. Gd. 
 Barrett's English Glees and Part-Songs : their Historical Development. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 Bourne's Catechism of the Steam Engine. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 — Handbook of the Steam Engine. Fcp. 8vo. 9*. 
 
 — Recent Improvements in the Steam Engine. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 Buckton's Our Dwellings, Healthy and Unhealthy. Crown 8vo. 3*. Gd. 
 Clerk's The Gas Engine. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 Crookes's Select Methods in Chemical Analysis. 8vo. 24*. 
 Culley's Handbook of Practical Telegraphy. 8vo. 16*. 
 Fairbairn's Useful Information for Engineers. 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31*. Gd. 
 
 — Mills and Millwork. 1 vol. 8vo. 25*. 
 Ganot's Elementary Treatise on Phvsics, by Atkinson. Large crown 8vo. 15*. 
 
 — Natural Philosophy, by Atkinson. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces. 8vo. 15*. 
 Haughton's Six Lectures on Physical Geography. 8vo. 15*. 
 
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General Lists of Works. 
 
 Helmholtz on the Sensations of Tone. Royal 8vo. 28*. 
 
 Helmholtz's Lectures on Scientific Subjects. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. each. 
 
 Hudson and Gosse's The Rotifera or ' Wheel Animalcules.' With 30 Coloured 
 
 Plates. 6 parts. 4to. 10.?. Gd. each. Complete, 2 vols. 4to. £3. 10*. 
 Hullah's Lectures on the History of Modern Music. 8vo. 8*. Gd. 
 
 — Transition Period of Musical History. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 Jackson's Aid to Engineering Solution. Royal 8vo. 21*. 
 
 Jago's Inorganic Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical. Fcp. 8vo. 2.?. 
 
 Jeans' Railway Problems. 8vo. 12s. Gd. 
 
 Kolbe's Short Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 Lloyd's Treatise on Magnetism. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 Macalister's Zoology and Morphology of Vertebrate Animals. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 Macf arren's Lectures on Harmony. 8vo. 1 2s. 
 
 Miller's Elements of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical. 3 vols. 8vo. Part I. 
 
 Chemical Physics, 16s. Part II. Inorganic Chemistry, 24s. Part III. Organic 
 
 Chemistry, price 31s. Gd. 
 Mitchell's Manual of Practical Assaying. 8vo. 31s. Gd. 
 Noble's Hours with a Three-inch Telescope. Crown 8vo. 4s. Gd. 
 Norchcott's Lathes and Turning. 8vo. 18s. 
 Owen's Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Vertebrate Animals. 
 
 3 vols. 8vo. 73s. Gd. 
 Piesse's Art of Perfumery. Square crown 8vo. 21s. 
 Richardson's The Health of Nations ; Works and Life of Edwin Chadwick, C.B. 
 
 2 vols. 8vo. 28s. 
 
 — The Commonhealth ; a Series of Essays. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Schellen's Spectrum Analysis. 8vo. 31s. Gd. 
 Sennett's Treatise on the Marine Steam Engine. 8vo. 21s. 
 Smith's Air and Rain. 8vo. 24s. 
 
 Stoney's The Theory of the Stresses on Girders, &c. Royal 8vo. 36*. 
 Tilden's Practical Chemistry. Fcp. 8vo. Is. Gd. 
 Tyndall's Faraday as a Discoverer. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 — Floating Matter of the Air. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Fragments of Science. 2 vols, post 8vo. 16s. 
 
 — Heat a Mode of Motion. Crown 8vo. 12s. 
 
 — Lectures on Light delivered in America. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 — Lessons on Electricity. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Notes on Electrical Phenomena. Crown 8vo. Is. sewed, Is. Gd. cloth. 
 Notes of Lectures on Light. Crown 8vo. Is. sewed, Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 — Sound, with Frontispiece and 203 Woodcuts. Crown 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry. 9 vols, medium 8vo. £15. 2s. Gd. 
 Wilson's Manual of Health-Science. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS WORKS. 
 
 Arnold's (Rev. Dr. Thomas) Sermons. 6 vols, crown 8vo. 5s. each. 
 
 Boultbee's Commentary on the 39 Articles. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Browne's (Bishop) Exposition of the 39 Articles. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Bullinger's Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New 
 
 Testament. Royal 8vo. 15s. 
 Colenso on the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Conder's Handbook of the Bible. Post 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
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General Lists of Works. 
 
 Conybeare & Howson's Life and Letters of St. Paul :— 
 
 Library Edition, with Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. 2 vols, square crown 
 
 8vo. 21*. 
 Student's Edition, revised and condensed, with 46 Illustrations and Maps. 
 1 vol. crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 Cox's (Homersham) The First Century of Christianity. 8vo. 12s. 
 Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament. 2 vols. 8vo. 30s. 
 Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. 2 vols. 8vo. 24s. 
 
 — Prophecy and History in relation to the Messiah. 8vo. 12s. 
 Ellicott's (Bishop) Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles. 8vo. Corinthians I. 16*. 
 
 Galatians, 8s. Gd . Ephesians, 8s. Gd. Pastoral Epistles, 10s. Gd. Philippians, 
 Colossians and Philemon, 10s. Gd. Thessalonians, 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Lectures on the Life of our Lord. 8vo. 12s. 
 Ewald's Antiquities of Israel, translated by Solly. 8vo. 12s. Gd. 
 
 — Historv of Tsrael. translated bv Carpenter & Smith. 8 vols. 8vo. Voli. 
 
 1 & 2, 24s. Vols. 3 & 4, 21s. Vol. 5, 18s. Vol. 6, 16s. Vol. 7, 21s. 
 
 Vol. 8, 18s. 
 Hobart's Medical Language of St. Luke. 8vo. 16s. 
 Hopkins's Christ the Consoler. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 Jukes's New Man and the Eternal Life. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Second Death and the Restitution of all Things. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 — Types of Genesis. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — The Mystery of the Kingdom. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Lenormant's New Translation of the Book of Genesis. Translated into English. 
 
 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 Lyra Germanica : Hymns translated by Miss Winkworth. Pep. 8vo. 5s. 
 Macdonald's (G.) Unspoken Sermons. Two Series, Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. each. 
 
 — The Miracles of our Lord. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Manning's Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. Crown 8vo. 8s. Gd. 
 Martineau's Endeavours after the Christian Life. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Hymns of Praise and Prayer. Crown 8vo. 4s. Gd. 32mo. Is. Gd, 
 
 — Sermons, Hours of Thought on Sacred Things. 2 vols. 7s. Gd. each. 
 Monsell's Spiritual Songs for Sundays and Holidays. Fcp. 8vo. 5s. 18mo. 2s. 
 Miiller's (Max) Origin and Growth of Religion. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — — Science of Religion. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — The Idea of a University Denned and Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 7s. 
 
 — Historical Sketches. 3 vols, crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 — Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects. Crown 8vo. Gs. 
 
 — An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Con- 
 
 sidered. Vol. 1, crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. Vol. 2, crown 8vo. 5s. Gd, 
 
 — The Via Media of the Anglican Church, Illustrated in Lectures, &c. 
 
 2 vols, crown 8vo. 6s. each 
 
 — Essays, Critical and Historical. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 12s. 
 
 — Essays on Biblical and on Ecclesiastical Miracles. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. 7s. Gd. 
 Overton's Life in the English Church (1660-1714). 8vo. 14s. 
 Supernatural Religrion. Complete Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. 36s. 
 Younehusband's The Story of Our Lord told in Simple Language for Children. 
 
 Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. cloth plain ; 3s. Gd. cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 
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10 General Lists of Works. 
 
 TRAVELS, ADVENTURES, &c. 
 
 Baker's Eight Tears in Ceylon. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 — Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 Brassey's Sunshine and Storm in the East. Library Edition, 8vo. 21s. Cabinet 
 Edition, crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. Popular Edition, 4to. Gd. 
 
 — Voyage in the ' Sunbeam.' Library Edition, 8vo. 21s. Cabinet Edition, 
 
 crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. School Edition, fcp. 8vo. 2s. Popular Edition, 
 4to. Gd. 
 
 — In the Trades, the Tropics, and the ' Roaring Forties.' Library Edition, 
 
 8vo.21s. Cabinet Edition, crown 8vo. 17s. Gd. Popular Edition, 
 4to. Gd. 
 Fronde's Oceana ; or, England and her Colonies. Crown 8vo. 2s. boards ; 2s. Gd. 
 
 cloth. 
 Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 Riley's Athos ; or, Tlie Mountain of the Monks. 8vo. 21s. 
 Three in Norway. By Two of Them. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 2s. boards ; 
 2s. Gd. cloth. 
 
 WORKS OF FICTION. 
 
 Beaconsfield's (The Earl of) Novels and Tales. Hughenden Edition, with 2 
 Portraits on Steel and 11 Vignettes on Wood. 11 vols, crown 8vo. £2. 2s. 
 Cheap Edition, 11 vols, crown 8vo. Is. each, boards ; Is. Gd. each, cloth. 
 Lothair. 
 Sybil. 
 Coningsby. 
 Tancred. 
 Venetia. 
 
 Henrietta Temple. 
 Brabourne's (Lord) Friends and Foes from Fairyland. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Caddy's (Mrs.) Through the Fields with Linneeus : a Chapter in Swedish History. 
 
 2 vols, crown 8vo. 16s. 
 G-ilkes' Boys and Masters. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 Haggard's (H. Rider) She: a History of Adventure. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Allan Quatermain. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cs. 
 Harte (Bret) On the Frontier. Three Stories. 16mo. Is. 
 
 — — By Shore and Sedge. Three Stories. 16mo. Is. 
 
 — — In the Carquinez Woods. Crown 8vo. Is. boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 Lyall's (Edna) The Autobiography of a Slander. Fcp. Is. sewed. 
 
 Melville's (Whyte) Novels. 8 vols. fcp. 8vo. Is. each, boards ; Is. Gd.each, cloth. 
 
 Contarini Fleming. 
 Alroy, Ixion, &c. 
 The Young Duke, &c. 
 Vivian Grey. 
 Endymion. 
 
 Digby Grand. Good for Nothing. 
 
 General Bounce. Holmby House. 
 
 Kate Coventry. The Interpreter. 
 
 The Gladiators. The Queen's Maries. 
 
 Molesworth's (Mrs.) Marrying and Giving in Marriage. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 Novels by the Aufhor of ' The Atelier du Lys ' : 
 
 The Atelier du Lys ; or, An Art Student in the Reign of Terror. Crown 
 
 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 Mademoiselle Mori : a Tale of Modern Rome. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd, 
 In the Olden Time : a Tale of the Peasant War in Germany. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 Hester's Venture. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 Oliphant's (Mrs.) Madam. Crown 8vo. Is. boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 — — In Trust: the Story of a Lady and her Lover. Crown 8vo. 
 
 1*. boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., London and New York. 
 
General Lists of Works. 11 
 
 Payn's (James) The Luck of the Darrells. Crown 8vo. 1*. boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 — — Thicker than Water. Crown Svo. 1*. boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 Reader's Fairy Prince Follow-my-Lead. Crown 8vo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — The Ghost of Brankinshaw ; and other Tales. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. Gd. 
 Sewell's (Miss) Stories and Tales. Crown 8vo. 1*. each, boards ; 1*. Gd. cloth - 
 
 2s. Gd. cloth extra, gilt edges. 
 
 Amy Herbert. Cleve Hall. 
 The Earl's Daughter. 
 Experience of Life. 
 Gertrude. Ivors. 
 
 A Glimpse of the World. 
 Katharine Ashton. 
 Laneton Parsonage. 
 Margaret Percival. Ursula. 
 
 Stevenson's (R. L.) The Dynamiter. Fcp. 8vo. Is. sewed ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 — — Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Fcp. 8vo. Is. 
 
 sewed ; 1*. Gd. cloth. 
 Sturgis' Thraldom : a Story. Crown 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Trollope's (Anthony) Novels. Fcp. 8vo. Is. each, boards ; Is. Gd. cloth. 
 The Warden | Barchester Towers. 
 
 POETRY AND THE DRAMA. 
 
 Armstrong's (Ed. J.) Poetical Works. Fcp. Svo. 5s. 
 
 — (G. F.) Poetical Works :— 
 
 Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic. Fcp. 
 
 8vo. Gs. 
 Ugone : a Tragedy. Fcp. 8vo. 65. 
 A Garland from Greece. Fcp. 8vo.9s. 
 
 King Saul. Fcp. 8vo. 5s. 
 King David. Fcp. Svo. 6*. 
 King Solomon. Fcp. 8vo. 6.?. 
 Stories of Wicklow. Fcp. 8vo. 9s. 
 
 Bowen's Harrow Songs and other Verses. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. Gd. ; or printed on 
 
 hand-made paper, 55. 
 Bowdler's Family Shakespeare. Medium 8vo. 14,?. 6 vols. fcp. 8vo. 21s. 
 Dante's Divine Comedy, translated by James Innes Minchin. Crown 8vo. 15s. 
 Goethe's Faust, translated by Birds. Large crown 8vo. 12s. Gd, 
 
 — — translated by Webb. 8vo. 12s. 6rf. 
 
 — — edited by Selss. Crown 8vo. 5*. 
 Ingelow's Poems. Vols. 1 and 2, fcp. 8vo. 12*. 
 
 — Lyrical and other Poems. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. Gd. cloth, plain ; 3s. cloth, 
 
 gilt edges. 
 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, with Ivry and the Armada. Illustrated by 
 
 Weguelin. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. gilt edges. 
 The same, Popular Edition. Illustrated by Scharf. Fcp. 4to. Gd. swd., Is. cloth. 
 Nesbit's Lays and Legends. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Reader's Voices from Flowerland, a Birthday Book, 2s. Gd. cloth, 3s. Gd. roan. 
 Southey's Poetical Works. Medium 8vo. 14s. 
 Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Fcp. 8vo. 5s. 
 Virgil's JSneid. translated by Conington. Crown 8vo. 9s. 
 
 — Poems, translated into English Prose. Crown 8vo. 9s. 
 
 AGRICULTURE, HORSES, DOGS AND CATTLE. 
 
 Fitzwygram's Horses and Stables. 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Lloyd's The Science of Agriculture. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 Loudon's Encyclopasdia of Agriculture. 21s. 
 
 Steel's Diseases of the Ox, a Manual of Bovine Pathology. 8vo. 15s. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., London and New York. 
 
12 General Lists of Works. 
 
 Stonehenge's Dog in Health and Disease. Square crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 — Greyhound. Square crown 8vo. 155. 
 
 Taylor's Agricultural Note Book. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 Ville on Artificial Manures, by Crookes. 8vo. 21*. 
 Youatt's Work on the Dog. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — — — — Horse. 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. 
 
 The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes. Edited by the Duke of Beaufort 
 and A. E. T. Watson. With numerous Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 10*. Qd. each. 
 
 Hunting, by the Duke of Beaufort, (fee. 
 
 Pishing, by H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, &c. 2 vols. 
 
 Bating, by the Earl of Suffolk, &c. 
 
 Shooting, by Lord Walsingham, &c. 2 vols. 
 
 Cycling. By Viscount Bury. 
 
 *** Other Volumes in preparation. 
 Campbell-Walker's Correct Card, or How to Play at Whist. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 Ford's Theory and Practice of Archery, revised by W. Butt. 8vo. 14.?. 
 Francis's Treatise on Fishing in all its Branches. Post 8vo. 15*. 
 Longman's Chess Openings. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Pease's The Cleveland Hounds as a Trencher-Fed Pack. Koyal 8vo. 18*. 
 Pole's Theory of the Modern Scientific Game of Whist. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. §d. 
 Proctor's How to Play Whist. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 Ronalds's Fly-Fisher's Entomology. 8vo. 14*. 
 Verney's Chess Eccentricities. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 Wilcocks's Sea-Fisherman. Post 8vo. 6*. 
 
 ENCYCLOPEDIAS, DICTIONARIES, AND BOOKS OF 
 REFERENCE. 
 
 Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families. Fcp. 8vo. 4*. 6d. 
 Ayre's Treasury of Bible Knowledge. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art. 3 vols, medium 8vo. 63*. 
 Cabinet Lawyer (The), a Popular Digest of the Laws of England. Fcp. 8vo. 9*. 
 Cates's Dictionary of General Biography. Medium 8vo. 28*. 
 Gwilt's Encyclopedia of Architecture. 8vo. 52*. 6d. 
 
 Keith Johnston's Dictionary of Geography, or General Gazetteer. 8vo. 42*. 
 M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation. 8vo. 63*. 
 Maunder's Biographical Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 _ Historical Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — Scientific and Literary Treasury. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 _ Treasury of Bible Knowledge, edited by Ayre. Fcp. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Treasury of Botany, edited by Lindley & Moore. Two Parts, 12*. 
 
 — Treasury of Geography. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — Treasury of Natural History. Fcp. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Quain's Dictionary of Medicine. Medium 8vo. 31*. 6d., or in 2 vols. 34*. 
 Reeve'i Cookery and Housekeeping. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 Rich's Dictionary of Roman and Greek Antiquities. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d. 
 Willich's Popular Tables, by Marriott. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d., 
 
 LONGMANS, GKEEN, & CO., London and New York. 
 
A SELECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 TEXT-BOOKS OF SCIENCE 
 
 FULLY ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 Abney's Treatise on Photography. Fcp. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 Anderson's Strength of Materials. 3*. 6d. 
 Armstrong's Organic Chemistry. 3s. 6d. 
 Ball's Elements of Astronomy. 6s. 
 Barry's Railway Appliances. 3.?. 6d. 
 Bauerman's Systematic Mineralogy. 65. 
 — Descriptive Mineralogy. 6s. 
 Bloxam and Huntington's Metals. 5s. 
 Glazebrook's Physical Optics. 65. 
 Glazebrook and Shaw's Practical Physics. 65. 
 Gore's Art of Electro-Metallurgy. 6s. 
 
 Griffin's Algebra and Trigonometry. 3s. 6d. Notes and Solutions, 3s. 6d. 
 Holmes's The Steam Engine. 6s. 
 Jenkin's Electricity and Magnetism. 3s. 6d. 
 Maxwell's Theory of Heat. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Merrifield's Technical Arithmetic and Mensuration, 3s. 6d. Key, 3*. 6d. 
 Miller's Inorganic Chemistry. 3s. 6d. 
 Preece and Sivewright's Telegraphy. 5s. 
 Rutley's Study of Rocks, a Text-Book of Petrology. 4s. 6d. 
 Shelley's Workshop Appliances. 4s. 6d. 
 Thome's Structural and Physiological Botany. 6s. 
 Thorpe's Quantitative Chemical Analysis. 4s. 6d. 
 Thorpe and Muir's Qualitative Analysis. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Tilden's Chemical Philosophy. 3s. 6d. With Answers to Problems. 4s. 6d. 
 Unwin's Elements of Machine Design. 6s. 
 Watson's Plane and Solid Geometry. 3s. 6d, 
 
 THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 
 
 Bloomfield's College and School Greek Testament. Fcp. 8vo. 5«. 
 Bolland & Lang's Politics of Aristotle. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 Collis's Chief Tenses of the Greek Irregular Verbs. 8vo. Is. 
 
 — Pontes Grseci, Stepping-Stone to Greek Grammar. 12m 0. 3s. 6d. 
 
 — Praxis Greeca, Etymology. 12mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 — Greek Verse-Book, Praxis Iambica. 12mo. 4s. 6d. 
 Parrar's Brief Greek Syntax and Accidence. 12mo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 — Greek Grammar Rules for Harrow School. 12mo. Is. 6d. 
 Geare's Notes on Thucydides. Book I. Fcp. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Hewitt's Greek Examination-Papers. 12mo. Is. 6d. 
 
 Isbister's Xenophon's Anabasis, Books I. to III. with Notes. 12mo. 3s. 6d. 
 Jerram's Graece Reddenda. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. 
 
 LONGMANS, GKEEN, & CO., London and New York. 
 
14 A Selection of Educational Works. 
 
 Kennedy's Greek Grammar. 12mo. 4s. Gd. 
 
 Liddell & Scott's English-Greek Lexicon. 4to. 36s. ; Square 12mo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 Mahaffy's Classical Greek Literature. Crown 8vo. Poets, 7s. Gd. Prose Writers, 
 
 7s. Gd. 
 Morris's Greek Lessons. Square 18mo. Part I. 2s. 6d. ; Part II. Is. 
 Parry's Elementary Greek Grammar. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Plato's Republic, Book I. Greek Text, English Notes by Hardy. Crown 8vo. 3s. 
 Sheppard and Evans's Notes on Thucydides. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 Thucydides, Book IV. with Notes by Barton and Chavasse. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 Valpy's Greek Delectus, improved by White. 12mo. 2s. Gd. Key, 2s. Gd. 
 White's Xenophon's Expedition of Cyrus, with English Notes. 12mo. 7s. Gd. 
 Wilkins's Manual of Greek Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 5s. Key, 5s. 
 
 — Exercises in Greek Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 4s. Gd. Key, 2s. Gd. 
 
 — New Greek Delectus. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. Key, 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Progressive Greek Delectus. 12mo. 4s. Key, 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Progressive Greek Anthology. 12mo. 5s. 
 
 — Scriptores Attici, Excerpts with English Notes. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Speeches from Thucydides translated. Post 8vo. 6s. 
 Yonge's English-Greek Lexicon. 4to. 21s. ; Square 12mo. 8s. Gd. 
 
 THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Bradley's Latin Prose Exercises. 12mo. 3s. Gd. Key, 5s. 
 
 — Continuous Lessons in Latin Prose. 12mo. 5s. Key, 5s. Gd. 
 
 — Cornelius Nepos, improved by White. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 — Eutropius, improved by White. 12mo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Ovid's Metamorphoses, improved by White. 12mo. 4s. Gd. 
 
 — Select Fables of Phsedrus, improved by White. 12mo. 2s. Gd. 
 Collis's Chief Tenses of Latin Irregular Verbs. 8vo. Is. 
 
 — Pontes Latini, Stepping-Stone to Latin Grammar. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 Hewitt's Latin Examination-Papers. 12mo. Is. Gd. 
 Isbister's Caesar, Books I.- VII. 12mo. 4s. ; or with Reading Lessons, 4s. Gd. 
 
 — Caesar's Commentaries, Books I.-V. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 — First Book of Caesar's Gallic. War. 12mo. Is. Gd. 
 Jerram's Latine Reddenda. Crown 8vo. Is. Gd. 
 
 Kennedy's Child's Latin Primer, or First Latin Lessons. 12mo. 2s. 
 
 — Child's Latin Accidence. 12mo. Is. 
 
 — Elementary Latin Grammar. 12mo. 3s. Gd. 
 
 — Elementary Latin Reading Book, or Tirocinium Latinum. 12mo. 2s. 
 
 — Latin Prose, Palasstra Stili Latini. 12mo. 6s. 
 
 — Latin Vocabulary. 12mo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Subsidia Primaria, Exercise Books to the Public School Latin Primer. 
 
 I. Accidence and Simple Construction, 2s. Gd. II. Syntax, 3s. Gd. 
 
 — Key to the Exercises in Subsidia Primaria, Parts I. and^II. price 5s. 
 
 — Subsidia Primaria, III. the Latin Compound Sentence. 12mo. Is. 
 
 — Curriculum Stili Latini. 12mo. 4s. Gd. Key, 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Pakestra Latina, or Second Latin Reading Book. 12mo. 5s. 
 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, & CO., London and New York. 
 
A Selection of Educational Works. 
 
 15 
 
 Millington's Latin Prose Composition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 — Selections from Latin Prose. Crown 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 Moody's Eton Latin Grammar. 12mo. 2s. 6d. The Accidence separately, Is. 
 Morris's Elementa Latina. Fcp. 8vo. Is. 6d. Key, 2s. 6d. 
 Parry's Origines Romanse, from Livy, with English Notes. Crown 8vo. 4s. 
 The Public School Latin Primer. 12mo. 25. 6d. 
 
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