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JOHN WESLEY

Modern Methodism

FREDERICK HOCKIN, M.A.
RECTOR OF PHILLACK, HON. CANON OF TRURO AND PROCTOR IN
CONVOCATION

FOURTH EDITION, MUCH ENLARGED

RIVINGTONS
WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS.

Notice,Preface, ...
The Apostolical Succession, .
Baptismal Regeneration,
Confirmation, .
The Real Presence,
Confession, ...
Absolution, ....
The Intermediate State,
Prayers for the Faithful Departed,
Lutheran Justification, ...
Assurance, 
The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness,
The Athanasian Creed .
The Fathers,
Saints' Days,
Fasting,

5
39 81
88
89
ioo 103
104 104
107112117
119119122
123

iv Contents.

APPENDIX.

POSTSCRIPT.

PAGE

'Gospel Sermons,' . . 123
Ritual, . . ... 125
Conclusion, . . 128

A. The Schism without Excuse, ... . 135
B. The Working of Methodism, . 137
C. Development of Methodism, . .... 148
D. The Results, . . . . 154
Cornwall and Methodism, . . 159
E. The Title of 'Reverend,' .... 174
F. Wesley's Abridged Prayer Book, 176
G. Dr. Coke and his Mission, . . 180
H. Wesley's Reasons ('Twelve') against Separation, . 198

Rev. W. Arthur on the Bishops' Treatment of Wesley, . 210
Methodist Decrease,  2IO

INDEX,

NOTICE
The quotations from John Wesley's Works in the
following pages are mostly given from what is con
sidered to be the Standard Edition, viz. that edited by
Tlfomas Jackson, in 1829. But where the ' Large
Minutes ' are quoted it has been necessary to refer to
Benson's Edition, of 1809, as some of the passages do
not appear in Jackson's Edition, whilst others have
significant additions made to them. The full title of
the ' Large Minutes ' is ' Minutes of Several Conver
sations between the Reverend Messieurs John and
Charles Wesley, and others.' These Minutes form a
sort of compendium of Methodist Law, a copy being
given to each Preacher, who undertakes to abide by them,
and rank next in importance to Wesley's Notes on the
New Testament, and the first four volumes of Sermons.
They were collected by Wesley himself, and published
by him in his Collected Works, in 1772 ; and repub
lished by Benson in his three editions of Wesley's Works,
from 1809 to 18 18, without alteration or addition.
Jackson states that the copy of the Minutes which he
gives was printed 'from a copy which bears date 1791
— the year in which Wesley died — collated with the
edition of 1789.' But the edition of 1791 could not
have received the joint sanction of Wesley and the
Conference, for the obvious reason that Wesley died
some four months before the Conference of that year
A

2 Notice.
met. And from the fact that Benson, the Conference
editor, published the Minutes in his three editions in the
precise form that Wesley himself published them in
1772, it is obvious that he — whom Dr. Rigg calls ' one of
the most upright of men ' — knew of no others as possess
ing Wesley's sanction. I have therefore adhered to them.
I should remark that neither of these documents is
the same as that now in use ; many additions, altera
tions, and omissions having been made in 1797, and also
subsequently. John Wesley left as an admonition to
his followers, ' Do not mend our rules, but keep them.'—
Large Minutes, Works, vi. 350 — Edition 1809. But,
whether mended or marred, they are certainly altered, and
therefore have no longer any claim to be called ' Minutes
of Conversations between J. and C. Wesley and others.'
The quotations from Dr. Whitehead's Life of Wesley
are from his own edition of 1793. He was no sooner
dead than an edition was brought out (1805), 'purged,'
says Jackson, 'of its most objectionable passages,' —
purged, Le., of certain unpleasant facts and the Doctor's
comments thereon. Mr. Tyerman's full and careful work
is quoted from the third edition, 1876.
John Wesley, born 17th June, . . . j.703
Communicated when eight years old.
Ordained Deacon by Dr. POTTER (then Bishop
of Oxford, and afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury) in . . . . , . 172 c,
Elected Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726
(Held his Fellowship till he married, twenty-seven years afterwards.)
Ordained Priest by the same Bishop in . . 1728
Died 2d March,  t-qj
Charles Wesley, born 1708; died 1788.

' No fears of misrepresentation or of obloquy shall ever deter me
from declaring my belief that Wesley and Whitfield were chosen
instruments of Providence for giving a great impulse to religious
feeling when it was needed most.' — Southey, Colloquies, i. 383.

' It would seem to be the Providential end of sects to rouse the
profligate, to impress the thoughtless, to sustain individual weak
ness by a co-partnership of powers, and to employ in support
of religion, whether personal or social, those tastes and passions
of human nature which are strongest in its least refined state, and
in proportion as civilisation advances, give place to higher likings
and nobler sensibilities. I am satisfied that without such a pro
vision Christianity must have perished through the fewness of its
votaries. But I am no less assured that if it had relied on the
sectarian system alone, there would have been extension without
excellence ; instances of sincerity, but few, if any, examples of ma
turity ; an occasional occurrence of conversions, but no adequate
means of perfecting the convert, nor, of course, of training the
youthful candidate.
' To meet these more exalted purposes the Church of Christ was
stamped with a hierarchical character from its commencement ;
and, through the growing influence of this inherent principle, the
Church universal soon manifested those features (in substance)
which at this day distinguish the Church of England from the
various self-erected fraternities which have dissented from her
communion.' — Remains of Alexander Knox, iv. 291.

' We charge the Prelatical Clergy with Popery, lo make them
odious, though we know they are guilty of no such thing! —
Selden, Table Talk.
' Satan can use even the names of Popery and Antichrist to bring
a truth into suspicion and discredit! — BAXTER.
' A stale objection which many people make against anything
they do not like, — It is all Popery out of hand! — John WESLEY.

PREFACE
The pamphlet from which this volume has grown was
originally written to repel a charge of Popery brought
by certain Methodist Preachers against Churchmen in
respect of the following particulars : —
I. — The Apostolical Succession.
II. — The Real Presence (otherwise termed by
the accusers 'The Presence of Christ
in the Sacrament').
Ill . — Absolution.
IV. — Prayers for the Faithful Departed.
V. — Baptismal Regeneration.
VI. — Private or Auricular Confession.
VII. — What now goes by the name of RITUALISM
— e.g. Choral Celebration of the
Eucharist, the Mixed Chalice, Bowing
at the Name of fEsus, etc.
The following pages show that John Wesley dis
tinctly held and explicitly taught each and all of them.
But I have thought it well in the subsequent editions
to go beyond my first object, and cite Wesley's opinions
on other subjects of importance — opinions totally at
variance with those of his so-called followers. And I

6 Preface.
do this partly out of sincere respect for the man, and
to strive to rescue his character from the cloud that
would needs rest upon it if we only knew him through
those who now call themselves by his name ; and partly
also to show that, marvellous as was his skill in adapta
tion,1 or, as Alexander Knox expresses it, his 'uncommon
acuteness in fitting expedients to conjunctures,' the
root of his power lay in the firm grasp that he held —
in the main— of Catholic doctrine. Accordingly, in
the following pages will be given Wesley's views on
Justification, 'Assurance,' the Imputation of Christ's
Righteousness ; the Athanasian Creed ; the ' Study of
the Fathers,' etc., etc.
As regards the Apostolical Succession and Sacra
mental Efficacy, Dr. Rigg, a leading Wesleyan of the
present day, asserts that they ' are of the essentials of
Popery,' and that the Church of England, which teaches
them (designated by him ' the territorial and enclosed
and decorated Church of the Queen and Parliament ')
is ' tainted with Romanising superstition.' As a matter
of course, the Apostolical Succession will be deemed a
mark of the Beast by communities which do not possess
it ; and it is no wonder that the efficacy of the Sacra
ments should be scouted by men whose only title to
administer them is derived from their connection with
1 ' There is no special evidence, ' says Wesley's latest biographer, Mr.
Telford, ' of inventive power in Wesley's administration. ' Indeed, Wesley
himself says ( Works, viii. 248) that he had no plan at all, but ' everything
arose just as occasion offered.' It has been remarked that he adapted
his preacher's system from that of S. Dominic, his class-meetings from the
Franciscans, whilst in his vow of poverty and his reprobation of laughter
he followed the Benedictines. I think, however, that the Woodward
Societies may have furnished him with a more obvious model for his class-
meetings.

Preface. 7
Mr. Wesley's ' Society.' But seeing that John Wesley
wrote in 1784, as his matured conviction, 'I believe
there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient
or modern language, which breathes more of a solid
scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of
the Church of England,' 1 men, like Dr. Rigg, who pro
fess a special knowledge of Wesley's writings would
better consult their reputation as men of intelligence,
and their consistency as professed followers of Wesley,
by refraining from making such assertions.
Much excuse, however, may be found for the general
ignorance of ordinary Methodists as to the real princi
ples of their Founder, for they have scarcely had a fair
opportunity of learning them. Some most important
passages — written, preached, printed, and published by
Wesley, with all deliberation — were suppressed, and
never included in any edition of his works for the first
thirty-seven years after his death, and only published
in the edition of 1829, when, in consequence of the
indignant remonstrances of one of Wesley's surviving
friends, it was no longer possible to withhold them.
In controversy with Mr. Holden, in The Guardian
newspaper, in January 1869, Dr. Rigg endeavours to
excuse this suppression in the edition of 1809, by say
ing ' no profession was made that the volumes published
contained all Mr. Wesley's Sermons.' But the Confer
ence had made a distinct promise in their ' Minutes ' of
1799 that ' all the Sermons which Mr. Wesley composed
for the Magazine . . . should be printed.' And, still
more unfortunately for Dr. Rigg, not Only does Benson
in his preface to that edition give as one reason for the
1 Works, xiv. 317.

8 Preface.
publication, th*at the previous edition ' did not compre
hend many of Wesley's own original writings ' (thereby
plainly intimating that his edition would contain all
the omitted writings) ; but some of the copies of that
edition still exist in their original boards. One of them
has been long in my possession, and outside fifteen of
the volumes are printed in large type the following
words : — THE WHOLE ORIGINAL PROSE WORKS
of the late Reverend John Wesley, A.M.
(Except his Notes on the Old and New Testament).
Dr. Rigg further attempts to excuse these suppressions
by stating (4th letter to Mr. Holden) that ' the allega
tion that the earlier editions anterior to 1828 had been
falsified in the interests of Modern Methodism, regarded
as dissenting from the Church, could hardly be true,
for the plain reason that there was only one edition (the
italics are Dr. Rigg's) of Wesley's Works brought out
between 1771 and 1829.'
It is really most painful to have to deal with such
reckless statements. In the first place, Dr. Rigg had
only to look at Jackson's edition of 1829 to see the
words THIRD EDITION staring him in the face.
Secondly, there are now lying before me not only a
volume of the second edition, bearing date 1815, but also
eleven volumes ofthe third edition, dated from 18 18 to
1821, the first volume of which contains Benson's
Preface, and has the words THE THIRD EDITION on the
title-page ! ! 1
Why Jackson chose to call his 'the third edition'

This edition will be placed in Bishop Phillpotts' library, Truro.

Preface. - 9
when it was unquestionably the fourth, I cannot tell.
Dr. Rigg excels in assertion. Further specimens will
be found in the following pages.
Driven from his position that 'Benson's edition of
1809 did not profess to contain all Wesley's sermons,"
Dr. Rigg next shifts his ground, and suggests (see
Guardian, 27th April 1881) that the omission was acci
dental. Now this sermon stands third out of six by
the same author in the Arminian Magazine for 1790.
The five other sermons are scrupulously reprinted, and
this one omitted. What a singularly happy ' accident '
to have fitted in so well with the growing ambition of
the preachers ! An ' accident,' too, that seems all the
more wonderful when it is remembered that the editor
of the Works was also at that time editor of the
magazine, and presumably not unacquainted with the
contents of the previous numbers ! ! 1
But this edition of 1809 has also other most serious
suppressions on the all-important subject of Methodistic
' Conversion.' Wesley wrote in his Journal of 1st Feb-

1 Dr. Abel Stevens, the American author of The History of Methodism,
does not waste his ingenuity in finding excuses for the suppression, but
boldly denies that there has been any suppression at all. ' By turning,'
he says, ' to any edition, American or English, of Wesley's Sermons, this
very sermon will be found numbered one hundred and thirty ' (vol. ii. p.
450 n.).
As we have seen, it is not comprised in Benson's edition of Wesley's
Works of 1809, nor is it in that of 1818, nor in the tenth edition of his
Sermons in a separate form (the only one I possess), bearing date 1828.
Moreover, in the Standard Edition of 1829 it is numbered, not 130, but
US- Having admitted and endeavoured to account for the non-appearance of
this sermon, Dr. Rigg does not scruple in his Churchmanship of John
Wesley, p. 120, to refer his readers for correct information on this subject
to this same assertion of Dr. Stevens ! !

10 Preface.
ruary 1738—' I who went to America to convert others
was never myself converted to God.' But he subse
quently affixed to these words the note — 'I am not
sure of this.' This note Benson suppresses. Wesley
spoke at the same time of his want of faith, but after
wards added—' I had even then the faith of a servant,
though not of a son.' Neither is this note in Benson's
edition. Under the same date Wesley also wrote —
' Alienated as I am from the life of God, I am a child of
wrath, an heir of Hell.' This sentence is not to be
found in Benson's edition, nor the note subsequently
appended to it — 'I believe not' These passages were all
published by Wesley himself in his edition of 1771.
'Accidents ' of this kind should not occur so frequently.
Nor is there to this day any perfect edition of Wesley's
works. Dr. Rigg indeed tells us (letter to the Guardian,
1 8th December 1868) that Jackson's edition of 1829 is
a complete one. But it contains no word of Wesley's
own account of his affair with Grace Murray, a docu
ment which — prose and poetry — extends to 44 8vo
pages ; 1 the poetry part of which (except four sup
pressed stanzas) was published by Moore in his Life of
Wesley in 1825 (vol. ii. p. 167). In 1779 Wesley
wrote a life of Dr. Donne, which still remains in MS., as
does a treatise of bis (except some extracts) against
separation from the Church. Two of his treatises in
the A nninian Magazine for 1789 — one on Inspiration, the
other on ' The Manners of the Times ' — are not included
in any edition of his works. Add to this that there are
great numbers of his letters — one very remarkable one
1 A copy of this extraordinary threnody will be found in vol. iv. of
Methodist Tracts, which, with most of the books mentioned in this volume,
will forthwith be placed in Bishop Phillpotts' library, Truro.

Preface. 1 1
in the preface to Wogan's Essay on the Proper Lessons,
others in the Remains of Alexander Knox, and Dunn's
Life of Adam Clarke, and Tyerman's Life, and elsewhere
— not included in this edition of 1829, although some of
them are to be found in the reprint of 1 840-42.
But not to dwell on this, Dr. Rigg, having told us that
Jackson's edition is a ' complete ' one, goes on in the
very next sentence to say that there are ' some valuable
Sermons, Letters, and Journals hitherto unpublished ' ! !
What ! a ' complete ' edition, although these ' valuable
Sermons, Letters, and Journals' are not comprised in
it ! ! ! To do Dr. Rigg justice, you do not often find him
thus pointedly contradicting himself on the same page.
Why they remain unpublished Dr. Rigg does not tell
us. Not because Wesleyans have no access to them,
for he boasts that he himself has consulted them ; and
Mr. Tyerman gives four or five short extracts from
them ; nor because they are unimportant, for he says
that they are ' valuable,' and that they helped him in
forming his estimate of Wesley. They are ' valuable,'
and doubtless characteristic, but outsiders may not be
hold them ! Why?
Until they are given to the world, and no longer kept
for the exclusive inspection of those who, like Dr. Rigg,
hold a brief for the existing polity, Wesleyans may rest
assured that the general public will come to the same
conclusion concerning them that they drew concerning
the suppressed Sermon on Heb. v. 4 — viz. that they are
condemnatory of Modern Wesleyanism.
Others of the following extracts are only to be found
in the collected editions of his Works, which consist of
many volumes, and which few even of the preachers
possess, even if they were disposed to study them ;

1 2 Preface.
• regret having been expressed for some years,' says the
Methodist Recorder of nth August 1882, 'that Mr.
Wesley's Works are so little read and regarded.'
We have reason indeed to be thankful that so many
of John Wesley's opinions are preserved to us; for
many of his papers, manuscripts, and books (and
among the latter a copy of the original 4to edition of
Shakespeare, annotated throughout in Wesley's own
handwriting), fell after his death into the hands of one
of the preachers, who forthwith consigned them to the
flames (Smith's History of Wesleyan Methodism, ii. 288).
They did not, in his opinion, ' tend to edification ' ! !
This preacher, Pawson, had possibly never heard of
either Galileo or Hooker, but he copied exactly the
conduct of the Jesuit confessor of Galileo's widow and
the Puritan director of Mrs. Hooker, who burnt some
of the most precious manuscripts of these great men on
similar pretexts. Pawson was one of those ' ordained '
by Wesley expressly for Scotland, where he for two
years preached in gown and bands, and administered
the Sacraments, and took upon him to ' ordain seven
elders.' This last proceeding, however, seems to have
been too much for Wesley, who ordered him back to
England, commanded him to doff his canonicals, and,
to his intense mortification, cashiered him of his title
of 'Reverend' and addressed him as 'Mr.'1 After
Wesley's death he resumed his gown and bands, and
got up a ' No Popery ' cry against those preachers who
wished to adhere to Wesley's rules,2 and became one
of the chief instigators of the preachers to take upon

1 Tyerman's Life of Wesley, iii. 496, 574, 581.
2 Jubilee of the New Connexion, p. 83.

Preface. 1 3
themselves the administration of the Sacraments ; and
it was at his suggestion that they cast lots to decide
whether they had the power to do so or not. He
further showed his contempt for Wesley's repeated and
dying admonitions, by being one of the first to preach
during the hours of the Church Service. Conference,
however, put a stop to all such ritualistic assumptions
in 1793, by enacting that 'no gowns, cassocks, bands,
or surplices ' shall be worn by any preacher.1
Certain writers, in their efforts to justify the separa
tion from the Church that took place after Wesley's
death, and make modern Wesleyans as contented as
may be in their position, are never weary of declaiming
about the ' persecutions ' that the Wesleys endured at
the hands, as they assert, of the Bishops and clergy,
and of describing the brothers as ' all but driven out of
the Church.' Dr. Rigg, indeed, in one place goes so far
as to speak of them as having been actually driven out.
He speaks of ' Wesley and his people being coarsely
and often cruelly driven out from a Communion in which
he and his brother most honestly and intensely . . .
desired to remain.'2 Of course, no one knows better
than Dr. Rigg that no steps were ever taken by the
Church to ' drive them out,' or in any way to affect
their position as clergymen. And, when it suits his
purpose, no one is more ready than Dr. Rigg to tell
how in John Wesley's old age ' Magistrates and gentry
vied in their attentions to him,' and how 'Laity, and
even clergy, flocked to hear him. . . . Popular contempt
and the frown of dignitaries had long passed away.'
1 Skewes' Polity of Methodism, p. 91.
2 Relations of John Wesley, etc., p. 59.

14 Preface.
And how ' Churches were now at length open to him
again, and when he gave the Sacrament, many clergy
men pressed forward to assist in administering to the
crowds that came to partake.'1 On visiting Falmouth
in 1789, Wesley himself says : ' The last time I was here,
above forty years ago, I was taken prisoner by an
immense mob gaping and roaring like lions. But how-
is the tide turned ! High and low now line the street
from one end of the town to the other, out of stark love,
gaping and staring as if the king were going by.'2
Again, Dr. Rigg quotes and condemns the conduct of
one Bishop, who, shortly before Wesley's death, would
have the Methodists registered as ' Dissenters.' But he
makes no mention of the fact that in his earlier course
Wesley acted with the full knowledge and approval of
the most eminent Bishops of the age. Here is Wesley's
own account. Speaking of his preaching in unlicensed
places in 1744 and subsequently, he says : 'No one in
England ever thought or called it leaving the Church.
It was never esteemed so by Archbishop Potter, with
whom I had the happiness of conversing freely ; nor
by Archbishop Seeker, who was thoroughly acquainted
with every step we took, as was likewise Dr. Gibson,
then Bishop of London, and that great man Bishop
Lowth. Nor did any of these four venerable men ever
blame me for it in all the conversations I had with
them. Only Archbishop Potter once said, "Those
gentlemen are irregular, but they have done good, and
I pray God to bless them." '3
Nor was this all : Wesley, in his 104th Sermon,
urging on his followers attendance on the services ofthe
1 Relations of John Wesley, p. 26. 2 Works, iv. 468. 3 Id. xiii. 236.

Preface. 1 5
Church, written in his old age, fully acknowledges the
obligations he was under to the Archbishop for his excel
lent advice, in these words : ' Near fifty years ago a great
and good man, Dr. Potter, then Archbishop of Canter
bury, gave me an advice for which I have ever since
had occasion to bless God — " If you desire to be exten
sively useful, do not spend your time and strength in
contending for or against such things as are of a dis
putable nature, but in testifying against open notorious
vice, and in promoting real essential holiness." He had
previously — in 1735 — ordained no less than five of the
early Methodists, collating one of them — Gambold —
to a benefice in his own gift. Bishop Gibson gave
him a very needful caution against courting persecu
tion. Dr. George Home, when an Oxford Fellow, had
preached against the Antinomianism of the Methodists,
but afterwards, when Bishop of Norwich, he gave Wes
ley full permission to preach in his Diocese. Charles
Wesley records some eight or nine kind and affec
tionate receptions from Bishops and Archbishops, and,
so early as 1748, wrote : ' Mr. C. gave me a delightful
account of the Bishop' — adding a reflection which
might have been characteristic of both brothers, 'yet
I do not find it good for me to be countenanced by my
superiors.' J
We find John Wesley officiating in S. Patrick's
Cathedral in 1775, and in Limerick Cathedral in 1785.2
The Bishop of Derry, at Wesley's request, ordained
his first preacher, Maxfield, saying, when he did so,
1 Jackson's Life of C. Wesley, i. 495.
2 Tyerman, iii. 202 and 460.

1 6 Preface.
' I ordain you to assist that good man, that he may
not work himself to death.' And subsequently other
Bishops expressly sanctioned his preaching in their
diocese.1 Bishop Warburton, indeed, wrote against some of his
views, and Bishop Lavington drew a long and close
parallel between the extravagances of the Methodists
and those of the Papists ; concerning which so dispas
sionate a writer as Isaac Taylor says, ' Many of the
features of the Wesleyan polity were of a kind that
might seem to warrant the institution of this com
passion.' But it cannot be doubted that Lavington's
book, although not without its mistakes, was eventually
of great service to Wesley, as tending to induce him to
give less encouragement (as was certainly the case in
his later years) to that theopathic hysteria 2 which, com
bined with- the mixed medley of Calvinism, Lutheran-
ism, and German Mysticism which he presented to his
followers whilst he was under Moravian influences,
amply justified the London and other clergy in closing
their pulpits against him as they did from 1741 to
1748. When he had freed himself from these influences
they were again open to him, and accordingly, on
Sunday the 12th of June, in the latter year, we find him
preaching in S. Bartholomew's Church, Smithfield.
This sort of hysteria had been known in Germany in
the Middle Ages as ' S. John's ' or ' S. Vitus's dance ; '
in Italy, in the sixteenth century, as 'The dancing
mania,' or ' Tarantism.' It broke out in the nunneries
of Bordeaux and among the Port Royalists in the
seventeenth century ; and, shortly before Whitfield and

Works, iii. 131 ; iv. 380, 498. 2 See Appendix B.

Preface. 1 7
Wesley commenced their field-preaching, it had been
introduced into England by the ' French Convulsionists'
(or ' French Prophets,' as they were sometimes called),
many of whom arrived in London, and also visited
Bristol, a little before 1739, the year in which Wesley
commenced field-preaching. It was the leading feature
of the American ' Revivals ' in the beginning of the
present century, ' which,' says an American writer (Rev.
A. Green) ' were followed by an open avowal and
general prevalence of infidel principles beyond any
thing that had previously appeared : ' and the Ulster
manifestations of 1859 were of the same character.
Outbursts of it are not unknown at the present day
in Cornwall in the winter months. Wesley, however,
records his full reconciliation with Bishop Lavington
in the year 1762 in these words : ' I was well pleased
to partake of the Lord's Supper with my old opponent
Bishop Lavington. O, may we sit down together in
the Kingdom of our Father.' 1
Now, to those people who are wont to declaim about
the treatment which Wesley received at the hands of
the Bishops, I would offer two considerations. First,
that Wesley insisted on preaching in any parish that
he pleased throughout the United Kingdom. But this
licence which he claimed for himself he utterly denied
to his preachers. ' Observe,' he says, ' you are not to
ramble up and down, but to go where the Assistant
directs, and there only.'2
Surely, if the preachers were to yield implicit obedi
ence to Wesley and his ' Assistants ' in this matter,

1 Works, iii. III.
2 Large Minutes — Works, vi. 368, Ed. 1809.
B

1 8 Preface.
it was not unreasonable to expect Wesley to yield some
deference to the laws of the Church ! Wesley openly
defied the Church's law, but all the Bishops tolerated,
and some encouraged him. What would happen to a
Wesleyan preacher nowadays asserting a similar right
in disregard of the Wesleyan Conference ! ! Would
he be tolerated for a moment ? I wot Conference
would make short work with him. Indeed, they actu
ally expelled a local preacher called Hicks some years
ago for preaching out of his circuit.
Persecuted, however, in the earlier days of his itiner
ancy, Wesley certainly was ; but by whom ? and why ?
He himself states that the persecution was ' the natural
consequences,' in Cornwall and Staffordshire, 'of the
inconceivable folly of certain of his preachers, which
turned many of his friends into implacable enemies.' ^
Nor were the Bishops the persecutors, but lawless mobs
— ' the rabble,' or ' beasts of the people,' as he repeatedly
calls them — encouraged in some instances (like our Saint
George-in-the-East rioters) by godless magistrates :
and not so much for his attempts to revive religion, as
because he was generally believed to be a Papist, a
Jesuit, and a partisan of the Pretender ; the Dissenters
taking a very prominent part in the riotous proceed
ings. In one place John Wesley tells how a certain
eminent Dissenter gave out that he — Wesley — had
received large remittances from Spain, and, as soon as
the Spaniards landed, was to join them with 20,000
men.2 More than once certain Nonconformist ministers
excommunicated some of their flocks — not for joining

Works, i. 419, 421, 2 jd_ ;_ 322_

Preface. 19
the Methodists only, but for going to hear them preach.1
'The preacher at Dudley,' says Dr. Whitehead in his
Life of Charles Wesley (i. 276), ' was cruelly abused by
a mob of Papists and Dissenters, the latter being stirred
up by Mr. Whiting, their minister. " It is probable," says
Charles Wesley, "that he would have been murdered,
but for an honest Quaker, who favoured his escape by
disguising him in his broad hat and drab-coloured coat."'
He describes 'two Dissenting ministers at Middle-
ton ' as ' making it their business to go from house to
house to set the people against the truth, threatening
all who hear us with excommunication. So far beyond
the Romanists are these moderate men advanced in
persecution.' 2
The Romanists, however, seem hardly to have de
served this honourable distinction, for when John
Nelson was all but murdered at Hewarth Moor, on
Easter Day 1749, it was 'a Popish gentleman who
brought out a mob and cried out, " Knock out the brains
of that mad dog," and perfectly gnashed with his
teeth.'3 And Wesley himself tells us that, when he
was once preaching at Moorfields, a well-dressed man
took his stand near by, and ' vehemently asserted that
"those rogues the Methodists were all Papists," till a
gentleman coming up fixed his eyes upon him, and
cried, " Stop that man. I know him personally ; he is a
Romish priest." ' And another Romish priest made the
same charge against him at Bristol.4 But he mentions
with honour the behaviour of the clergy, 'not one of
whom has spoken the least word against us ; ' whilst Mr.

1 Works, i. 415, 418. 2 Charles Wesley's Journal, ii. 34.
3 Crowther's History, p. 330. 4 Works, i. 339, and ix. 58.

20 Preface.
Thomas, a clergyman, rescued him when his life was in
danger from a mob at Falmouth, and the Rector of
Redruth— Mr. Collins— befriended him under similar
circumstances there.1
Nottingham had its ' Lambs ' in those days, as it has
still. Charles Wesley was stoned there, and one of his
followers brought in for dead. ' But what justice,' he
asks, ' could be expected there from the chief men of
the place, seeing that they were, as I was informed,
mostly Arian Presbyterians ?'2
At Woodley, John Bennet, in order to stop his
preaching, was ' pressed ' for a soldier : ' This persecu
tion,' he said, ' was begun by the Dissenters, and most
of the press-gang were Dissenters.' s
A clergyman called White headed the mob at Calne
in 1748. But he had been a Popish priest, although at
that time he, as Wesley significantly remarks, 'called
himself 'a Protestant.'
He tells us how he was baited at Devizes, by a mob
raised by Mr. Innys, the curate of the town ; and the
gentlemen, ' particularly Mr. Sutton and Mr. Willy,
Dissenters, the two leading men ; how the constable
did what he could in his behalf, but received no
encouragement from the Mayor or Magistrates, the
former of whom ostentatiously left the town that the
mob might be sure that their sport would not be inter
fered with.' 4
1 Works, i. 505-8. 2 Jackson's Life of C. Wesley, i. 367.
3 Id. i. 416.
4 Id. p. 464. The parallel between this and the S. George-in-the-
East riots in 1859 is very striking. We have in both cases constables
ready to do their duty, but obstructed and hindered by popularity-seeking
magistrates. The Devizes curate is well matched by the S. George's

Preface. 2 1
' The beasts of the people,' however, may be thought
to have had some excuse for these proceedings, when
it is remembered that even some of Wesley's own fol
lowers at Kingswood declared that they had heard both
the brothers ' many times preach Popery ; ' 1 and a
Bristol backslider declared that ' he would make affi
davit that he had seen John Wesley administer extreme
unction to a woman, and give her a wafer, and say that
was her passport to Heaven.' 2 But John Bull had far
weightier authorities than these discarded Methodists
to back him up in his shouts of ' No Popery ! ' Whit
field and the Wesleys, having commenced their evange
lising career together, soon quarrelled on the subject
of Calvinism, and separated, — Whitfield declaring that
' brother Wesley had preached another Gospel entirely
contrary to his ; and from that source strife, envy, wrath,
reviling, backbiting, drunkenness, and every evil work
began already to prevail amongst them : ' and that ' he
would not give Wesley the right hand of fellowship, but
would preach against him.' 3 And this he did, Wesley
himself informs us, at Moorfields and elsewhere. ' The
Mr. Wesleys,' said he in a letter to Ralph Erskine of
Dunfermline, dated 2d April 1741,' scarce preach one
principle agreeable to the Gospel of Christ. I am
obliged to separate from them. They load the doctrine

lecturer ; and in both cases there is a mob wholly godless and largely
recruited from the Dissenters. In two particulars, however, the parallel
fails. I do not find that any Cabinet Minister in 1747 apologised for the
rioters from his place in the House of Commons, or that the Govern
ment of that day rewarded the clerical mob-leader with a valuable piece
of preferment.
1 Works, i. 301. 2 Pawlyn's Bristol Methodism, p. 31.
3 Journal, p. 6. See also Wesley's Works, i. 305.

2 2 Preface.
of election with the most heavy curses, and plead up for
an absolute sinless perfection.' On another occasion,
however, sometime after he first went to Scotland, he
stated that ' he would hold communion with dear Mr.
Wesley, but dear Mr. Wesley would not hold com
munion with him.' And, considering the portraiture that
Whitfield drew of himself, this would seem to be the
more likely state of the case. ' I went,' he said, ' to S.
Paul's Cathedral, and received the Blessed Sacrament,
and preached in the evening on Kennington Common
to about 30,009 persons. . . . God gave me great
power, and I never opened my mouth so freely against
the letter-learned clergymen of the Church of England.
... I should not die in peace unless I bore my
testimony against them.'1 On another occasion he
said : ' The scarlet whore of Babylon is not more
corrupt either in principle or practice than the Church
-Of England.'2
Wesley, on the other hand, rejoined that ' Satan threw
Calvinism in the way to hinder him from raising up a
holy people.' 3
But in this style of controversy the Calvinists, whom
Charles Wesley characterises as 'a carnal, cavilling,
contentious sect,' maintain a facile pre-eminence. One of
them, Hunt, retorted that he had treated a handsomely
bound copy of Wesley's Works, which some one had
presented to him, 'as I think the Judge on the last day
will serve the author — stripped him of his coat of many
colours, cut him asunder, and appointed him his portion
with the hypocrites.'
1 Journal, 2 1 st July 1739. 2 See Seward's Journal, 9th June 1740.
3 Large Minutes — Works, vi. 336.

Preface. 23
Rowland Hill lampooned him in verse, prose, and
wood-cuts, describing him as ' a crafty slanderer, a liar
of the most gigantic magnitude, a disappointed Orlando
Furioso, a miscreant apostate, whose perfection consisted
in his perfect hatred of all goodness and good men.'
Toplady charged him with ' Satanic guilt ' and
' Satanic shamelessness,' and described him as ' the
most rancorous hater of the Gospel system that ever
appeared in this island.' ' Blunders and blasphemies
were,' he said, ' two commodities in which Mr. Wesley
had driven a larger traffic than any other blunder-
merchant this country had produced ;' whilst Lady Hunt
ingdon summed up all his wickednesses in one word,
and denounced him as ' a Papist' Whatever else was
believed or disbelieved concerning the Wesleys, this was
very generally credited ; and John Wesley was charged
with keeping a Popish priest in his house, and was pub
licly called upon by the magistrates of Surrey to tak^j
the oath against Popery. And as it was further con
fidently affirmed by several people that he had been
seen in company with the Pretender in France, he had
to take the oath of allegiance at the same time. ' Every
Sunday,' says Charles Wesley, ' damnation is denounced
against all who hear us, for we are Papists, Jesuits, se
ducers, and bringers-in of the Pretender.' And in York
shire he also was summoned before the magistrates on
a similar charge.
But whatever a man may say or swear about himself,
John Bull, then as now, pays no manner of heed to him
if only he is accused of Popery ; so/ when the news of a
victory gained over the Spaniards by the British forces
arrived at S. Ives, the mob pulled down the Wesleyan
preaching-house for joy at the defeat of the Pope and

24 Preface.
the Pretender, and the presumed discomfiture of the
Wesleys. ' Such,' said Wesley, ' is the Cornish method
of thanksgiving ! ' 1
But the brothers very soon lived down these calum
nies ; and during the last years of his life John Wesley
was, as Dr. Rigg intimates, about the most popular man
in the kingdom, receiving more invitations to preach in
Church pulpits than he could accept.
Dr. Johnson, whom he both visited and corresponded
with, expressed his highest esteem for him, and only
regretted the shortness of his visits, saying that 'he
could talk all day and all night too with him.'
In August 1782, he records in his journal the
courtesy with which he was received by the then
Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Ross ; and on one occasion Bishop
Lowth, the most learned prelate of his day, refused to
sit above him at table, saying, ' Mr. Wesley, may I be
found at your feet in another world.' 2 In 1780 he
wrote : ' Having had an opportunity of seeing several of
the churches abroad, and having deeply considered the
several sorts of Dissenters at home, I am fully convinced
that our own Church, with all her blemishes, is nearer
the scriptural plan than any other in Europe.' 3
One of the twelve reasons which he gave against
separating from the Church was, because ' Controversy
is now asleep, and we in a great measure live peaceably
with all men, so that we are strangely at leisure to spend
our whole time and strength in enforcing plain, practical,
vital religion.'
1 Works, i. 459.
- Centenary of Methodism, p. 201. 3 Works, xiii. 121.
4 Id. xiii. 193.— Printed in 1758, reprinted in 1773, and re-affirmed
in his letters to his brother in 1785.

Preface. 25
' Every year,' he wrote in 1787, ' more and more of
the clergy are convinced of the truth, and grow well
affected towards us. It would be contrary to all
common-sense as well as to good conscience to make a
separation now.'1 * If the Methodists leave the Church,'
he said to Alexander Knox, ' I would have my friends
adhere to the Church and leave the Methodists.' 2
Indeed, throughout the whole of Wesley's career,
nothing was more abhorrent to all his feelings and prin
ciples than the idea of a separation from the Church.
Dr- Rigg, indeed, is pleased to say (letter to the
Guardian, 14th November 1868), that 'Wesley not
only pointed, but paved the way, to all that has been
done by the Methodist Conference and people since his
day : and that the utmost divergence of Methodism from
the Church of England at the present time, is but the
prolongation of a line, the beginning of which was traced
by Wesley's own hand."
That John Wesley's assuming Episcopal functions
proved, as a matter of fact, the first step towards the
separation, is obvious enough. Dr. Whitehead, Wesley's
friend and biographer, and one of the trustees under his
will, calls the year in which this was done (1784) 'the
grand climacteric year of Methodism, because of the
change which now took place in the form of its original
constitution. Not that these changes destroyed at once
the original constitution of Methodism, but the seeds
of its corruption and final dissolution were this year
solemnly planted, and have since been carefully watered
and nursed by a powerful party among the preachers.'3
He was warned of this at the time, but, as his brother
1 Works, xii. 488. 2 Southey, ii. 439. 8 Life of Wesley, ii. 404.

26 Preface.
said ' could not and would not see it' Just as the Con
ference two years after Wesley's death could not and
would not see it, when at their meeting at Leeds in 1793,
at the very moment they were sanctioning the celebra
tion of the sacraments by some of their preachers, they
solemnly protested, ' We are determined as a body to
remain in connection with the Church of England. . . .
We do assure you that we have no design or desire of
making our societies separate Churches.' x But there is
not the slightest pretence for saying that John Wesley
considered separation to be the legitimate consequence
of that or any other act of his life, as will be placed
beyond dispute by what follows.
' The Methodist Society ' — as its author termed it (or
sometimes ' Our Society,' or ' The Societies under my
care ') — was designed by him to be a handmaid to the
Church. He speaks of the Methodist Service as 'not
superseding the Church Service;' 'if it were designed to
be instead of the Church Service it would be essentially
.defective, for it seldom has the four grand parts of
public prayer, deprecation, petition, intercession, and
thanksgiving.' 2 As regards his own practice, he said, in
1756, ' I never go to a meeting ;'3 in 1768, ' I dare not
leave the Parish Church, where I am, to go to an Inde
pendent meeting.' i (That he once, in his eighty-fourth
year, preached in a Dissenting meeting-house, will be
noticed hereafter.) And again in 1785 : 'Wherever I am
I go to the church, and join with the congregation.' 5
And in 1770 : 'We had a poor sermon at church. How
ever, I went again in the afternoon, remembering the

1 Minutes. 2 Large Minutes — Works vi. 359.
8 Id. ii. 381. i Id. iii. 337. 5 Id. xiii.

Preface. 2 7
words of Mr. Philip Henry, "If the preacher does
not know his duty, I bless God that I know mine." ' J
And in order that his followers might do the same, he
over and over again refused to have their preaching
during church hours (five o'clock in the morning and
after church hours in the evening, were Wesley's
usual times). In 1786 he wrote: 'I was vehemently
importuned to order the Sunday Service in our room
at the same time with that of the Church. It is easy
to see that this would be a formal separation from the
Church. We fixed our morning and evening service all
over England at such hours as not to interfere with the
Church, with this very design, that those of the Church
— if they choose it — might attend both one and the
other. But to fix it at the same hour is obliging them
to separate either from the Church or from us, and this
I judge to be not only inexpedient but totally unlawful
for me to do.' 2
In the Large Minutes (re-sanctioned by Wesley in
1772) occurs the following rule for both preachers and
people : ' In visiting the classes, ask every one, " Do you
go to Church as often as ever you did ? " Set the ex
ample yourself, and immediately alter every plan that
interferes therewith, so that every preacher may attend
the Church at least two Sundays out of four.' 3
And again : ' Let every preacher go to Church always
on Sunday mornings, and when he can in the afternoon.
God will help those who go on week-days too, as often
as they have opportunity.' i
Pawson, writing in 1787 (when Wesley was eighty-four),
says : 'Mr. Wesley seems more determined to abide in the
1 Works, iii. 401. 2 Id. iv. 353. j Id. vi. 358, Ed. 1809. 4 Id. p. 388.

28 Preface.
Church than ever. He talked about it again and again
in the public Conference, in the Society, etc., and in
such a hot fiery spirit as I did not like to see. He
talked of fighting with a flail, and putting all out of
Society who do not go to Church.' 1
Nothing could ever disturb Wesley's equanimity but
the dread of his followers becoming Dissenters, and he
cautions his people against praying like them, preaching
like them, or singing like them.
The following occurs among the Minutes of Confer
ence of 1788, but is not included in Jackson's copy of
the Large Minutes : ' The Assistants shall have a dis
cretionary power to read the Prayer Book in the
preaching hours on Sunday mornings where they think
it expedient, if the generality of the Society acquiesce
with it; on condition that Divine Service never be
performed in the Church hours on the Sundays when the
Sacrament is administered in the Parish Church where
the Preaching House is situated, and the people be
strenuously exhorted to attend the Sacrament in the
Parish Church on those Sundays.' 2
In 1789, when, under special circumstances, he did
sanction the holding of services in Dublin during
Church hours, but only on condition that his people
attended the Cathedral at certain stated times, he did
it, he said, ' not to prepare for but to prevent a separation
from the Church.' 3 ' I dare not,' he wrote in 1746, and
republished in 1772, 'renounce the Communion of the
Church.' ' Our rule is that if any man separate from
the Church he is no longer a member of our Society.' 4

1 Tyerman, iii. 497. 2 Minutes, vol. i. 213.
3 Works, iv. 449. 4 Id. viii. 443-4.

Preface. 2 9
He says that he ' observed the rubrics with scrupulous
exactness, not for wrath but for conscience' sake,' 1
In 1745, being advised to have greater regard for the
rules and order of the Church, he replied, ' I cannot, for
I now regard them next to the Word of God.' 2 And
this he re-affirmed in 1772.
In 1757 he tells how, on talking with the Society at
Normanby, ' he saw more than ever the care of God
over them that fear Him. What was it that stopped
their growing in grace ? Why, they had a well-meaning
preacher among them who was inflaming them more and
more against the clergy. Nor could he advise them to
attend the public ordinances ; for he never went either
to Church or Sacrament himself. This I knew not,
but God did ; and by His wise providence prevented
the consequences which would naturally have ensued.
William Manuel was pressed for a soldier, so the people
go to Church and Sacrament as before.' 3
In 1758 he wrote : 'We do not call ourselves Metho
dists at all. That we call ourselves members of the
Church of England is certain. Such we ever were, and
such we are at this day.' And again : ' The chief design
of God's providence in sending us out is undoubtedly
to quicken our brethren ; and the first message of all
our preachers is to the lost sheep of the Church of
England. Now, would it not be a flat contradiction to
this design to separate from the Church ? ' (Republished
in 1772.) 4
In 1773 he quoted with approval his brother's lines —
' What my soul does as Hell-fire reject —
A Pope, a Count, a leader of a sect ' —
1 Works, viii. 32. 2 Id. viii. 1 19. 3 Id. ii. 416. 4 Id. xiii. 195.

30 Preface.
adding, 'I am of no sect but the Church of Eng
land.' 1
In 1783 he wrote : ' In my fourna I, in the Magazine,
in every possible way, I have advised the Methodists to
keep to the Church. They that do this most prosper
best in their souls ; I have observed it long. If ever
the Methodists in general were to leave the Church, I
must leave them.' 2
The twelve reasons which he gave against separating
from the Church in 1758 he declared in 1785 that he
subscribed to still.
In his I32d Sermon he writes: 'The Methodists'
fixed purpose is — let the clergy 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. . . . We do not, will not, form any separate sect,
but from principle remain — what we always have been
— true members of the Church of England.'
In 1788 he stated that thirty years previously the
question of separation from the Church ' had been seri
ously considered by them, at a general Conference. All
the arguments on the one side and the other were con
sidered at large, and it was determined without one
dissenting voice that, " they ought not to separate from
the Church." ' ' This is a new thing in the world. This
is the peculiar glory of the people called Methodists. In
spite of all manner of temptations, they will not separate
from the Church. What many so earnestly covet, they
abhor ; they will not be a distinct body.' 3
In 1787, finding some of the Society at Deptford ' mad
1 Works, xii. 417. 2 Tyerman, iii. 390. 3 Works, xiii. 232,

Preface. 3 1
for separating from the Church, I endeavoured,' said
Wesley, ' to reason with them, but in vain. They had
neither sense nor even good manners left. At length,
after meeting the whole Society, I told them, "If you are
resolved, you may have your service in church hours ;
but remember, from that time you will see my face no
more." This struck deep, and from that hour I have
heard no more of separating from the Church.' 1
In 1788 Joseph Taylor, whom Wesley had three years
previously set apart and sent into Scotland, where he
administered the Sacraments and preached in gown and
bands, was appointed to Nottingham ; whereupon Wes
ley wrote him : ' Our friends in Newark should not have
forgotten that we have determined over and over not to
leave the Church. Before they had given you that foolish
advice, they should have consulted me. I desire that
you would not wear the surplice nor minister the Lord's
Supper any more.' 2
In the same year he wrote to Henry Moore : ' The
more I reflect, the more I am convinced that the Metho
dists ought not to leave the Church. I judge that to
lose a thousand — yea, ten thousand — of our people would
be a less evil than this. " But many had much comfort
in this." So they would in any new thing. I believe
Satan himself would give them comfort herein, for he
knows what the end would be. Our glory has hitherto
been not to be a separate body. Hoc Ithacus velit.' 3
1 Journal, 2d January 1787. 2 Tyerman, iii. 549.
3 Tyerman, iii. 543. When modern Methodists assert that they are not
in schism because, according to Wesley's saying, schism is a separation in
and not from a Church (as though a partial rent were sinful, but a total
rent blameless ! ! ), they should ponder the above words, which show that he
deemed a separation from the Church to be a device of Satan— just exactly
the thing which Satan would wish for.

3 2 Preface.
In 1787 he wrote to one of his preachers : ' Modern
laziness has jumbled together the two distinct offices of
preaching and administering the Sacraments. But be
that as it may, I will rather lose twenty Societies than
separate from the Church.' 1
In 1789 he wrote to Mr. Tripp : ' I abhor the thought
of separation from the Church.'
In the same year he speaks of the Methodists as ' a
part of the Church of England,' and that it was ' their
peculiar glory not to form any new sect but to abide in
their own Church.'
Again : ' Unless I see more reason for it than I ever
saw yet, I will not leave the Church of England as
by law established while the breath of God is in my
nostrils.' 2
And again, in August of the same year, at the Leeds
Conference : ' The case of separation from the Church
was largely considered, and we were all unanimous
against it' 3
I do not find the following letter to Wm. Perceval,
dated 17th February 1787, in any edition of Wesley's
printed Works, but it was inserted in the Methodist
Magazine, September 1834 : —
'Dear Billy, — You cannot be too watchful against evil
speaking nor too zealous for the poor Church of England. I
commend sister Perceval for having her child baptized there, and
for returning public thanks. By all means go to Church as often
as you can, and exhort all Methodists to do so. They that are
enemies to this Church are enemies to me. I am a friend to the
Church, and ever was. By our reading prayers we prevent our

1 British Magazine, September 1834.
2 Works, xiii. 238, 239. 3 Id. iv. 466.

Preface. • 33
people's contracting a hatred to forms of prayer, which would
naturally be the case if we prayed extempore.''
Contrast this with the state of things described by a
speaker at the Wesleyan Conference of 1881. 'The
majority of our people have no Liturgy ; they want none ' !
In May 1789 Wesley when at Cork wrote his cele
brated Sermon, on Hebrews v. 4, on the Ministerial
Commission, in which he told his preachers that they
had no authority whatever to administer the Sacraments,
and that for them to do so would be to commit the sin
of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. » He subsequently
preached this sermon in England, before the preachers
assembled in Conference, as well as on other occasions ; l
and ultimately published it in the Arminian Magazine
of 1790, in the two parts for May and June, nine and
ten months before his death. This sermon his followers
suppressed, as has been before mentioned, in the several
editions of his Sermons up to 1828 (I find it omitted
in the tenth edition published in that year), and in all
the editions of his Works (the latter being three in
number) previous to the year 1829.
In it he tells his people, ' Ye yourselves were 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.'2 Fifteen months before his death he wrote, ' I never
had any design of separating from the Church ; I have
1 See Whitehead's Life of Wesley, ii. 498. 2 Works, vii. 280.
C

34 Preface.
no such design now. I do not believe the Methodists in
general design it, when I am no more seen. I do, and
will do all in my power to prevent such an event. . . .
I declare, once more, that I live and die a member of
the Church of England ; and that none who regard my
judgment or advice will ever separate from it'1 Here
then we have Wesley's unvarying declaration of devo
tion to the Church and reprobation of dissent from his
early ministry down to the latest period of his life, amply
confirming Mr. Tyerman's statement that ' Wesley lived
and died a hearty but inconsistent Churchman ; ' and it
is no wonder that some of the so-called ' Wesleyans ' are
now desirous of getting rid of that designation, and
declare that 'they have heard of Wesley lately ad
nauseam' ' The last advice ' — said Wesley on another occasion of
a dying friend — ' is not likely to be soon forgotten.'
Would that it had been so in this case ; but no sooner
was this friend dead than his followers began to prepare
for that separation which he had so earnestly deprecated
and denounced. At the very time that they were putting
forth the above-mentioned declaration, that they ' had
no desire or intention of making their societies sepa
rate Churches,' Conference was commissioning their
preachers (who, as they admitted, had received no Ordi
nation whatever) to administer the Sacraments ; and the
same John Pawson who presided over the Conference
which made that declaration, before the close of the
year proposed to divide the kingdom into four bishop
rics, viz. London, Bristol, Leeds, and Newcastle, two of
which were to be filled by Coke and Mather, who (hav-

1 Works, xiii. 240.

Preface. 35
ing been made bishops by Mr. Wesley) were to make
bishops for the other two sees ; adding these significant
words, ' We must have Ordination among us at any rate.'
In the following year — 1794 — Coke, Mather, Pawson,
Taylor, Hy. Moore, Bradburn, and two other preachers
met in secret conclave at Lichfield (choosing that city —
Dr. Smith informs us — because there were no Methodists
in it to take alarm), and drew up a scheme upon which
they proposed to consolidate the connection as a Metho
dist Episcopal Church. They parcelled out the three
kingdoms into seven dioceses, and agreed to propose
to the next Conference the above-mentioned six persons
with a preacher called Hanby as the first seven bishops.
This scheme, which they all agreed to ' recommend and
support,' was laid before the Conference of 1794, and by
it rejected, ' as tending to create invidious and unhallowed
distinctions among brethren.' x
That body had declared, and inserted in their minutes
of 1793, 'We have never sanctioned Ordination in
England either in this Conference or in any other in
any degree, nor even attempted to do it ; ' nor was it
until more than forty years after — viz. in 1836 — that
Conference, under the presidency of Jabez Bunting (who
declared that he himself had never received any Ordina
tion of any kind), set up their ' Ordination,' such as it is
— an Ordination not of deacons, priests, and bishops,
nor of Wesley's equivalents — deacons, elders, and super
intendents, but of ' a Christian minister ' (to which the
word ' pastor ' has been since annexed) : from which it
is evident that the present Wesleyan ministry has no
connection whatever, as a ministry, with John Wesley,
1 Smith's History, ii. 98-101. Life of Coke, p. 439.

36 Preface.
and can only claim Jabez Bunting as its founder and
originator. But, from the day that Conference braved
Wesley's denunciation of the sin of Korah, and com
missioned the preachers to administer the Sacraments,
the schism was to all intents and purposes complete.
Instead of inventing reasons for the separation so late
in the day, would it not be better to take the reasons
given by people who lived at the time, and who were
well acquainted with the motives which actuated the
seceders. ' The preachers are now too strong for me,'
said John Wesley, mournfully, about six weeks before
his death. And the reason given by Charles Wesley
for the separation — which he clearly foresaw, aijd
denounced as a work of Satan — was ' the pride and
selfishness of some of the preachers.' This pride seems
to have reached to a height which even Charles Wesley
could never have dreamed of when Methodist preachers
appear decorated with the titles of D.D., M.A., LL.D.,
Ph.D. etc. (not bestowed by any university in England),
and when Conference spends many hundreds of pounds
and invokes the aid of the courts of law to enforce the
right of one of their preachers to bestow on himself what
the Supreme Courts decided to be ' a laudatory epithet.'1
At the cost of being pronounced by the highest court of
the realm to have ' no claim to be persons in Holy
Orders,' they have attained the object of their ambition,
viz. to laud themselves with the epithet Reverend (that
' magic prefix,' as the Methodist Recorder terms it) which
Conference in 1793, and again in 1794, forbade them to
touch ; and, in lieu of the designation of ' Preacher '

1 See Keel v. Smith — the Owston Ferry tombstone case. Appendix.

Preface. 37
assigned to them by Wesley, to take to themselves the
title of 'Minister,' which their 'venerated founder'
repeatedly prohibited them from adopting.1

1 See Minutes of 1763, 1770, 1772, 1780, and 1789.
Montaigne said of Calvin : ' If he had known that in certain
parts of Italy the preaching monks call themselves " ministers," he
would doubtless have given his preachers some other name.' Had
Wesley's preachers been aware of the origin of this title, they would
perhaps have contented themselves with that assigned to them by
their Founder.

JOHN WESLEY AND MODERN
METHODISM
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION.
The first ' Popish ' doctrine which we have to consider
is that of the Apostolical Succession.
When Wesley's words are adduced, stating this
doctrine in its strongest terms, the common reply is that
' he may have held this doctrine in his earlier days, but
that when he had got rid of his Oxford High Church
notions, he relinquished it'
The following extracts from his works will show that
he held it from the time he was thirty-six years of age
up to the year before his death.
Next it is asserted that all that Wesley meant by the
Apostolical Succession was the simple fact that there
has been a continuous succession of Christian Ministers
who have preached Apostolical doctrines. Now it is
plain that if this be the meaning of ' The Apostolical
Succession,' one might just as well talk ofthe Apostolical
Succession of Constables — for, does not the Apostle
say, ' Let every soul be subject to the higher powers : '
and does any person doubt that there has been from
the Apostles' days to these a succession of officers

40 John Wesley.
charged with the preservation of the peace ; whilst the
Apostle states also that ' all authority is from God ' ! !
John Wesley's words will dispel all such delusions as
far as he is concerned. In 1739, when asked at Bath
by the notorious Beau Nash by what authority he did
those things, he replied, 'By the authority of Jesus
Christ, conveyed to me by the Archbishop of Canter
bury when he laid his hands upon me, and said, " Take
thou authority to preach the Gospel." n N.B. This and
the six quotations following were republished by Wesley
in his collected and corrected works, when he was about
seventy years of age, as amongst ' his last and maturist
thoughts ; agreeable he hoped to Scripture, Reason, and
Christian Antiquity.' — (Preface.)
In 1 745 he wrote: 'We believe there is and always
was, in every Christian Church (whether dependent on
the Bishop of Rome or not), an outward Priesthood
ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward Sacrifice
offered therein by men authorised to act as ambassadors
of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.'2
' We believe it would not be right for us to administer
either Baptism or the Lord's Supper unless we had a
commission so to do from those Bishops whom we
apprehend to be in a succession from the Apostles.'2
Again : ' We believe ' that the threefold order of
Ministers is not only authorised by its Apostolical insti
tution, but also by the written Word.'2
In the same year he answered the objection made
1 Works, i. 198. The ' authority ' only commissioned him to preach the
Gospel ' in the congregation where he should be lawfully appointed there
unto. ' To have quoted the whole of the sentence would have supplied
Nash with the rejoinder, ' Show me your " lawful appointment " to preach
in Bath ' 2 Id. ii. 4.

Apostolical Succession. 41
against his Preachers, that ' no man taketh this honour
to himself, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron,'
in these words, ' nor do these ' {i.e. the Preachers). The
Jwnour here mentioned is the Priesthood. But they
no more take upon them to be Priests than to be Kings.
They take not upon them to administer the Sacraments
— an honour peculiar to the Priests of God. Only
according to their power they exhort their brethren to
continue in the grace of God.'1
In 1746 he stated that at his Ordination (which he
apprehended to convey an indelible character), his com
mission was given to him in these words : ' Receive the
Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the
Church of God, now committed to thee by the imposi
tion of our hands.'2
In 1748 he wrote that ' Ministers should be authorised
to exercise that office by those who are empowered to
convey that authority : I believe Bishops are empowered
to do this, and have been so from the Apostolic age.' 3
In 1756 he remonstrated thus with some of his
Preachers: 'Some of our Preachers who are not
ordained, think it quite right to administer the Lord's
Supper, and believe it would do much good. I think
it quite wrong, and believe it would do much hurt. . .
You believe it to be a duty to administer; ... I
verily believe it is a sin ; which, consequently, I dare not
tolerate.'4 In 1763 he got one of his Preachers, Jones, ordained
by the Greek Bishop Erasmus (at that time in England),
with the express view of enabling him to celebrate the

1 Works, viii. 224. 2 Id. 441.
3 Id. 497. 4 Id. xiii. 187.

42 John Wesley.
Lord's Supper, taking great pains to ascertain first that
Erasmus was really a Bishop : a proof, as Dr. Smith
confesses, that 'Wesley then thought that no person
should administer the Sacraments to his societies with
out Episcopal Ordination.'1
It was objected that Wesley had acted in contraven
tion of the oath of supremacy, taken by English Clergy
on their Ordination, viz. that 'no foreign person or
Prelate hath any jurisdiction, power, or authority, ecclesi
astical or spiritual, in this realm.'
Charles Wesley refused to recognise Jones's orders,
and seems to have persuaded him of their invalidity,
for he was afterwards ordained by the Bishop of London.
No sooner was it known that a Preacher had been
ordained by Erasmus, than several other Preachers
applied to him for the same favour, two of them being
very importunate to be consecrated Bishops. For one
single Bishop to consecrate another was — he told them
— contrary to the rules of the Church, but he ordained
some of them Priests. At this Wesley was very indig
nant, and forthwith expelled from the Society all who
would not forego their newly acquired powers.2 It was
also confidently asserted that application was made to this
same Bishop Erasmus to consecrate Wesley a Bishop.
In December 1769 he wrote : ' It is not yet determined
whether I should go to America or not.'3
In 1772 we find him writing to Rev. Walter
Sellon : ' You do not understand your information right
Observe, " I am going to America to turn Bishop."
You are to understand it in sensu composito. I am not
to be a Bishop till I am in America. While I am in
1 History, i. 298. ' Id. i. 299. s Works, xiv. 202, 203.

Apostolical Succession. 43
Europe, therefore, you have nothing to fear. But as
soon as ever you hear of my being landed at Phila
delphia, it will be time for your apprehensions to revive.
It is true some of our Preachers would not have me
stay so long ; but L keep my old rule ; Festina lente.' J
In 1777, however, he wrote (in reply to an infamously
scurrilous attack made on him by Rowland Hill) : ' I
never entreated anything of Bishop Erasmus ; nor did
he ever " reject any overture " made by me.' 2
Dr. Smith's account of this matter seems to reconcile
both statements. He tells how Toplady had accused
Wesley of ' ' strongly pressing' (the italics are Dr. Smith's)
the Bishop to consecrate him. Wesley did not himself
reply, but one of his Preachers — Olivers — did so with
Wesley's approval, and denied that Wesley strongly
pressed the Bishop ; admitting, however, that ' Wesley
would be glad if both he and the Preachers had an
outward call too, but that no Bishop in England would
give it them. What wonder then if he were to endeavour
to procure it by any other innocent means'5
It would seem that application was made to Bishop
Erasmus, but not directly by Wesley himself.
In 1768 he procured the Ordination of one of his
Preachers (Lawrence Coughlan,1 who had been previously
ordained by the Greek Bishop Erasmus) by the Bishop
of London as a Missionary to Newfoundland.4 And
Thomas Maxfield, his first Preacher, was ordained, as
we have seen, by the Bishop of Derry. Why did Wes
ley procure the Ordination of these men by Bishops, if
he had no doubts about his own episcopal powers ?

1 Works, xiv. 202, 203. 2 Id. \. 450.
3 Smith's History, i. 98. * Coke and Moore's Life, p. 478.

44 John Wesley.
Lastly, in 1789 and 1790, in the celebrated suppressed
sermon on Hebrews v. 4, before referred to, he addressed
some of his Preachers who were desirous of celebrating
the Lord's Supper in the following words — using the
precise argument of S. Cyprian in a similar case (see
Epist. Ixix.) : ' You never dreamed of this for ten or
twenty years after ye began to preach. Ye did not,
then, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, seek the Priest
hood also. Ye knew that no man taketh this honour to
himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. O
contain yourselves within your own bounds. Be con
tent with preaching the Gospel ... In God's name stop
there.' — Arminian Magazine, 1790 ; and Works, vii.
279.1 Here, then, we have John Wesley's own words and
acts constantly repeated for fifty years down to the year
before his death, bearing one unvarying testimony to the
doctrine that there is no such thing as a Presbyter in
the Church of Christ, unless he has been ordained by
one who has himself been commissioned by the laying
on of hands. A fact which is stated by Wesley's friend
and biographer, Moore, in the following terms ¦: ' He
never would acknowledge any Ministry that was not
conferred in the Scriptural Apostolic and Ancient way,
1 At the Wesleyan Conference of 1875, the late Dr. Punshon, the ex-
President, is reported to have said : ' The Methodist Ministry had been
taunted that its orders were invalid, and it had been said that they were
Korahs offering strange fires. The ignorance of men who could make such
remarks is the excuse for their impertinent flippancy. '
It has long been known how much regard the Methodists have paid
practically to the principles and injunctions of their ' venerated founder. '
But to hear him thus charged — by implication — and that by one who calls
himself a Wesleyan, with ' ignorance ' and ' impertinent flippancy ' is in
deed startling.

Apostolical Succession. 45
by laying on of hands.' And when two of his dearest
friends, the Perronets, broke this rule, he rebuked
them most sternly. 'Keep,' he says, 'your opinion
till Doomsday, self-inconsistent, unprimitive, and un-
scriptural as it is' (Moore's Life of Wesley, vol. ii.
P- 345)-
But, it will be asked, if Wesley thus held the doctrine
of the Apostolical Succession, and the absolute neces
sity of the laying on of hands by those who had them
selves received a similar commission, what is the mean
ing of Wesley's saying that ' the uninterrupted succession
was a fable which no man can prove/ and of his him
self consecrating Dr. Coke as Bishop for America ? The
whole point of Wesley's saying as above is lost by not
observing Wesley's own italics. He was in controversy
in 1 76 1 with a Romish Priest who had asserted the
necessity of an uninterrupted succession from the
Apostles. Wesley replied (and repeated his statement
many years subsequently) that ' uninterrupted succession
(the italics are Wesley's own) is what no man can
prove ' x — an obvious fact enough, for all the lists of
Bishops, of any particular See, show interruptions.
Moreover, Wesley himself admits that he used this
argument not as touching the merits of the case, but
merely to silence his adversary (as argumentum ad

1 The late Lord Macaulay (who was by no means overmuch of a Church
man) is reported to have been able to repeat by heart the list of Bishops
from Linus, the first Bishop of Rome, A.D. 66, to Dr. Wm. Howley,
Archbishop of Canterbury, 1828, and that he. used to say that 'whatever
may be the doctrine, there can be no question of the historical truth ; '
whilst Gibbon writes (History, ii. 192, n.), ' Nulla ecclesia sine episcopo
has been a. fact as well as a maxim since the time of Tertullian and
Irenaeus.'

46 John Wesley.
hominem not ad rem) by showing that what his oppo
nent stated to be essential to the existence of a Church,
the Church of Rome did not itself possess, namely, a
succession free from interruptions. Such interruptions,
however, in the Episcopate of any particular See in
no way affect the doctrine of the Apostolical Suc
cession. There were three interruptions, consisting altogether
of some forty years, in the See of Oxford, in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, and an interruption in the See of
Canterbury for sixteen years after the murder of Arch
bishop Laud. But no one ever questioned that Bridges,
Bishop of Oxford in 1604, and Archbishop Juxon (who
had been consecrated as Bishop of London in 1633),
Laud's successor, were consecrated by Bishops who had
been themselves Episcopally consecrated. The conti
nuity ofthe Apostolic claim depends not so much on the
succession of occupants in any particular Diocese, as on
the valid consecration of the consecrators by the laying
on of Episcopal hands — a thing regulated even from
very early times by canons and decrees of councils,
performed with due ceremonies, and in the face of the
world. But as regards the Apostolical Succession itself,
Wesley held it as firmly as any modern or ancient
Churchman could do. This Papist had objected, ' The
true ministers came down by succession from the
Apostles.' Wesley replied : 'So do the Protestant
ministers, if the Romish do — the English particularly,
as even one of yourselves, Father Courayer — has irre-
fragably proved'1 (republished by Wesley in 1774).
1 Works, iii. 44.

Apostolical Succession. 47
In fact the only doubt ever entertained by Wesley
was whether the Apostolic Succession was not continued
(according to the Presbyterian theory) through the
Priesthood as well as through the Episcopate. He
stated himself to have been convinced by a book of
Peter King, a ' rigid dissenter,' afterwards Lord Chan
cellor (published when he was a youth of twenty-two),
that Bishops and Priests were of one and the same
order. He read this book in 1746, and yet nine years
afterwards wrote : ' It is not clear to us that Presbyters
so circumstanced as we are may appoint or ordain
others' (Tyerman, ii. 210), and in 1763 got the Greek
Bishop Erasmus to ordain Jones as before mentioned.
Subsequently (in 1789) he made what is apparently
an apology for his conduct : ' When I said I believe
I am a scriptural Bishop, I spoke on Lord King's
supposition, that Bishops and Priests are essentially one
order.' a
And again, responding to his brother Charles's re
monstrances, he says : ' Perhaps if you had kept close to
me I might have done better.' 2 To which Charles
replied : ' I kept as close to you as close could be, for I
was all the time at your elbow, and you might certainly
have done better if you had taken me into your
counsel' 3
Pawson says : ' That Wesley originally intended to
ordain preachers for England is what I never could
believe ; and with respect to Scotland he often declared

1 Works, xiii. 238.
2 Id. 221. Dr. Smith, who professes to give this letter entire (Hist. i.
521), and Dr. Rigg after him, who quotes many lines immediately before
and after this sentence (Relations, etc., p. 46). Dotn suppress the sen
tence itself ! ! 3 Tyerman, iii. 447.

48 John Wesley.
to me, and in the congregation at Edinburgh, that he
was over-persuaded to it.' x
His conduct was, in truth, a flagrant breach of a
covenant entered into many years before with his
brother, and recorded in the minutes of conferences of
1754, ' not to act independently of each other.'
Hampson — Wesley's earliest biographer — writes :
' Some time before his .death, Mr. Wesley repented of
the steps he had taken (in the matter of ordaining), and
did all he could to counteract, what he too plainly per
ceived, an increasing tendency towards a final separa
tion from the Church.' 2 And we have it on the
authority of Rev. James Chrichton, one of Wesley's
most trusted clergy, employed by him to administer
the Sacraments in London, and also to join him in the
laying on of hands in his 'Ordinations,' that Wesley
repented with tears that he had ordained any of his
Preachers, and that he expressed his sorrow for it at
the Conference of 1789, and occasionally afterwards till
his death. About six weeks before he died, he said,
' The Preachers are now too powerful for me.' 3
In the year 1810 the Rev. Thomas Charles of Bala
followed Wesley's example and assumed the episcopal
function of Ordination, ' urged thereto by the continual
importunity of some of the Methodist Preachers.' Up
to that time the Welsh Methodists had been within the
Church, receiving the Sacraments only from the clergy :
thenceforward they went to swell the ranks of the Dis
senters. Mr. Charles had to follow Wesley's example
also in bitterly regretting what he had done. Indeed,
remorse is said to' have combined with other causes to

1 Tyerman, iii. 443. 2 ii. 216. 3 Tyerman, iii. 441.

Apostolical Succession, 40
hasten his end. He died four years afterwards, in the
prime of life.1
However, it was under this 'supposition' that Wesley
proceeded to consecrate Dr. Coke, who was already a
Priest of the Church of England, as Bishop (the word
used was ' superintendent ') for America. But here the
question was at once asked, ' If Bishops and Priests are
the same, what need of consecration from Wesley or
anybody else ? ' He was a Bishop already. But Wesley
by consecrating him had confessed that he was not a
Bishop before that act, whilst in words he declared
that Coke was as much a Bishop before as after, be
cause ' Priests and Bishops,' said he, * are one and the
same.' And then having made two of his Preachers,
Whatcoat and Vasey^ Presbyters, and so, according to
his theory, Bishops — he sent them out to America im
pressed with no Episcopal character whatever, but
merely ' to act as Elders.'
I have something more than a respect for John
Wesley'; for many of the noblest qualities that can
adorn a Christian I reverence him ; but it is impossible
to deny that in this case he not only outraged the
laws of the Church of which he professed himself a
devoted member, but was also guilty of a most amaz-

1 Judge Johnes's Causes of Dissent in Wales, p. 48.
Compare Wesley's and Charles's unavailing tears with Luther's ' too
late ' repentance. The stars were unusually brilliant one evening when
Luther and Catharine (the nun whom he had married) were walking in
the garden. 'What a brilliant light,' said he, as he looked up, 'but it
burns not for us.' 'And why are we,' asked Catharine, ' to be excluded
from the kingdom of heaven?' 'Perhaps,' said Luther, with a sigh,
' because we left our convents. ' Catharine, ' Shall we return, then ? '
Luther, ' It is too late to do that.'
D

50 John Wesley.
ing inconsistency, and that his brother Charles's words
are unanswerable —
' How easy now are Bishops made,
At man or woman's whim ;
Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid,
But who laid hands on him f '
Two clergymen — Methodists of the Calvinian school
— Wills and Taylor, on this same plea that Bishops and
Priests are the same order, took upon them in March
1783 to ordain some of their followers, thus anticipating
Wesley's ordination of Coke by eighteen months. They,
however, acted with less inconsistency than Wesley,
for before usurping Episcopal functions they abjured
the Church. Luther had indeed affected to consecrate
Amsdorf a Bishop, and the Preacher at the Prussian
Court Jablonsky pretended to bestow the same office
on Count Zinzendorf, but Wesley thought little of
Luther and detested Zinzendorf.
That Wesley did not at once see the inconsistency of
his conduct in this matter was attributed by his friends
at the time to failing intellect — (he was in his eighty-
second year). Charles Wesley wrote —
' 'Twas age that made the breach, not he.'
His old friend Alexander Knox pronounced him 'the
dupe of his own weakness and other men's arts,'
whilst Dr. Whitehead, to whom Wesley by will in
trusted his papers, and who by special request preached
Wesley's funeral sermon, declared that 'to the unin
fected itinerants his conduct was "amazing and con
founding." ' The way in which Wesley, in defence of
his conduct, quotes one of the Thirty-nine Articles,

Apostolical Succession. 5 1
betrays great confusion of mind. He calls it 1 Article
XX., whereas it is Article XIX. He says that the
Article is a definition of ' a particular Church ; ' whereas
its first words are, ' The visible Church of Christ is,' etc.
And he says the Latin is Ccetus credentium, whereas it
is Ccetus fidelium.
And if Bishop and Priest are one, why did he in this
same year, in drawing up his The Sunday Service of the
Methodists in the United States of America, put forth an
Ordinal for ordaining deacons, elders, and superintend
ents, three distinct services for three distinct orders ? 2
Two years before this a decay of his original mental
vigour appeared, for we find him worried into signing a
certain document not only against his better judgment,
but which he had protested that he never would sign.
Writing to his brother in 1782, he says: 'I gave the
trustees a positive answer that I would not sign it, and
leaving them abruptly, went up into my room. ... At
night, a little before I went to bed, they came again, got
round, and worried me down. But I think they cannot
worry you.'3
This letter is further valuable as showing the unhappy
influences by which Wesley was in his later years
surrounded. In 1787, after having all his life long pro
tested that ' he never went to a meeting-house,' we find ,
him not only going to but preaching in one. In 1786
he defended his having ' set apart ' three Preachers for
Scotland, on the same grounds as he had laid hands on
Dr. Coke for America, viz. that there was no Church

1 Works, xiii. 221. 2 See his abridged Prayer-Book, Appendix F.
3 Works, xii. 136. -As remarkable a testimony to his brother's greater
strength of mind as his words in 1785—' Many times you see further into
men than I do' — were to superior discernment. — Id. 139.

52 John Wesley.
of England there, and that consequently he made no
separation from it. Yet two years after he set apart
Mather — first as a 'deacon,' then as an 'elder,' and
finally as a ' superintendent,' and in the following year
Henry More as an ' elder,' ' without ' — says Myles in his
Chronology — ' sending them out of England.' And Mr.
Urlin (Churchman's Life of fohn Wesley) reports a case
of his giving Letters of Ordination without any imposi
tion of hands, but in the face of what Wesley said to
the Perronets this could have been nothing more than a
licence to preach. Dr. Whitehead says that ' all those
ordained at first were laid under a restriction not to
exercise their ministerial functions in England' (ii. 418).
On Moore, however (as on Coke), he seems to have laid
hands, for Jackson in his Recollections prints his Letters
of Orders, which state as much. Jackson professes to
have copied these letters from Moore's autobiography.
Why Moore in his Life of Wesley, published in 1824-5,
made not the slightest mention of them requires explan
ation. Unsparing was the scorn and ridicule poured upon
Mather by one of his fellow-Preachers — Kilham — in
1794, for having got himself, 'an old travelling
Preacher ' of upwards of thirty years standing, ordained
first a deacon, 'to serve tables,' etc., on the second day
a priest, whose office he describes from Leviticus, and
on the third day 'a sham Episcopal Methodistical
Bishop.' He comments severely on his having made
on his knees before God the solemn promises contained
in Mr. Wesley's Prayer-Book (those in the Ordination of
' Superintendents ') which he never attempted to fulfil,
and declares that ' it was not with an intention to take
care of a congregation, or feed the flock of Christ with

Apostolical Succession. 53
the Sacraments, that he was made a Bishop, but to be in
readiness to set apart others to these offices provided the
people should become a separate body. He and another
Preacher (Dr. Coke) were made Bishops as a corps de
reserve, and were'to hold themselves in readiness to come
from their obscurity if they should see it necessary.' J
It should be remarked that not a word of these ordi
nations of Mather, Moore, and Rankin is to be found
in Wesley's published journals — generally particular
enough, even in matters of much less importance.
The biographer of Alexander Kilham (pp. 139, 192)
says that during Wesley's lifetime ' Dr. Coke and Mr.
Mather, especially the latter, were suspected of a design
to seize the reins of government after Mr. Wesley,
Mather having exercised great influence over him, and
almost virtually ruled the connection for some time
previous to his death.' Unfortunately for this design
Coke was abroad when Wesley died, and our biographer
describes how he hurried to England, and his intense
vexation and disappointment on finding that many of
the Preachers had met and taken measures to put an
effectual stop to anything of the kind.2
Miss Wedgwood considers that Wesley's mind had
become weakened, ' not so much, however, by age, as
by long abstinence from intercourse with those who saw
things from any other than his own point of view ; ' to
which must be added the fact that most of his associates
were what his brother pronounced his Preachers to have
been — ' Raised from the people's lowest lees ' —
the major part of them being, according to Lacking-
1 Life of Kilham, p. 192.
2 See further concerning Dr. Coke, Appendix G.

54 John Wesley.
ton (himself for many years a Methodist), ' very ignorant
and extremely illiterate,' and ' many of them unable to
read a chapter in the Bible : ' x an account confirmed by
Nightingale— another ex-Methodist— in his Portraiture
of Methodism.
Here, however, is an account of one — Michael
Fenwick — who not only could read, but also seems to
have been of some account among the Preachers, for he
is said to have become ' superintendent of all Ireland.'
John Wesley, with whom he travelled, described him
as 'an excellent groom, valet de chambre, nurse, and
upon an occasion a tolerable preacher.' Charles Wesley
went to hear him preach, and this is his account :
' Such a Preacher have I never heard, and hope I never
shall again. It was beyond description. I cannot say
he preached false doctrine or true, or any doctrine at
all, but pure unmixed nonsense. Not one sentence did
he utter that could do the least good- to any one soul.
Now and then a text of Scripture or a verse quotation
was dragged in by head and shoulders. I could scarce
refrain from stopping him. He set my blood a gallop
ing, and threw me into such a sweat that I expected
the fever to follow.' 2
Up to the year 1784 Wesley would not have his
Preachers remain more than a week or a fortnight in
the same place ; ' they could not find matter ' for a
longer time.3 But in his Deed of Declaration of that
date it is enacted that ' the Conference shall not appoint
any person to any of the chapels for more than three
years successively, except ordained ministers oftlie Church

1 Memoirs, p. 183. 2 C. W. Journal, 5th Aug. 1751.
3 Journal, 4th May 1784; Tyerman, iii. 561.

. Apostolical Succession. 5 5
of England ' — an exception which draws a sharp line
of distinction between the Preachers and Clergy.
With such a people to rule, an arbitrary government
was perhaps the only possible one. But indeed Wesley
seems to have been a born autocrat. Tyerman relates
that when one of the senior scholars at the Charter
house, he was observed to associate constantly with the
little boys, whom he used to get around him and
harangue. On one occasion, being remonstrated with
by the master, he replied —
" Better to rule (reign) in Hell than serve in Heaven." x
One of the original Oxford Methodists used often to
say that Wesley ' was naturally and habitually a tutor,
and would be so to the end of the chapter.'
In after life we are informed by his earliest biographer
that he was not at all in the habit of listening to other
people's arguments, but ' when any of his Preachers
were of a different mind and refused to concur in his
measures, he threw them overboard with the most
perfect indifference, or — to borrow his own phraseology
— " he commended them to God." ' At a Conference
in London one of the Preachers having offered some
arguments against Wesley's theory of perfection, Wesley
' immediately rose up, answered his arguments by recit
ing the experience of some good old woman, and with
out waiting for a reply dissolved the assembly.' 2
The Conferences had been open to all the Preachers,
but the Deed of Declaration — 'the Magna Charta of
Methodism ' — having been vigorously opposed by many
of them in the Conference of 1784, he secured himself
against such rebellion the following year by inviting by
1 Tyerman, i. 20. 2 Hampson, iii. 37, 53, and 197-9.

56 John Wesley.
name each ofthe persons present, 'and one consequence
of this,' he naively adds, ' was that we had no contention
or altercation at all.'1 It was by such measures that he
secured himself against any divergence of opinion, and
it was consequently no wonder that the having none but
his own thoughts reflected back to him by such faithful
mirrors should have dulled his perceptions. Gulliver
himself must have dwindled if he had lived for half a
century with his Lilliputians.
Wesley seems himself to have been aware that his
influence over educated people was but slight. 'He
repeatedly observed to me ' — says Moore 2 — ' that he
could rarely keep professional men either in law or
medicine long with him,' and he also made the same
remark concerning booksellers. He — as his earliest
biographer informs us — excluded from his first ' legal
hundred ' forming the Conference of 1784 some of the
oldest and ablest Preachers, ' whilst many of the selected
members were not only deficient in abilities, but some
of them at the time of their insertion in the deed were
only upon trial, and not yet admitted as itinerants,
while the chief qualifications of several others were
ignorance, fanaticism, and ductility.' 3
It is a somewhat whimsical illustration of his prefer
ence for the uneducated mind (as well perhaps as of the
pains he took to secure implicit and unquestioning
obedience) that out of his five love affairs his two latest
fallings in love were with domestic servants. The
former of these, Grace Murray, widow of a mariner,
although esteemed a perfect saint by Wesley, is de
scribed by Tyerman as being ' uneducated, vain, fickle,
1 Works, iv. 317. 2 Life, ii. 346 n. 3Hampson, ii. 162.

Apostolical Succession. 5 7
selfish, and presuming.' She had been some years in
his service, and had frequently been his travelling com
panion. She, however, jilted him, and was, through
Whitfield's and Charles Wesley's intervention, married
up in great haste to John Bennett, one of his Preachers,
to avoid the scandal of such a connection.
Wesley — then in his forty-seventh year — seemed in
consolable at his loss, and poured forth his sorrows in a
lacrymose poem of 186 lines, with the motto at their
head which he had previously adopted after his love
affair with Miss Hopkey in Georgia, a dozen years
before, ' What thou doest I know not now, but I shall
know hereafter.'
Mrs. Vazeille, whom he married after a very brief
courtship, about sixteen months afterwards, 'was,' says
Tyerman, ' originally a not too respectable servant-girl,'
and so grossly illiterate that he was obliged to revise
both the orthography and syntax of a letter of hers to
make it at all fit to appear in print.' But if Wesley
expected from her obedience or any other domestic
virtue he was doomed to disappointment. ' She de
serves to be classed,' says Southey, 'in a triad with
Xantippe and the wife of Job, as one of the three bad
wives.' ¦ But without defending what her husband terms
her ' foul, coarse language, such as befits only a fishwife,'
or her picking his pockets in quest of love-letters, or her
locking the door upon the two brothers to prevent them
from escaping from her objurgations, till Charles raised a
counterblast which silenced her by spouting Virgil, or
her knocking her husband down and trailing him on
the floor by his hair, yet we must take into consideration
the provocation which she received through Wesley's
inconceivable folly. During the year 1757 and 1758

fc>

58 John Wesley.
his favourite correspondent was Sarah Ryan, also a
servant, whom in spite of her former dissolute life (she
had even at that time three husbands alive, and lived
with neither of them) he not only appointed his house
keeper at Bristol, and matron at the Kingswood School,
but also made his confidant in his quarrels with his
jealous wife. Tyerman describes Sarah Ryan as ' per
haps converted,' but ' naturally vain, flippant, and
giddy.' And Wesley himself says that she had ' neither
education nor large natural abilities.' This was the
woman whom, when Wesley dined at Bristol with some
sixty or seventy Preachers, he placed at the head of
his table. What wonder that the enraged wife burst
in on the banquet with language more forcible than
polished. It is not without its significance that Wesley laid
hands on Coke — not openly and in public — but secretly
in his own bedchamber at Bristol. So that — as Dr.
Whitehead pointed out — even on Lord King's principles
— the ordination was invalid; For Lord King quotes
S. Cyprian to the effect that Ordination should not be
done except with the knowledge and in the presence of
the people, who being present, the crimes of the wicked
may be detected, or the merits of the good declared,
and so the Ordination may be just and lawful, being
approved of by the suffrage and judgment of all : and
further, that the assent of the neighbouring Bishops was
absolutely necessary.1
Dr. Whitehead sums up the case as follows : —
' I. Mr. Wesley, in ordaining or consecrating Dr.
Coke a Bishop, acted in direct contradiction to the prin-
1 King's Primitive Church, pp. 46-49.

Apostolical Succession. 59
ciple on which he attempts to defend his practice of
ordaining at all.
'II. As Mr. Wesley was never elected or chosen by
any Church to be a Bishop, nor ever consecrated to the
office either by Bishops or Presbyters, he had not the
shadow of right to exercise Episcopal authority in
ordaining others, according to the rules of any Church
ancient or modern.
' III. Had he possessed the proper right to ordain,
either as a Bishop or Presbyter (though he never did
ordain as Presbyter), yet his ordinations being done in
secret were thereby rendered invalid and of no effect,
according to the established order of the Primitive
Church and of all Protestant Churches.
' IV. The consequence from the whole is that the
persons whom Mr. Wesley ordained had no more right
to exercise the ministerial functions than they had before
he laid hands upon them. A scheme of Ordination
so full of confusion and absurdity as that amongst the
Methodists can surely never filiate itself on Mr. Wesley ;
it must have proceeded from some mere chaotic brain
where wild confusion reigns. Nor can I easily believe
that Mr. Wesley would ever have adopted so misshapen
a brat had not his clear perception of things been
rendered feeble and dim by flattery, persuasion, and
age.'1 However, Dr. Coke started for America, and there
proceeded to do as he had been done by, and affect
to confer the Episcopate on a certain Preacher called
Asbury, and then the two, no longer veiled under the
title of superintendents, 'formed themselves — as they
1 Whitehead, ii. 438.

60 John Wesley.
expressed it— into an Independent Church, and thought
it best to become an Episcopal Church,' x the Bishops
of which, however, were to be amenable to the body
of ministers and preachers. And thus, as Southey
remarks, ' the name of superintendent, and the notion
that Bishops and Presbyters were the same order, were
laid aside. They were mere pretexts, and had served
their purpose.' But when Wesley found that Asbury
also had actually set up as Bishop, he seems to have
had his eyes opened to what he had done, and he
wrote the so-called Bishop as follows : ' You and the
Doctor differ from me. I study to be little, you study to
be great. I creep, you strut along. ... How can you,
how dare you suffer yourself to be called " Bishop " ?
I shudder, I start at the very thought ! Men may call
me a knave, or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am
content : but they shall never, by my consent, call me
"Bishop." For my sake, for God's sake, for Christ's
sake, put a full end to this! Let the Presbyterians
do what they please, but, let the Methodists know
their calling better.' 2 ' Unpleasant expressions ' ! said
Asbury. But Coke a few years after confessed that he was not
a real Bishop, by applying to the American Bishops
White and Seabury for ordination for those very
Preachers whom he had affected to ordain, and for
consecration for himself and Asbury as Bishops for
America.3 And this proving unsuccessful, after having
exercised his pretended Episcopal powers for some

1 A genuine case of ' natural selection ' ! 2 Works, xiii. 58.
3 White's Memoirs of the Episcopal Church of America, p. 197 ; and
Coke's Letters, Appendix G, post.

Apostolical Succession. 6 1
twenty-nine years, he — with injunctions to secrecy —
applied in 1 813 to Lord Liverpool, then Prime Minister,
and William Wilberforce to be appointed Bishop for
India, in which case he promised ' to return most fully
and faithfully into the bosom of the Established Church,
would do everything in his power to promote her
interests, and would submit to all such restrictions in
the fulfilment of his office as the Government and the
Bench of Bishops at home should think necessary.' x
It is from these two men — sham Bishops by their
own confession — that is derived the ministerial character
now claimed by the so-called ' American Episcopal
Methodist Church.' 2
A few instances will show with what reckless haste
Wesley sometimes formed his opinions. Many years
before he had read King's book that author had him
self withdrawn and repudiated it. He was convinced
by the reply of a clergyman called Sclater, entitled An
original draught of the Primitive Church, that all his
arguments about Bishops and Priests being of the same
order were utterly fallacious, and Offered Sclater a
living which was in his presentation as Lord Chancellor.3
On another occasion Wesley says that ' an odd book '
which he had read on one of his journeys had con
vinced him ' that the Montanists of the second and
third centuries were real scriptural Christians.' Several
early synods declared their doctrines to be 'strange
and impious.'
1 Wilberforce's Correspondence, ii. 258. , See Appendix G, post.
2 Asbury got ' Mr. Otterbine, a German minister, who was a pious man,'
to join Dr. Coke in consecrating him ; which seems as thoughJie had, even
at that time, no great confidence in the Doctor's Episcopal character.
3 See Dr. Oldknow, Defence of Church Principles, p. 57.

62 John Wesley.
The Rev. Ralph Erskine of Dunfermline, having
in 1740 sent him some tracts, Wesley replied : ' On one
point which I knew not before, it has pleased God to
convince me by them, viz. that every Christian congrega
tion has an indisputable right to choose its own pastor,'1
a statement at variance with all else that Wesley said
or did on this subject.
In 1757 Dr. John Robertson published a translation
of portions of Bengel's exposition of the Apocalypse
in which he foretold that the Millennium would begin
in 1836. This publication was set on foot, says
Burk — Bengel's biographer (p. 338)— chiefly at the
instance of John Wesley. Thirty years afterwards,
Wesley, although he quoted Bengel in one of his
sermons, declared that he 'had no opinion at
all on that head, and could determine nothing about
it' Southey speaks of Wesley's credulity as ' voracious.'
He believed in witchcraft, and counted those who did
not do so infidels. He deemed himself to be the con
stant subject of miraculous manifestations. If his
horse fell lame, or his head ached, a special interposi
tion was wrought on behalf of man and beast. He
thought much of dreams, and has recorded some of
them, believing that saving faith is often given in
dreams and visions of the night.2
It may have been this habit of making up his mind on
altogether insufficient evidence, combined with his self-
confidence, which caused him to change sides twice over
in the matter of the American Independence.and to speak
1 Fraud and Falsehood Discovered, by Joseph Erskine, 1743. This
tract contains three letters of Wesley's not included in the standard edition
of his Works. 2 Works, viii. 284.

Apostolical Succession. 63
slightingly of Sir Isaac Newton, and contemptuously of
Locke, and to fill his book on Primitive Physic with
specifics which one would have supposed that credulity
itself would have staggered at : e.g. the iliac passion is
to be cured by ' holding a live puppy constantly on the
belly : ' and he tells how a man who had been six hours
under water was restored to life, his being stuck in a
dung-heap having ' effectually contributed to his restor
ation.' Charles Wesley in one place dilates upon his brother's
'inimitable blindness,' and in another declares that
'he was born for the benefit of knaves.' This pre
cipitancy of judgment may serve to explain how it
came to pass that Wesley was twice led astray by
very juvenile authors, who both subsequently retracted
and repudiated their own productions. In 1756 he
stated in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Clarke, that although
he still believed the Episcopal form of Church govern
ment to be scriptural and Apostolical (' I mean,' he
explains, ' well agreeing with the practice and writings
of the Apostles '), he had yet been convinced by Bishop
Stillingfleet's Lrenicum ' that neither Christ nor His
Apostles prescribe any particular form of Church govern
ment ; and that the plea of Divine right for Diocesan
Episcopacy was never heard of in the Primitive Church.'1
And he said something to the same effect in A Letter
to a Friend in 1761. The lrenicum was answered by
Archdeacon Parker (afterwards Bishop of Oxford) in
1680. When Stillingfleet published this treatise, he was a
youth of four-and-twenty. He subsequently repudiated
1 Works, xiii. 179.

64 John Wesley.
it, saying that ' there were many things in it which if
he were to write again he would not say : some which
show his youth and want of consideration ; others in
which he yielded too far in hopes of gaining the Dis
senting parties to the Church of England.'
He well might retract it, for not only does he entirely
misrepresent Cranmer's deliberate judgment on this
question, but citing a passage in St. Jerome respecting
the Church of Alexandria as though it favoured Presby
terian ordination, he actually stops short and suppresses
the very next words, which would have disproved his
entire position : ' For, with the exception of Ordination,
what is there that a Bishop does which a Priest may not
do ? ' x (S. Jerome elsewhere — cont. Lucif. c. 4 — excepts
also Confirmation).
Stillingfleet having outlived ' His salad days,
When he was green in judgment,'
gave the passage its true explanation, viz. that the
Priests elected, and the Bishops consecrated. 2
And again : ' The universal consent of the Church
being proved, there is as great reason to believe the
Apostolic succession to be of Divine institution as the
canon of Scripture or the observation of the Lord's
Day' 3
However, the mischief was done. To this day we
find Dissenters drawing upon Stillingfleet's lrenicum
and its garbled sentences ; whilst it is to the boyish
1 Quid enim facit — excepta ordinatione — episcopus, quod Presbyter non
faciat ?
2 See his Unreasonableness of Separation, A.D. 1681, p. 320.
Ordination Sermon, preached in 1684.

Apostolical Succession. 65
essays of these two self-refuted writers that we trace
the unsettling of Wesley's mind, and the ill results that
followed.1 But even if the Apostolical Succession through
Presbyters were valid, the modern Wesleyans can claim
no benefit from it, for they have nqt got a shadow of it.
Presbyterians claim that they have a regular succession
from the Apostles transmitted by the laying on of
hands of successive Presbyters from the Apostles' days.
The late Dr. Cumming, e.g., said in his Apology for the
Church of Scotland, pp. 20-22, that unless he believed
that that body had such a succession, he would not
officiate in it. * We find,' he says, ' that the Apostles re
ceived their commission personally from the Lord Jesus,
which is the first link in the chain ; that they ordained
Presbyters wherever they had collected congregations
of believers ; these last their successors, and so on
downwards to the humblest Presbyter of the Scottish
Church.' But Wesley's Preachers simply met together the year
after Wesley died, and quoting Proverbs xviii. 18 and
xvi. 33, and the election of Matthias, Acts i. 26, and
' committing the matter to God,' put it to the lot whether

1 The notion of Bishop and Priest being only one order was first broached
by Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, in the twelfth century,
and repeated, with or without qualifications, by others of the schoolmen,
e.g. S. Thomas Aquinas. This they did from a desire to exalt the Pope.
the Pope, they said, was as Aaron, and Bishops and Priests conjointly as
Aaron's sons. The same line was taken by the Jesuits at the Council of
Trent, the general of the order, Lainez, arguing also against the Aposto
lical succession of Bishops with the same view. But none of them ever
held that a Priest could confer Holy Orders ; so that King and Stilling-
fleet in their juvenile performances followed the schoolmen and the Jesuits,
but only after a very blundering fashion. E

66 John Wesley.
they should administer the Eucharist or not1 The
lot forbade them to administer the Sacrament the ensu
ing year : and ' they had no doubt,' they said, ' that God
was uncommonly present, and did Himself decide.'
Balaam, when forbidden, asked a second time. The
Preachers were wiser in their generation. It would
never do to run such a risk again : another refusal would
have been ruinous. So ' having,' says Whitehead, ' by
various arts influenced a few persons in any society to
desire to receive the Lord's Supper from them, they
pleaded this circumstance as a reason why the innova
tion should take place, pretending they only wished to
satisfy the desires of the people, not their own restless
ambition.' And then the following year, instead of
' committing the matter to God ' by casting lots, they
just — under Pawson's presidency — put it to the vote.

1 This divination by lots seems to have been the revival of a practice
which John Wesley tells us ( Works, viii. 450) that he learned from the
Moravians. It had descended to them from their ancestors, Germany
having been one of the especial seats of that superstition. It was from
this same quarter that Wesley learned to open his Bible at random and form
an augury from the first words that met his eye (Sortes Biblicce — the modern
form of Sortes Virgiliance), and we find him drawing lots to decide
whether or not he should write against the Calvinists. Berridge, one of
his Preachers, having been plagued with a succession of untrustworthy
housekeepers, pondered with himself whether, to quote his own words, ' it
would not be better to have a Jezebel of his own. ' So, , opening his Bible
at random, his eye fell upon these words in Gen. xxiv. 3, ' Thou shalt not
take a wife,' — he read no further, but closed the book, and lived on to
the end of his days in discomfortable bachelorhood.
This practice, which had been in vogue among the Jews, who used the
Hebrew Scriptures for the purpose, was denounced by several early coun
cils qf the Church, and Dr. Adam Clarke, the most learned of Wesley's
followers, protested against it as ' a disgraceful custom, and a scandal to
Christianity : ' but it is not yet extinct among the Methodists.

Apostolical Succession. 67
A majority of thirty-eight (the numbers being eighty-
six to forty-eight) said ' Yes,' and thus voted themselves
into the priesthood.
There was no pretence at real Ordination, nay, they
absolutely repudiated all necessity for it. ' We re
solved,' they said, ' that all distinctions between
ordained and unordained Preachers should cease, and
that the being received into full connection by the
Conference, and appointed by them to administer the
Ordinances (i.e. the Sacraments), should be considered
a sufficient Ordination without the imposition of
hands.'1 Forty more years pass away, and then the Wesleyans
adopt this same Ordination by laying on of hands which
in 1793 they had solemnly repudiated ; and from 1836
(they had used the laying on of hands in the case of
foreign missionaries some years before) the ordainers
profess to convey holy orders in these words : ' Mayest
thou receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of
a Christian minister now committed to thee by the im
position of ottr hands ' (Smith's History, iii. 327). Up
to 1836 ' the office of a Christian minister '.was supposed
to be conferred by being in full connection with and

1 Smith's History, ii. 22. This Conference directed the Lord's Supper
to be administered by the Preachers ' as far as practicable in the evening
only ' (Peirce's Principles of Wesleyan Methodism, p. 1 10). Evening
Communions, as we learn from Hooker (Preface, viii. 7), were set up by
the fanatical Anabaptists of the Low Countries in the sixteenth century.
And Walker, in his Sufferings of the Clergy, tells us how one of Cromwell's
' godly ministers ' once bid a sacrament for the afternoon, but finding that
his parishioners did not relish it very well, he altered it again.' But so far
as I am aware, we are indebted for them in this country to this decree of
the Wesleyan Conference in 1793-

68 John Wesley.
sanctioned by Mr. Wesley's society. Since that date
the same office has been supposed to be conferred ' by
the imposition of our hands.'
But even thus the ordainers were not Presbyters ; for
the rite was performed by the President, ex-President,
and Secretary for the time being, with three (by Stand
ing Order of 184 1 fixed at two) other senior Preachers
(Smith, iii. 327). (Even this rule is not adhered to now.)
The President and ex-President for the year 1836 were
Jabez Bunting and Richard Reece ; the Secretary,
Robert Newton — all were Preachers, who had themselves
received no Ordination with laying on of hands from any
body whatever, and consequently had no Orders what
ever, whether Presbyterian or Episcopal. Dr. Bunting,
the chief ordainer, said so as regarded himself : and Dr.
Adam Clarke, the most learned Methodist after the
Wesleys, wrote to Mr. Wilkinson in 1826: ' I would
greatly have preferred the hands of the Bishop, but not
having gone through the regular course I could not
claim it. ... I could not with my faith and feeling
receive any kind of dissenting Orders, so here I am with
out Holy Orders — without pretended Holy Orders, and
without pretending to Holy Orders, preaching according
to my power the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Up to
that time they had abided by the principles laid down
by the Conference of 1793 : 'We have never sanctioned
Ordination in England, either in this Conference or in
any other, in any degree, nor ever attempted to do it '
(Minutes of Conference, 1793). Is it not plain that if
the President and his four associates were Presbyters
without Ordination, the Preachers on whom they laid
their hands did not need it ? But if they did need it,

Apostolical Succession. 69
then the President and his associates were not Presby
ters without it.1
Nor is any intelligible explanation to be given why
the Itinerant Preachers should assume to themselves
the priestly power and deny it to the Local Preachers.
It is quite clear that whatever spiritual commission the
Itinerants may be supposed to possess, the Local
Preachers must possess the same. Whatever commis
sion can be supposed to be derived from a connection
with John Wesley is possessed by both parties equally.
' There is to be no distinction,' says the Conference of
1793. More recently the claim has been made on
behalf of the Local Preachers, ' The word is one, the call
one' : whilst at the so-called ' OZcumenical Conference '
of 1 88 1 a distinct claim was made for the Local
Preachers to administer the Sacraments. On that
occasion Mr. Waddy, Q.C., after alleging that the Local

1 The apology which the historian of Wesleyanism, makes for this trans
action is worthy of being transcribed. ' The Methodist Preachers,' he
says, ' of 1836 held that the true Apostolical Succession was that the
ministry appointed the ministry, and must continue to do so to the end of
the world. The reason why the first Methodist Preachers were not
ordained was that they were not accounted ministers but helpers to others
who held that character : while it was now (i.e. in 1836) an undoubted
fact that, by the Providence of God, they had long ceased to occupy a sub
ordinate position. They were no longer helpers to any class of men, but
the constituted ministry of a large and growing Christian denomination. ' —
Smith's History of Methodism, iii. 326.
To assert it was ' by God's Providence ' that the Preachers ceased to
occupy a subordinate position is not only begging the question, but it is also
a placing of God's' Providence and John Wesley in direct antagonism.
How the Ordainers were ' constituted ' a ministry, our author does not
tell us. It is plain, however, from what he does say, that they were not
ordained by ministers, as he confesses they ought to be.

70 John Wesley.
Preachers were as much ' the regular ministry ' as the
Itinerants, went on as follows : ' We ought to have no
jealousy, but I feel a difficulty about the title of the
subject of debate. Our friends have been talking about
Local Preachers. That is not the question. The subject
as it is specified here (in the official programme) is
" Lay Preachers." Now, in one sense, all our Preachers
are " Lay Preachers." Until the year 1822, when some
body chose to alter that tablet to the memory of John
Wesley and to substitute a new one, the words that
were upon it were these — that he was " the patron and
friend of the Lay Preachers, by whose aid he extended
the plan of itinerant preaching." Somebody, by whose
authority I do not now care to inquire (though I know
pretty well), chose to take away the original tablet
and to substitute the present one in which the " Lay
Preachers " are done away with, and the inscription now
runs thus : " He was the chief promoter and patron of
the plan of itinerant preaching." In the view of Wesley,
and in the Church view of us, your status is still the
same. You Doctors of Divinity, who wear your titles
so honourably and so well ; you Doctors of Law, who
get that inappropriate degree, as I suspect, because you
know little law but less divinity ; you Bishops, whom
we delight to receive and to honour — you are all Lay
Preachers according to this sense of the term — not
" ordained " according to the notion of some Churches,
but " set apart." And that is the great point. We
Local Preachers are not in that sense " set apart." So
some of you try to establish a distinction between us.
You affect too much of the uniform and the livery — I
. must be plain — of other Churches. You are not made a
bit more respectable, and you are not more respected because

Apostolical Succession. 7 1
of all the M.B. waistcoats and stiff collars that ever were
zvorn. And I venture to say that what we want now is
not that more difference should be made, but that less
difference should be made between the two. . . . Let
there be fair play, equal work, equal rank, equal call in
the sight of Almighty God.'
Mr. Waddy's testimony to the fact that John Wes
ley (like the Church) could only have regarded the
assembled Hierarchy as a company of Lay Preach
ers, seems to have been somewhat unpalatable to
them. The lines in italics were suppressed in the authorised
volume reporting the proceedings, and are here supplied
from the newspapers of the day.
But whether ' set apart ' or not, Charles Wesley's words
must needs be as applicable to them now as they were
when he wrote. Speaking of King Jeroboam the son
of Nebat, who made Israel .to sin by making Priests
of ' whosoever would,' he writes —
' But kings may spare their labour vain ;
For in such happy times as these,
The vulgar can themselves ordain,
And Priest commence whoever please.'
And how 'strongly he felt on the subject will be seen
from the following lines ! —
' Raised from the people's lowest lees,
Guard, Lord, Thy preaching witnesses ;
Nor let their pride the honour claim
Of sealing covenants in Thy Name.
Rather than suffer them to dare
Usurp the Priestly character,
Save from the arrogant offence,
And snatch them uncorrupted hence.'

72 John Wesley.
And again — " God smote Uzzah.' — 2 Sam. vi. 7.
' Behold your due in Uzzah dead
For touching an external sign,
You that the Priestly right invade,
And minister in things Divine.
Will ignorance your bodies save ?
Inquire of Uzzah in his grave.

So sacred if the symbol be,
What the true living Ark of God?'1

Charles Wesley thus describes the transaction in a
letter to Dr. Chandler : ' I can hardly yet believe it,
that in his eighty-second year my brother, my old inti
mate friend and companion, should have assumed the
Episcopal character, ordained Elders, consecrated a
Bishop, and sent him over to ordain our Lay Preachers
in America ! I was then in Bristol at his elbow, yet he
never gave me the least hint of his intention. How was
he surprised into so rash an action ? He certainly per
suaded himself that he was right. Lord Mansfield told
me last year that Ordination was separation. This my
brother does not and will not see ; or that he has re
nounced the principles and practice of his whole life ;
that he has acted contrary to all his declarations, pro
testations, and writings ; robbed his friends of their
boasting ; realised the Nag's- Head Ordination, and left
an indelible blot on his name as long as it shall be
remembered. Thus our partnership here is dissolved,

1 Poetical Works, ix. 79 and 165. We learn from Creamer's History
of the Methodist Hymn- Book (p. 194), that some of these 'objectionable
hymns ' were suppressed after the death of their author.

Apostolical Succession. 7.3
but not our friendship. I have taken him for better
for worse, till death do us part, or rather reunite us in
love inseparable. I have lived on earth a little too long
who have lived to " see this evil day." n
To his brother he wrote as follows : —
' Bristol, August 14th, 1785.
' Dear Brother, — I have been reading over again your
"Reasons against a Separation," printed in 1758, and your
Works ; and entreat you in the Name of God, and for Christ's
sake, to read them again yourself, with previous prayer ; and stop,
and proceed no further till you receive an answer to your inquiry,
" Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do ?" . . .
' Near thirty years since then, you have stood against the
importunate solicitations of your Preachers, who have scarcely at
last prevailed. I was your natural ally and faithful friend ; and
while you continued faithful to yourself we two could chase a
thousand. ' But when once you began ordaining in America, I knew, and
you knew, that your Preachers here would never rest till you
ordained them. You told me they would separate by and by.
The Doctor tells us the same. His Methodist Episcopal Church
in Baltimore was intended to beget a Methodist Episcopal Church
here. You know he comes armed with your authority to make
us all Dissenters. One of your sons assured me that not a
Preacher in London would refuse Orders from the Doctor.
' Alas ! what trouble are you preparing for yourself as well as
for me, and for your oldest, truest, best friends ! Before you have
quite broken down the bridge, stop and consider ! If your sons
have no regard for you, have some regard for yourself.
' Go to your grave in peace ; at least suffer me to go first, before
this ruin is under your hand. So much, I think, you owe to
my father, to my brother, and to me, as to stay till I am
taken from the evil. I am on the brink of the grave. Do not
push me in, or embitter my last moments. Let us not leave an

1 Smith's History, i. 517.

74 John Wesley.
indelible blot on our memory, but let us leave behind us the name
and character of honest men.
' This letter is a debt to our parents, and to our brother, as well
as to you and to ' Your faithful friend, ' Charles Wesley.'1
Usually John Wesley was open and candid in all that
he said and did. His brother had said of him, 'he never
could keep a secret since he was born : it is a gift that
God has denied him.' ' He hated all secrets, and could
keep none,' said Melville Home. And his yielding to
Coke's importunities, and his consenting to perform so
solemn and all-important an act secretly in his own bed
chamber, can only be accounted for by the failure of his
mental powers ; nor does his defence of his conduct in
answer to his brother's letter point to any other conclu
sion. In it he says : ' Perhaps if you had kept close to
me I might have done better.'2 To which Charles
replied : ' When you took that fatal step at Bristol I
kept as close to you as close could be ; for I was all the
time at your elbow. You might certainly have done
better if you had taken me into your counsel.' And
again, the year before his brother's death, this same
subject of Ordination afforded another unpleasant in
stance of departure from his usual bearing. Objections
had been made to the Ordinations performed by one of
his ' Bishops,' and John Wesley defended him by saying
that, before ' ordaining,' the ordainer had asked his leave.
To this Charles Wesley replied in these words : ' You are
exactly right — " he did nothing before he asked me!' —
'Jackson's Life of C. Wesley, ii. 393.
2 Works, xiii. 221. This passage is suppressed by Dr. Rigg in his
Churehmanship of John Wesley, and by Dr. Smith in his History.

Apostolical Succession. 75
True, he asked your leave to ordain two more Preachers
before he ordained them; but while your answer was
coming to prohibit him he took care to ordain them both.
Therefore his asking you was a mere compliment ! ' — Id.
i. 348.1 I cannot believe that John Wesley would, at an earlier
period of his life, have stooped to make such a defence
of this piece of hypocrisy.
To sum up this matter.
I. — Wesley throughout his entire life asserted the
Apostolical Succession as running in the Episcopate,
and during the latter portion of his life as running in
the Priesthood also.
II. — Wesley never dreamed of the possibility of any
man becoming a priest, or consequently having any
authority to administer the Eucharist, otherwise than
by the laying on of the hands of Bishops or of Priests
— such a thing he termed ' sinful,' and also ' unprimitive '
and ' unscriptural.'
III. — Wesley sternly forbade any of his Preachers to
administer the Sacraments unless they had been so
ordained. IV. — Two years after Wesley's death, Conference
solemnly protested that they had never at any time
sanctioned any sort of Ordination in England.
V. — From whence it follows that the Wesleyan
Society in this country was without any kind of Ordina
tion or ordained ministers till the year 1836, when six
Methodist Preachers, all unordained, laid their hands on
thirty other Preachers, and Jabez Bunting, as President
of the Conference, said to each of them, ' Mayest thou
1 Moore, Jackson in his Life of Charles Wesley, and Tyerman all sup
press this passage. It is given from Whitehead, i. 368.

76 John Wesley.
receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a
Christian minister now committed unto thee by the
imposition of our hands, and be thou a faithful dis
penser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments,
in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost' To the words ' of a Christian minister '
has been added at some subsequent time ' and pastor.'
This Ordination service the Wesleyan Conference cir
culated for forty years and upwards with Wesley's
preface (it is omitted now), thereby deluding his
followers into the belief that Wesley had provided them
with an Ordination service for ' Christian ministers.' It
is needless to remark that Wesley knew nothing of any
Ordination of 'Christian ministers,' the three Ordinations
in his abridged Prayer-Book being of Deacons, Elders,
and Superintendents.
It has been suggested that there may possibly be
some sort of Presbyterian Orders among the English
Wesleyan Preachers because some Americans of the
Cokeian succession have sometimes in this country
joined in the laying on of hands. But Presbyterianism
was the very thing which Wesley would have nothing
to do with. ' Let the Presbyterians ' — said he in his
letter to Asbury — ' do what they please, but let the
Methodists know their calling better.'1 Moreover, Coke
never affected to ordain as a Presbyter but as a Bishop.
The Letters of Orders given by him, which in Asbury's
case describe him as ' Superintendent of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in America,' in subsequent cases
either begin ' I, Thomas Coke, a Bishop in the Church
of God,' or are subscribed ' Thomas Coke, Bishop of the
1 Tyerman, iii. 438.

Apostolical Succession. 7 7
Methodist Episcopal Church in America.'1 The impo
sition of Methodist hands can hardly be supposed to
operate like the pocket-pistol of a well-known writer,
which ' if she didn't fetch what she was pointed at, was
sure to fetch something else.'
In connection with this subject there is a curious
piece of history. John Wesley's epitaph in the City
Road Chapel was written by his friend and trustee, Dr.
Whitehead, who there described him as —
The Patron and Friend of the Lay Preachers.
But it would never do for people who wished to be
looked upon as Bishops and Priests to be referred back
to the solemn statement on the sepulchre of their
Spiritual Father there to find themselves described as
nothing but ' Lay Preachers,' so the above words have
been carefully removed, and in their place — as I have
satisfied myself by personal inspection — are substituted
the words —
' The Chief Promoter and Patron of the plan
of Itinerant Preaching ' ! !
This piece of manipulation (which is in such excellent
keeping with the suppression of portions of Wesley's
writings before mentioned) was first pointed out, I
believe, by Mr. Denny Urlin. I have not been able to
ascertain its exact date, but Crowther, who wrote his
History of the Wesleyan Methodists in 181 5, gives the
original inscription unaltered (p. 130), and it seems to
have been safe and untampered with in 1821, when vol.
vi. of the third edition of Wesley's Works (commenced
1 See Ethridge's Life of Coke, p. 436.

78 John Wesley.
in 18 18) was published, for it is given unaltered there.1
Moore, who published his life of- Wesley in 1824-25,
neither gives this epitaph nor makes any mention of it :
nor does Richard Watson, who wrote his life in 1831 ;
nor Dr. Smith, who wrote at a later period ; so
that Mr. Waddy is probably correct in assigning
1822 as the date of the suppression of this tell-tale
inscription. In a few years, when it was well out of the
way, our Lay Preachers exuberated into Bishops and
Priests. Mr. Waddy, as quoted at p. 70, says that he
knew pretty well who was the perpetrator of this act,
but he does not tell us, so we are driven to conjecture.
About this time Jabez Bunting's star was in the ascen
dant, he having been Secretary to the Conference from
1 8 14 to 1 8 19, and President in 1820, and Secretary again
from 1824 to 1827. Dr. Jobson describes him as being
'the leading and master mind of the Connexion,' and
says that ' during the half-century preceding his death
(he died in 1858), there was scarcely an important
movement in Methodism that did not spring directly or
indirectly from him.' His ideas of literary fidelity may
be estimated by the fact narrated by Jackson 2 that in
editing Wesley's Works he set about to improve his
author's grammar and phraseology. Whilst another
1 Dr. Rigg— as mentioned in the Preface — denies the existence of this
and the second edition. I shall be happy to show these volumes to any
one : they will shortly be deposited in Bishop Phillpotts's Library, Truro.
My readers will understand how necessary it is to verify Wesleyan state
ments if I mention that in The Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of
the Wesleyan Methodists, by William Peirce, revised by F. J. Jobson,
D.D., third edition, 1873 (a very important-looking royal 8vovol.), the
original inscription, with the words, ' The Patron and Friend of the Lay
Preachers,' is stated (p. 5) to be on the marble tablet in the City Road
Chapel ! ! 2 Recollections, p. 222.

Apostolical Succession. 79
Wesleyan writer, speaking of the dynasties of Method
ism, says : ' The first was an era of simplicity, openness,
toil, and success under John Wesley : the second an era
of concealment, of intrigue, of finance, of luxury, of
embellishments, and of comparative ease under Jabez
Bunting.'1 It was during his ascendancy that the
Preachers gradually dropped the designation of
'Methodist Preacher' assigned to them by their
Founder, and that of ' Mr. * * * preacher of the Gospel,'
as adopted in the Arminian and Methodist Magazine
for some thirty years after his death, i.e. up to the year
of 1822, and assumed the forbidden title of 'Reverend.'
He, as we have seen above, was the originator of the
new order of ' Christian Ministers,' something wholly
unknown to John Wesley, and simply after the order
of Jabez Bunting.
It would ,seem, however, that it is only the Church
doctrine of the Apostolical Succession that Modern
Wesleyans scout. They claim one of their own which
they consider to be perfectly scriptural, and which is
described as follows by one of their most honoured and
trusted Preachers, one who was eighteen years ' Con-
nexional Editor,' nineteen years ' Theological Tutor ' at
one of their Institutions, and twice President of Confer
ence — the late Thomas Jackson : his book, moreover,
is published by Conference (their Book Committee is
reported to have given ^400 for the copyright), and
therefore stamped with the authority of the Society at
large. After telling how a certain ' godly washerwoman '
several years ago contrived to stop the proposed sale of
the Preaching House at Boston, Mr. Jackson goes on to
1 Wesleyan Takings, ii. p. xvi.

80 John Wesley.
exhort the Methodists of that town in these words :
' While they rejoice in the respectability and success of
their cause, let them not forget the godly washerwoman
who was a means of saving it from extinction, and thus
became a golden link in their chain of Apostolical Suc
cession ! ! ! ' 1
The Church's doctrine of the Succession puts less
strain on my faith than this Methodistic theory ; more
over, it is hard to be called ' a Papist ' for believing in
the Apostolical Succession of Bishops, when the Wes
leyans themselves are so jubilant over their own
' Apostolical Succession ' of Washerwomen.

A PRAYER FOR THE BISHOPS.2
Draw near, O Son of God, draw near,
Us with Thy naming eyes behold,
Still in Thy falling Church appear,
And let our candlestick be gold.
Still hold the stars in Thy right hand,
And let them in Thy lustre glow,
The lights of a benighted land,
The Angels of Thy Church below.
Make good their Apostolic boast,
Their high commission let them prove,
Be Temples of the Holy Ghost,
And filled with faith, and hope, and love.

The worthy successors of those
Who first adorned the sacred line,
Bold let them stand before their foes,
And dare assert their right Divine.

Jackson's Recollections of my own Life and Times, p. 84 (a.D. 1874).
! From The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, ii. 341.

Baptismal Regeneration. 8 1

BAPTISMAL REGENERATION.
The allegation on this subject .is that Churchmen
teach the ' Popish ' doctrine that ' Baptism is the vehicle
of Regeneration.'
Now from Wesley's Sermons, Nos. XVIII. and XLV.,
quotations are sometimes made to attempt to show that
Wesley did not hold this doctrine : e.g. having com
menced Sermon XVIII. by saying that being ' born again '
or being ' born of the Spirit ' and being ' a child of God '
are privileges ordinarily annexed to Baptism (which is
hence termed by our Lord in the preceding verse the
being born of water and of the Spirit), he adds, ' Lean
not on that broken reed that ye were born again in
Baptism.' But whom is he addressing? 'Baptized
gluttons and drunkards,' and such like. ' Who denies,'
he goes on, ' that ye were then made children of God
and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven ? But, notwith
standing this, ye are now children of the Devil. There
fore ye must be born again,' evidently meaning ' ye
must be converted' — a confusion of terms not uncom
mon even among the Clergy of the last century, and
very general among the uneducated now. J
In his 45th Sermon (one of the legal standards of
Wesleyan doctrine) he says that in adults ' a man may
possibly be born of water and not of the Spirit ; 2 there
may sometimes be the outward sign where there is not
the inward grace. I do not now speak with regard to

1 Works, v. 222.
s This notion of two births — one of water, another of the Spirit — is pro
bably attributable to the mistranslation of John iii. 5 in our Authorised
Version. It is corrected in the Revised Version.
F

82 John Wesley.
infants : it is certain our Church supposes that all who
are baptized in their infancy are at the same time born
again! 1
In another place Wesley so explains himself, telling
the sinner that although at his Baptism he was made a
child of God, yet having now become a child of the
Devil, ' he must go through an entire change of heart,
. . . call it what you will.' 2
Every Churchman holds that Baptism, like every
other blessing and privilege, only increases the condem
nation of those who abuse it : and this is just what
Wesley is here pointing out.
But of the Sacrament itself, he speaks in his 74th
Sermon of Baptism being both ' the outward sign of all
that inward and spiritual grace which God is continually
bestowing on His Church, and likewise a precious
means whereby faith and hope are given to those who
diligently seek Him.'
' By Baptism we are admitted into the Church, and
consequently made members of Christ its Head. . . .
For as many as are baptized into Christ, in His Name,
have thereby put on Christ (Gal. iii. 27). That is, are
mystically united to Christ, and made one with Him ; for
by one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body (1 Cor.
xii. 12), viz. the Church the Body of Christ (Eph. iv. 12).
From which spiritual vital union with Him proceeds the
influence of His grace on those that are baptized.'
' By Baptism we who were by nature children of wrath
are made the children of God. And this regeneration
which our Church in so many places ascribes to Baptism
is more than barely being admitted into the Church,
1 Works, vi. 74. 2 Id. viii. 48.

Baptismal Regeneration. 8

o

though commonly connected therewith. Being grafted
into the Body of Christ's Church, we are made the
children of God by adoption and grace. This is
grounded on the plain words of our Lord (John iii. 5),
" Except a man be born again of water and ofthe Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." By water
then as a means — the water of Baptism, we are regener
ated or born again : whence it is also called by the
Apostle "the washing of regeneration." Our Church
therefore ascribes no greater virtue to Baptism than
Christ Himself has done — nor does she ascribe it to the
outward washing but to the inward grace, which added
thereto makes it a Sacrament. Herein a principle of
grace is infused which will not be wholly taken away,
unless we quench the^ Holy Spirit of God by long con
tinued wickedness' (Treatise on Baptism, Works, xix.
281, ed. 1771-74 ; ibid. x. 191, ed. 1829).
' The terms of being " regenerated," of being " born
again," of being " born of God " always express an in
ward work of the Spirit, whereof Baptism is the out
ward sign' (Letter to Mr. Potter, 1758, vol. xvii. p. 11,
ed. 1771).1
' I baptized a gentlewoman at the Foundery ; and the
peace she immediately found was a fresh proof that the
outward sign, duly received, is always accompanied by the
inward grace' (Journal, 5th Feb. 1760, vol. xxx. p. 351,
ed. 1771).1
1 Mr. Curteis having, in his Bampton Lecture, quoted the above four
passages, and inadvertently spoken of them as being from Wesley's ' Ser
mons,' with a reference only to vol. xix. 281, is thus replied to by Dr.
Rigg, in his Churchmanskip of John Wesley : ' Mr. Curteis cites as from
a sermon of Wesley's a. passage which is not to be found in any of his
sermons as far as I know. I have searched through them in vain to find

84 John Wesley.
' I baptized Hannah C  , late a Quaker. God, as
usual, bore witness to His ordinance.'1
' I baptized a young woman deeply convinced of sin.
We all found the power of God was present to heal, and
she herself felt what she had not words to express.' 2
In this same treatise Wesley speaks of the inestim
able benefits conferred in Baptism — the washing away
of original sin, the engrafting us into Christ by making
us members of His Church, and thereby giving us a
right to all the blessings of the Gospel.3
' He gave Himself for the Church, that He might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by
the Word — namely in Baptism, the ordinary instrument
of our justification!
To attempt to explain away the express teaching of
S. John iii. 5, ' Except a man be born of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God,'
Wesley pronounces ' vain philosophy.' ' The plain
meaning of the expression " except a man be born of
water" is neither more nor less than this, except he be
baptized' (Letter to Law). 5
it. It is indeed quite unlike all he has written on the subject. Nor does
the reference to vol. xix. at all help me. The Standard Editions of
Wesley's Works are in fourteen volumes.' Now nobody knows better
than Dr. Rigg that Wesley collected and republished his Works in 1 771-74
n thirty-two volumes. And having, as he tells us, studied Wesley's Works
or a. quarter of a century, one would suppose him not to be altogether
ignorant of his Journal and Letters. But however this may be, all the
above four passages are contained not only in the place indicated by Mr.
Curteis, but also in that same fourteen volume edition to which Dr. Rigg
appeals, and will be found in vols. x. 191, ix. 89, and ii. 523. But Dr.
Rigg is verbally correct — they are not in Wesley's Sermons. Verily, ' we
must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us ! '
1 Works, ii. 387. 2 Id. p. 459.
3 Id. x. 192. 4 Id: 191. 5 Id. ix. 494.

Baptismal Regeneration. 85
'Did our Saviour design that this (Baptism with
water) should remain always in the Church ? ... In
the ordinary way there is no other means of entering into
the Church or into Heaven ' (Treatise on Baptism).1
This and the previous quotations were republished
by Wesley in 1773, when he was seventy years old.
Lastly, let us hear what Wesley says in his Notes
on the New Testament, according to which Wesleyan
Preachers are pledged to teach.
John iii. 3-5 : ' If our Lord by " being born again "
means only reformation of life, instead of making any
new discovery, He has only thrown a great deal of
obscurity on what was before plain and obvious. . . .
"Except a man be born of water and the Spirit" —
except he experience that great inward change by the
Spirit, and be baptized (wherever Baptism can be had)
as the outward sign and means of it.' (Our Lord
places the outward sign first, but Wesley, it will be
observed, inverts the order of His words.)
'Be baptized, and wash away thy sins (Acts xxii.
16). Baptism administered to real penitents is both a
means and seal of pardon. Nor did God ordinarily in
the primitive Church bestow this on any, unless through
this means.'
Here then we have Wesley's uniform teaching on this
subject throughout his life. He proclaims that ' in the
waters of Baptism ' as a means we are regenerated or
born again — infants absolutely so, adults 'where the
outward sign is duly received.' That in Baptism
' original sin is washed away,' and the baptized ' en-

Works, x. 192. So S. Augustine, ' No other entrance is there into the
kingdom of Heaven ' (Confes. xiii. 21).

86 John Wesley.
grafted into Christ.' That 'Baptism is the ordinary
instrument of our justification,' and that ' there is no
other means in the ordinary way of entering Heaven,'
inasmuch as John iii. 5 is spoken of nothing more or
less than Baptism. This last statement is in exact
accordance with the teaching of Hooker, who says,
speaking of John iii. 5, ' Of all the ancients there is not
one to be named that ever did otherwise either expound
or allege this place than as implying external Baptism.' a
After reading these extracts no one will feel any diffi
culty in appraising Dr. Rigg's assertion that ' it is
remarkable how very little is found on the subject of
Baptism in the fourteen volumes of Wesley's works ' !
Up to the year 1882, the Wesleyans had been using
a Baptismal service of their own compilation, put forth
with the preface which John Wesley prefixed to the
Service Book which he drew up for the American
Methodists in 1784, as though it were his. In reality
that service bore little resemblance to Wesley's, but it
did contain the address in which John iii. 5 is identified
with Baptism, as well as the statement that ' all men
are conceived and born in sin.' Both of these state
ments were struck out of the new service adopted by
the Conference of 1882. 'Some of their members,' it
was said, ' did not believe in original sin.' 2 They were
told by certain of their better informed brethren that
the reference to John iii. 5 ' was found in all the
liturgies of Christendom from the extremest East to
the extremest West : ' that John Wesley expounded
it of Baptism in the very doctrinal standard which they
1 Eccles. Pol. v. lix. 3.
2 Conference once expelled a member for denying original sin.

Baptismal Regeneration. 8 7
had all. subscribed, and used the Church service with
its categorical statement pf Baptismal regeneration ' to
his latest day.' It was all to no purpose.. Some
exclaimed ' Nehushtan ! ' One that ' they had bowed
down in the house of Rimmon long enough.' Others.
got up a ' No Popery ' cry. When one remonstrant
objected, ' As I read the revised form, it seems to me
that there is no grace at all connected with the Sacra
ment of Baptism,' his words were received with cheers.
' I tremble,' said the ex-President, ' at the thought that
we shall be obliged to adopt any formulary to sanction
the view that no grace is imparted in Baptism. ... I
feel that the existence of Methodism is at stake.'
Well might Dr. Osborn tremble. He would be able
to understand how irreconcilable such a formulary is
with the teaching of the Nicene Creed, ' I acknowledge
one Baptism for the remission of sins,' still retained in
their Service Book, and is probably aware that the
denial of original sin and of Baptismal grace has been
constantly allied with Socinianism and Unitarianism.1
The qualification of the Conference for settling such
questions may be gauged by the fact that it received

1 Since writing the above I have met with a speech made by Mr.
Worthington, as Unitarian minister, at the meeting of the Western Uni
tarian Association at Plymouth, on the 18th June 1885. He said, ' Until
recently they had heard little of any movements (i.e. towards Unitarianism)
among the Dissenters. He had, however, been much struck with the
" school " among the Wesleyan Methodists. It was amazing to think how
they were now taking up the lines the Unitarians were fighting for, and
how largely they sympathised with the principles which Unitarians sought
to advocate.'
'Nonconformity in certain quarters,' said Mr. Spurgeon in his Sermon
on the 7th June 1885, ' is eaten through and through with a covert
Unitarianism, less tolerable than Unitarianism itself.'

88 John Wesley.
without comment the statement made by one of its
members that ' holding as they did the validity of Lay
Baptism, they were not likely to be charged with hold
ing to any priestly doctrine of Baptism ' ! No one in
that assembly of divines seemed to be able to inform
him that even the Church of Rome recognises the
validity of Lay Baptism.
The revised form was eventually adopted by a
majority of two to one ; and Churchmen were exult-
ingly told by the Methodist Recorder to take notice of
the fact, as indicating the impossibility of any union
between Methodism and the Church ; and the London
Quarterly Review of October 1883 — a Wesleyan organ
— wrote in the same strain. So true are S. Jerome's
words, ' No schism fails to devise a heresy for itself to
justify its withdrawal.'

CONFIRM A TION.
Although John Wesley claimed to be a 'scriptural
episcopos ' or Bishop, yet we do not find that he ever
affected to confirm. Nor do his followers of the present
day, although they too — or some of them — claim to be
Bishops. Consequently the Methodist Societies are
entirely without even the semblance of that which the
Apostle to the Hebrews (vi. 1, 2) declares to be one of
' the principles of the doctrine of Christ ' — a part of its
' foundation.' But what John Wesley thought of Confirmation will
be seen from the two following extracts. The first is
from a treatise entitled ' The Manners of the Ancient
Christians,' which he extracted from a French author,

The Real Presence in the Eucharist. 89
but made his own by publishing it in his collected and
revised Works in 1771, declaring them to contain his
' last and maturest thoughts.'
Catechumens having been prepared, ' were baptized on
Easter Eve, that they might rise again with Christ, or on
the eve of Pentecost, that they might be ready to
receive the Holy Ghost. . . . When the persons baptized
were infants, their sureties or sponsors (as Tertullian
calls them) answered for them. Immediately after
Baptism they were presented to the Bishop to be con
firmed by prayer and the imposition of hands.' 1
The next extract is from Wesley's Notes on the New
Testament — a work which is chiefly a translation from
Bengel, and is one of the legal standards of Wesleyan
doctrine. Hebrews vi. 1 : ' And when they believed, they were
to be baptized with the baptism of Christ. The next
thing was to lay hands upon them, that they might
receive the Holy Ghost'

THE REAL PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST.
The next doctrine objected to as being ' Popish ' is
what Dr. Rigg terms ' Sacramental Efficacy,' i.e. the
doctrine that ' the Saviour is in the Sacrament ' — or, as it
was subsequently expanded into, ' the Real objective
Presence of Christ' in the Sacrament. The word
' objective,' I should explain, means outward, or inde-
1 Works, ix. 16, ed. 1771. This treatise is not included in the editions
of Benson or Jackson.

90 John Wesley.
pendently of a presence in the mind of the com
municant. Now it has been suggested that because Wesley
denies the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist, and speaks
of the Consecrated Elements as ' signs ' and ' tokens ' of
Christ's Body and Blood, therefore he could not have
believed in the real objective Presence. Dr. Rigg
adduces his use of these terms as a proof of Wesley's
being ' a very low Churchman ' — an argument which
only proves the writer to be unfamiliar with the language
of Theology. No such inference can be drawn from
that fact. Wesley was an educated theologian, and
read the early Fathers and some of the great theological
writers who succeeded them, and often, when speaking of
matters of doctrine, is simply translating those authors
into English.1
In this case, when speaking of the Consecrated
Elements as ' signs ' and ' tokens,' he was simply using
the words of S. Thomas Aquinas, the great Eucharistic
poet. A hymn of his, which is used to this very day,
has been thus translated : —
" Here beneath these Signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see :
Blood is poured, and Flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous Token
Christ entire we know to be.'
1 Thus, so extravagant had been his early teaching respeoting Christian
perfection, that his friend Grimshaw complained of the Methodists of one
neighbourhood that ' not fewer than thirty professed sinless perfection,
and thirty more he expected would pretend thereto shortly.' But in 1768
Wesley described perfection as consisting in ' loving God with all the
heart, and one's neighbour as one's-self ' — this being the exact definition
given by S. Francis de Sales. See Spirit of S. Francis, pt. i. ch. i.

The Real Presence in the Eucharist. 9 1
Indeed the Council of Trent itself speaks of the
Eucharist as ' a symbol ' x
This language contains one side of the truth, but does
not exclude the other side. And if S. Thomas Aquinas
and the Council of Trent could thus speak and yet
assert the real objective Presence, most certainly Wesley
may do the same. And so accordingly he did.
' We believe,' says Wesley in a passage already quoted,
' that there is and always was in every Christian Church
an outward (the equivalent to " objective ") sacrifice
offered therein by men authorised to act as ambassa
dors of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God '
(Works, ii. 4. Written in 1745, and republished by
himself unaltered in 1774 2).
Again, ' O Lord, in the simplicity of my heart, at Thy
commandment, I come unto Thee with hope and rever
ence, and believe that Thou art present in this Sacra
ment' (John Wesley's Companion for the Altar, adapted
from Thomas a Kempis 3).
He speaks of three things which ' require that much
more be contained therein than a bare memorial or repre
sentation —
' I. — The end of the Holy Communion, which is to
make us partakers of Christ in another manner than
when we only hear His Word.
' II. — The wants and desires of those who receive it,
who seek not a bare representation or remembrance.
/ want and seek my Saviour Himself, and I haste to this
Sacrament for the same purpose that SS. Peter and

1 Symbolum rei sacrse, et invisibilis gratis: forma visibilis. — Ses. xiii.
cap. 3.
2 Works, xxviii. 348, own ed. of 1771. 3 Id. viii. 116.

92 John Wesley.
John hasted to His sepulchre, because I hope to find
Him there.
' III.— The strength of other places of Scripture, which
allow it a far greater virtue than that of representing
only. " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion of the Blood of Christ ? "—a means of com
municating the Blood there represented and remembered,
to every believing soul. ... I come, then, to God's
Altar with the full persuasion that these words, " This is
My Body '' promise me more than a figure : that this
holy banquet is not a bare memorial only, but may
actually convey as many blessings to me as it brings
curses on the profane receiver' (Dr. Brevint's words
adopted and published by Wesley, Works, xxiii. 152,
ed. 1771).
In his Christian Library, a work originally published
in fifty and subsequently in thirty volumes, containing
extracts from various authors for the instruction of his
followers, he prints the following from Bishop Kerr:
' Lord, what need I to labour to search out the manner
of Thy mysterious Presence ih this Holy Sacrament,
when my love assures me Thou art there ? All the
faithful who approach Thee know that Thou art there.
They feel the virtue of Divine love going out of Thee
to heal their infirmities and inflame their affections. . . .
O Holy Jesus, when at the Altar I see the bread
broken, and the wine poured out, teach me to discern
Thy Body there. . . . O Jesus, when I devoutly receive
the outward Elements, as sure as I receive them I
receive Thee.'1
In his Journal, under the date of 16th August 1789,
1 Vol. xiii. 401, 402, 2d ed.

The Real Presence in the Eticharist. 93
Wesley writes : ' In the morning, I believe we had not
less than six hundred communicants ; but they were all
admirably well-behaved, as if they indeed discerned the
Lord's Body.'1
And this view of the Holy Eucharist he impresses on
his ' Helpers,' asking them, ' Do you in communicating
discern the Lord's Body ? ' (Large Minutes— Works, vi.
362, ed. 1809; republished in ed. of 1771 by Wesley
himself). Again : ' I enjoy Thee in the Sacrament, truly present,
though hidden under another representation' (Com
panion for the Altar, p. 24).
Again — ' We need not now go up to Heaven
To bring the long-sought Saviour down ;
Thou art to all already given,
Thou dost e'en now Thy Banquet crown :
To every faithful soul appear,
And skew Thy real Presence here!
Hymns on the Lord's Supper, by
J. and C. Wesley, No. 116.
'Now on the Sacred Table laid
Thy Flesh becomes our Food,
Thy life is to our souls conveyed
In Sacramental Blood.' Id. No. 65.
Again — ' Who shall say how Bread and Wine
God into man conveys :
How the Bread His Flesh imparts,
How the Wine transmits His Blood —
Fills His faithful people's hearts
With all the life of God ? ' Id. No. 57.
1 Works, iv. 468.

94 John Wesley.
' In the rite Thou hast enjoined
Let us now our Saviour find ;
Drink Thy Blood, for sinners shed,
Taste Thee in the Broken Bread.' Id. No. 33.
' Let us with solemn awe,
Nigh to Thine Altar draw ;
Taste Thee in the Broken Bread,
Drink Thee in the Mystic Wine.' Id. No. 77.
' The way Thou hast enjoined
Thou wilt therein appear : ,
We come with confidence to find
Thy special Presence here.' Id. No. 81.
' Yet may we celebrate below
And daily thus Thine offering show
Exposed before Thy Father's eyes :
In this tremendous mystery
Present Thee bleeding on the tree,
Our everlasting Sacrifice.' Id. No. 124.
' The Lamb His Father now surveys
As on this Altar slain,
Still pleading and imploring grace
For every soul of man.' Id. No. 126.
' Ye Royal Priests of Jesus rise
And join the daily sacrifice,
Join all believers in His Name
To offer up the spotless Lamb.'
Id. No. 137.
Now these quotations from The Companion for the
Altar and Hymns on the Lord's Supper have their
especial value. Modern Wesleyans cannot say con-

The Real Presence in the Eucharist. 95
cerning these, as they often do concerning many of his
writings (but with as little truth), ' Oh, Wesley wrote
these when he was a High Churchman fresh from
Oxford,' for the Companion was first published in 1742,
and the Hymns in 1745 — four and seven years respec
tively after his ' conversion.' Nor, again, can they resort
to their other subterfuge, and say, ' Oh, Wesley changed
his opinion in his maturer days,' for these treatises con
tinued to be published all his life — going through ten
different editions unaltered, whilst an eleventh was
issued some time after his death. (I possess copies of
the sixth, eighth and ninth editions, dated 1771, 1779,
1785.) Here, then, we shall find John Wesley's real
principles. And what do we find ?
First, that he speaks of an ' outward (or objective)
Sacrifice ' in the Lord's Supper. That Christ is ' pre
sent ' in this Sacrament. That it is a ' real Presence,'
and a ' special Presence.' That in it ' an everlasting
Sacrifice is offered.' That it should be offered ' daily.'
That it is ' more than a figure or memorial,' for in it the
Lord's Body should be discerned,' and is ' communicated
to every true believer.' That the ' Flesh of Christ is
laid on the Sacred Table,' which he also calls an ' Altar '
— (the objective Presence again). And, finally, that 'in
this tremendous mystery ' this bleeding Sacrifice is pre
sented to God the Father.
By way of invalidating the testimony to Wesley's
Churchmanship furnished by these poems, Dr. Rigg
says,1 'Brevint's doctrine Charles Wesley transfused
into ecstatic hymns which are full of the real Presence.'
1 Churchmanship of John Wesley, p. 48.

96 John Wesley.
But this suggestion that these poems were all written
by Charles is refuted by Dr. Osborn, the editor of The
Poetical Works of fohn and Charles Wesley, who says
that ' it is not consistent with the facts, and that John
contributed more largely to these joint publications than
is generally supposed ; ' moreover, we are informed by
the same writer that the brothers always refused to
specify the poems written by each.1 So that John
adopted every line of them. And what makes this
the more conclusive is, that on another occasion, when
Charles published some poems that he did not agree
with, he promptly disavowed them.
I find these Hymns on the Lord's Supper given in
their integrity in the eleventh edition, dated 1825 ; and
some of them are inserted in the supplements to the
General Hymn-Book put forth in 1830 and 1876, but
with one exception the hymns containing the above
passages nowhere appear. But of those which are in
serted some are altered and mutilated, and the doctrine
pared down to fit modern Methodism.
I give a couple of specimens.
The Wesleys wrote in Hymn 123 (No. 702 in the
Wesleyan Hymn-book of 1876) —
' Those feeble types and shadows old
Are all in Thee — the Truth — fulfilled ;
And through this Sacrament we hold
The substance in pur hearts revealed.'
Conference changes the last two lines to —
' We in Thy sacrifice behold
The substance of those rites revealed!
1 Advertisement to vol. viii. of the Poetical Works.

The Real Presence in the Eucharist. 97
They wrote in No. 30 (No. 901 in the Wesleyan
Book) :— ' Now, Saviour, now Thyself reveal,
And make Thy nature known ;
Affix the Sacramental seal,
And stamp us for Thy own.'
Conference alters the third line to —
' Affix Thy Blessed Spirit's seal.'
In the forefront of each of these editions is printed
John Wesley's preface to his Hymn-Book of 1779, in
which he entreats any who may reprint his and his
brother's poems ' not to attempt to mend them, for they
are really not able,' or if they do, he begs them ' to add
the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the
page, that he and his brother may no longer be account
able for the nonsense or the doggerel of other men.'
Wesley's prose, however, is in full accordance with his
verse, for in addition to the passages quoted above, he
wrote in 1740, reaffirmed in his letter to Mr. Church
in 1744, and to the Bishop of London in 1747, and pub
lished in his collected works in 1772, 'The Lord's
Supper was ordained by God to be a means of convey
ing to men either preventing, or justifying, or sanctifying
grace, according to their several necessities.' 1
In his Notes on the New Testament (in accordance
with which all Wesleyan Preachers are pledged to teach)
he writes on 1 Cor. x'\ 25, ' This do in remembrance of
Me' : ' The ancient sacrifices were in remembrance of sin.
This sacrifice, once offered, is still represented in remem
brance of the remission of sins ; ' and he also wrote :
' We freely own that Christ is to be adored in the Lord's
1 Works, viii. 486.
G

98 John Wesley.
Supper, but that the Elements are to be adored we
deny.'— (Written first in 1749, and republished by
Wesley himself in 1773, unaltered).1 Other passages
to the same effect might be quoted.
Now Dr. Rigg, in his pamphlet on The Relations of
fohn Wesley and Wesleyan Methodism to the Church of
England, proclaims that ' for twenty -five years he has
been an earnest student of all that belongs to the
history and opinions of the Wesley brothers.' If so, he
must needs be familiar with the above-quoted passages,
and with the fact that they exhibit one uniform doctrine
on the subject of the Lord's Supper as held by Wesley
for the last fifty years of his life. Further, in the
preface to his collected works, dated March 1771,
Wesley states that he had inserted ' three sermons of
his own and one of his brother's preached at Oxford
... as being a stronger answer than any which can be
drawn up now to those who have frequently asserted
that we have changed our doctrine of late, and do not
preach now what we did some years ago.' Again, three
years before his death he published his sermon on The
Duty of Constant Communion, ' written above five-and-
fifty years before, for the- use of his pupils at Oxford,'
in which the Eucharist is termed ' the Christian sacrifice,'
and the Lord's Table ' the Altar,' thanking God that ' he

1 Works, x. 121. Here again Wesley seems to be quoting either the
Fathers, or one of the greatest of English divines, Bishop Andrewes : ' Nos
vero et in mysteriis Carnem Christi adoramus cum Ambrosio : et non id
sed Eum qui super Altare colitur. . . . Nee Carnem manducamus quin
adoremus prius, cum Augustino. Et sacramentum tamen nulli adoramus '
(Respons. ad Apol. Bellarm., p. 267. Anglo-Cath. Lib.). Bishop Ridley
also, in his Disputation at Oxford with the Papists, said, ' We adore
and worship Christ in the Eucharist ' (Works, Parker Soe. 236-251).

The Real Presence in the Eucharist. 99
had not yet seen cause to alter his sentiments in any
point which is therein delivered.' He must be well
aware that in the year 1778 Wesley wrote : ' Forty years
ago I knew and preached every Christian doctrine which
I preach now.' x He must know, for he himself actually
quotes John Wesley's declaration made in 1778, that
' in the course of fifty years he and his brother were not
conscious of varying from the Church in any point of
doctrine'2 — a declaration which he repeated in 1789
(within two years of his death) in these words : ' I haye
uniformly gone on for fifty years never varying from
the doctrine of the Church at all.' 3 Of all these things
so diligent a student of John Wesley's writings and
opinions cannot well be ignorant. And yet he does not
scruple to style ' sacramental efficacy a Popish supersti
tion,' and to assert in the above-mentioned pamphlet
that, 'from the year 1738, John Wesley, having been
converted to the true evangelical faith, was led ... to
abandon in succession all the distinctive tenets of what
is now understood as " High Catholic " doctrine, and
within ten years became a very Low Churchman ; ' and
that ' it was in fact in the year 1746 that Wesley may be
said to have thrown overboard finally the last of his
High Church leanings ' ! !-^Pp. 6, 45.
And this is only an ordinary instance of the way in
which modern Wesleyan Preachers set forth the prin
ciples of their Founder.
Upon the point, then, of Wesley's belief in the real
objective Presence, not a word more need be said to
save him from his friends, who would have us believe
that when Wesley used the word ' real ' he meant unreal,
and by the word ' presence ' meant absence.
1 Works, iv. 135. a Id. iv. 432. 3 Id. p. 450.

ioo John Wesley.
PRIVATE OR AURICULAR CONFESSION.
It is well known that Wesley instituted a regular
system of Confession of sins to men in what were by him
called ' bands,' which were subdivisions of the ' classes '
consisting only of persons of the same sex, because ' his
people,' said Wesley, ' often had temptations of such a
kind as they knew not how to speak of in a class in
which persons of every sort, young and old, men and
women, met together.' 1 These ' bands ' were so pro
minent a feature of his system, that he was accustomed
to say that ' the bands were the nerves of his Society,'
and that ' where there is no band-meeting there is
no Methodism.' And when he found a Society in a
declining state, he usually noted in his Journal as a pro
minent cause that 'the bands had tumbled to pieces : '2
whilst on one occasion he wrote a circular letter to his
Preachers, telling them he would only visit those places
where there were ' bands,' for they only are Methodist ,
Societies. ' Bands ' were, in short, as Moore points out,
the fundamental institution of Methodism.3 And it is
further to be observed that this Confession is compulsory
on every one who enters these bands ; therein going
somewhat beyond, as it seems to me, the teaching of
the Church of England, which leaves all her children
free to confess or not. The following are the four
questions that Wesley directed to be put at every meet
ing, to be answered ' without exception, without disguise,
and without reserve : ' —
1 Works, viii. 258. 2 Moore's Life of Wesley, ii. 467.
3 I have not been able to learn that ' bands ' now exist anywhere : a
fact which of itself supplies a sufficient answer to a tract lately put forth by
a Wesleyan writer entitled, Is Modern Methodism Wesleyan Methodism ?
a question which he has the effrontery to answer in the affirmative.

Private or Auricular Confession. 101
I- — What known sins have you committed since our last
meeting ?
II. — What temptations have you met with f
III. — How were you delivered?
IV. — What have you thought, said, or done, of which
you doubt whether it be a sin or not ? 1
Whilst in the ' Large Minutes ' the leaders of the
bands are exhorted to ' speak to those who meet with
them in the closest manner possible.' 2
And again, the leader is instructed to ' speak his
own state first, and then ask the rest, in order, as many
and as searching questions as may be concerning their
state, sins, and temptations.' 3
And not only was this system of Confession instituted
by Wesley, but it was also repeatedly urged on Wesleyans
by Conference, viz. in the years 1806, 1812, and 1821. —
(See Skewes's Polity of Methodism, p. 6.)
But as regards Private Confession to an individual as
well, Wesley's teaching is explicit : —
' We grant Confession to men to be in many cases of
use : public, in case of public scandal ; private, to a
spiritual guide for disburdening of the conscience, and
as a help to repentance.' 4
' Confession made by a single person to a Priest —
this itself is in nowise condemned by our Church : nay,
she recommends it in some cases.' 5
Again, Wesley urges his Preachers to make sure of
their groundwork : ' In doing this it may be well, after
a few loving words spoken to all in the house, to take

1 Works, viii. 273. 2 Id. vi. 385, ed. 1809.
3 Id. viii. 258 : A plain Account of the people called Methodists.
1 Id. a. 123. 5 Id. viii. 259.

102 John Wesley.
each person singly into another room, where you may
deal closely with them about their sin and misery and
duty ' (Large Minutes^).
And anticipating the objection of those who shrink—
' But should not tenderness hinder us from giving un
necessary pain? Yes, from giving unnecessary pain.
But what manner of tenderness is this ? It is like that
of a surgeon who lets his patient be lost because he is
too compassionate to probe his wounds. Cruel com
passion ! Let me give pain, so I may save life. Let
me probe, that God may heal.' 2
And as was his teaching so was his practice, for at
many of his Stations, as at Bristol, he occupied a little
room, near the Preaching-House, where he was ready at
stated times to receive the confession of those who con
sulted him.
He also made it a constant custom to examine his
followers privately. — (See Works, i. pp. 414, 446 ; ii. 74 ;
iii. 279 ; iv. 16.)
In another place he writes : ' I spent the remainder of
this and the following week in examining those of the
Society ; speaking severally to each, that I might more
perfectly know the state of their souls to Godward.'
And just as foul and revolting insinuations in refer
ence to this matter are made by so-called Wesleyans
now against the Clergy, so were they in his day made
against Wesley himself, and his wOrds will be now, as
then, a sufficient vindication. ' Your fifth argument,'
says Wesley, 'is that they use Private Confession, in
which every one is to speak of the state of his heart with
his several temptations and deliverances, and answer as
1 Works, vi. 344, ed. 1809. 2 Works, x. 489.

Absolution. 103
many searching questions as may be. " And what a
scene," you say, " is hereby disclosed ! What a filthy
jakes opened, when the most searching questions are
answered without reserve ! " Hold, sir, unless you are
answering for yourself. This you, undoubtedly, have a
right to do. You can tell best what is in your own
heart : and I cannot deny what you say ; it may be
a very " filthy jakes '' for aught I know. But pray
do not measure others by yourself. The hearts of
believers " are purified through faith." ' x

ABSOLUTION

The Book of Common Prayer shows what the doc
trine ofthe Church of England is on this subject by the
three forms of Absolution which are therein given.
Now, concerning the Church and the Prayer Book, John
Wesley wrote in 1746 as follows, in a treatise entitled,
The Principles of a Methodist further explained, repub
lishing it verbatim in 1772 : ' As a minister, I teach her
doctrines, I use her offices, I conform to her rubrics.
As a private member, I hold her doctrines, I join in
her offices, in prayer, in hearing, in communicating.' 2
And from the doctrine of the Church he (as we have
just seen) states himself ' never to have varied for the
last fifty years ' of his life. Accordingly he declares the
Authority of the Priest in pronouncing Absolution to be
' Ministerial, Declarative, and Conditional'
' To pardon sin and absolve the sinner judicially, so
as the conscience may rest firmly upon it, is a power
1 Works, ix. 55. 2 Id. viii. 444.

104 John Wesley.
reserved by God to Himself (i John i. 9). And, there
fore, the authority of the Priest is only ministerial,
declarative, and conditional. " Men show a ministry in
the forgiveness of sins, but do not exercise a right of
power. They pray, but it is God forgives," saith S.
Ambrose' (De Spir. i. 3, c. 19).1

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.
On this subject Wesley wrote to Mr. G. Blackall in
1783, as follows : —
' S. Paul teaches that it is in Heaven we are to be
joined with " the spirits of just men made perfect " in
such a sense as we cannot be on earth, or even in
Paradise. In Paradise the souls of good men rest from
their labours and are with Christ from death to the
resurrection. This bears no resemblance at all to the
Romish Purgatory, wherein wicked men are supposed to
be tormented in purging fire till they are sufficiently
purified to have a place in Heaven. But we believe (as
did the ancient Church) that none suffer death but
those who suffer eternally.'2

PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED.
On this subject John Wesley is very explicit ; not
only maintaining the doctrine but also giving forms of
such prayers in the manuals which he issued for the
daily use of his followers. As Wesley was an educated
theologian, he could not, of course, fall into the vulgar
1 Works, x. 124. 2 Id. xiii. 112

Prayers for the Faithful Departed. 105
error of supposing that prayers for the faithful departed
had any necessary connection with the doctrine of
Purgatory. Accordingly, to a person who had objected
to his teaching, Wesley replied as follows : ' Your argu
ment is that in a collection of prayers I cite the words
of an Ancient Liturgy — "for the faithful departed."
Sir, whenever I use these words in the Burial Service, I
pray to the same effect, " that we, with all those that are
departed in Thy faith and fear, may have our perfect
consummation and bliss both in body and soul." Yea,
and whenever I say, " Thy Kingdom come," for I mean
both the Kingdom of Grace and Glory.1 In this
kind of general prayer, therefore, for the faithful de
parted, I consider myself to be clearly justified both by
the earliest antiquity, by the Church of England, and by
the Lord's Prayer.'2 — (Written in 1750, republished in
1772.) Another Puritan disputant, who had objected that
' it is certain praying for the dead was common in the
second century,' he silenced as follows : ' You might
have said and in the first also, seeing that petition, " Thy
Kingdom come," manifestly concerns the Saints in
Paradise as well as those upon earth.' 3 — (Written in
1748-49, republished in 1773.)
Here are some of such prayers put forth by Wesley
for daily use amongst his followers : —
'Grant that they, and those that are already dead in the Lord,
may at length enjoy Thee.' — Prayer for Sunday morning.
' O grant that we, with those that are already dead in Thy faith
1 This is in exact accordance with Bishop Bull's words in his letter to
Robert Nelson on the corruptions of the Church of Rome.— (See Bull's
Works, ii. 261, Oxford ed. 1846.)
2 Works, ix. 55. 3 Id. a. 9.

106 John Wesley.
and fear, may together partake of a joyful resurrection.'— For
Monday evening.
' Grant that we all, together with those that now sleep in Thee,
may awake to life everlasting.'— For Tuesday morning.
' That we, together with all those who are gone before us in Thy
faith and fear, may find a merciful acceptance at the last day.'—
For Thursday morning.
' Bring us, with all those that have pleased Thee from the begin
ning of the world, into the glories of Thy Son's Kingdom.'— For
Friday morning.
' By Thy infinite mercies vouchsafe to bring us, with those that
are dead in Thee, to rejoice together before Thee.'— For Friday
evening! ' O Lord, Thou God of spirits and of all flesh, be mindful of Thy
faithful from Abel the just even unto this day : and for Thy Son's
sake give to them and us in Thy due time a happy resurrection
and a glorious rest at Thy right hand for evermore.'— For Satur
day evening. — (Works, xi. 317, of editions of 1809 and 1818, but
suppressed in Jackson's edition of 1829.)2
It would seem from the frequency with which these
prayers occur (no less than seven times a week) that
Wesley considered it to be a Christian's duty to pray
for the faithful departed daily.
In Sermon XXVI. Wesley writes : ' This petition,
" Thy Kingdom come," is offered up for the whole in
telligent creation, who are all interested in this grand
event, the final renovation of all things." 3
Now this sermon is one of the first fifty-three which,
with Wesley's Nates on the New Testament, constitute
the legal standards of Wesleyan doctrine ; and the
prayers above mentioned were not only published over
1 Works, xi. 206-232.
2 The first portion of this prayer is a quotation from the Ancient
Liturgy of S. James, a document which S. Paul is believed to have more
than once quoted in his epistles.
8 Works, v. 336.

Lutheran Justification. 107
and over again throughout Wesley's whole lifetime, but
were also (with one single exception) included by John
Wesley himself in his collected works in 1771, when he
was sixty-eight years of age. Yet with these facts star
ing him in the face, the Rev. W. H. Rule, of Plymouth,
a leading Wesleyan Preacher and a D.D., ventured
to assert, in The Western Morning News, of the 8th
December 1867, ' Those notions about praying for the
dead, if they clung to him (Wesley) for a time, as they
might have done, were utterly cast off, and this his
writings most clearly testify ' ! ! !
Comment is superfluous.

L UTHERAN fUSTIFICA TION.
Any one who is conversant with the practical working
of Modern Methodism will be aware that the Solifi-
dianism of Luther, and the necessity of ' Assurance ' as
held by the Calvinist, are two of its prominent features.
In all ' revivals,' so-called, these two notions play a pro
minent part. In these matters average modern Metho
dists hold the doctrines which John Wesley learned from
the Moravians, and advocated for a brief period in his
earlier years, but utterly repudiated in his more mature
days. In 1738 we find him writing as follows: 'I fell
among some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, whose
confused and undigested accounts magnified faith to
such an amazing size that it quite hid all the rest of the
commandments. I did not then see that this was the
natural effect of their overgrown fear of Popery : being
so terrified with the cry of merit and good works, that

108 John Wesley.
they plunged at once into the other extreme. In this
labyrinth I was utterly lost ; not being able to find out
what the error was, nor yet to reconcile this uncouth
hypothesis either with Scripture or common sense.' x
But Wesley did not long remain under the dominion
of this ' uncouth hypothesis ' of Luther's, for the un-
couthness of the hypothesis produced in some of his
followers, as was natural enough, some exceedingly
uncouth fruit, thus described by Wesley himself : ' That
there is no commandment in the New Testament but to
believe, and that no other duty lies upon us ; and that
when a man does believe, he is not bound or obliged
to do anything which is commanded there. In particu
lar, he is not subject to ordinances, i.e. is not bound to
pray, to communicate, to read or hear the Scriptures.
. . . That a believer cannot make use of any of these as
a means of grace ; that indeed there is no such thing as
any means of grace ; that an unbeliever, or one who
has not a clean heart, ought not to use them at all,
ought not to pray, or search the Scriptures, or communi
cate,' etc. etc. Whilst one of his female converts, he
says, became ' on a sudden so much wiser than her
teachers, that I could neither understand her nor she
me.' And another affirmed that ' she had been hitherto
taught of man, but now was taught of God only, Who
had told her not to partake of the Lord's Supper any
more, since she fed upon Christ continually.'2
All this seems to have opened Wesley's eyes ; and,
after attempting in vain to convince these fanatics, he,
and some eighteen of his followers, withdrew from their
society, in Fetter Lane, in July 1740.
1 Whitehead's Life of Wesley, ii. 55. Not included in the collected works.
2 Works, i. 275, 306, 307.

Lutheran Justification. 109
' In the beginning of 1738,' wrote Wesley, ' I believed
justification by faith was articulus stantis vel cadentis
ecclesice ; soon after, I found reason to doubt.'1
In June 1741 he writes as follows : ' I read over
that celebrated book, Martin Luther's Comment on the
Epistle to the Galatians. I was utterly ashamed. How
have I esteemed this book only because I heard it so
commended by others, or at best because I had read
some excellent sentences occasionally quoted from it.
But what shall I say now I judge for myself ? Why, not
only that the author makes nothing out — clears up not
one considerable difficulty — that he is quite shallow in
his remarks on many passages, and muddy and confused
almost on all — but that he is deeply tinctured with
mysticism throughout, and hence often dangerously
wrong. To instance only in one or two points. How
does he decry reason — right or wrong — as an irreconcil
able enemy to the Gospel of Christ ? . . . How blas
phemously does he speak of good works and the law of
God ; constantly coupling the law with sin, death, hell,
or the devil, and teaching that Christ delivers us from
them all alike.' 2
In the Minutes of 1744 we find : —
Q. Have we not unawares leaned too much towards
Calvinism ?
A. We are afraid we have.
(So late as 1743 he had written : ' I incline to believe
that there is a state attainable in this life from which a
man cannot finally fall ' ( Works, i. 427). But in 1763 he
formally retracted the expressions in the hymns which
implied this doctrine (Charles Wesley's Life, ii. 209), and
1 Works, x. 432. 2 Id. i. 315,

no John Wesley.
in 1767 said that his brother and T. Walsh 'had con
vinced him of his mistake.')
Q. Have we not also leaned towards Antinomianism ?
A. We are afraid we have.
And he goes on to describe as ' main-pillars of Anti
nomianism, that Christ abolished the Moral Law, that
one branch of Christian liberty is liberty from obeying
the Commandments ; that a believer is not obliged to
use the ordinances of God, not do good works, and that
a Preacher ought not exhort to good works ; not un
believers, because it is hurtful ; not believers, because
it is needless.1
A long and very friendly correspondence which
Wesley had in 1745-47 with a person calling himself John
Smith, but who is believed to have been Archbishop
Seeker when Bishop of Oxford (to whom Wesley ex
pressed his obligations), seems to have completed his
conversion to sounder views respecting Justification ;
and after that time we constantly find him declaring it
in words like these : ' Repentance absolutely must go
before faith ; fruits meet for it if there be opportunity.'2
' Justifying faith cannot exist without previous repent
ance.' 3
' Our main doctrines, which include all the rest, are
three : that of repentance, of faith, and of holiness. The
first of these we account, as it were, the porch of religion ;
the next the door ; the third religion itself.'*
In December 1767 he writes: 'This much appears
as clear as the day, . . . that a mystic who denies justi
fication by faith may be saved. But if so, what becomes
of " Articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae"? If so, is,
1 Works, viii. 278. 2 Id. p. 427.
3 Id. viii. 428. * Id. p. 472.

Lutheran Justification.

in

it not high time for us " projicere ampullas et sesquipe-
dalia verba,"1 and to return to the plain word, " He that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with
Him.'"2 Are works necessary to the continuance of faith ?
Without doubt. For a man may forfeit the free gift of
God either by sins of commission or omission.3
In 1773 he writes : ' Is justifying faith articulus stantis
vel cadentis ecclesice (Luther's principle). In the begin
ning of the year 1738 I believed it was so. Soon after
I found reason to doubt Since that time I have not
doubted.'4 Again, we have received it as a maxim that a ' man
is to do nothing in order to justification.' Nothing can
be more false. Whoever desires to find favour with
God should ' cease from evil and learn to do well.' So
God Himself teaches by the prophet Isaiah, whoever
repents should ' do works meet for repentance.' And ' if
this is not done to find favour, what does he do them
for ? ' After stating that he who is accepted of God is
' he that, according to the light he has, feareth God and
worketh righteousness,' the Minutes proceed : ' Is not
this salvation by works ? Not by the merit of works,
but by works as a condition. What have we then been
disputing about these thirty years ? I am afraid about
words. As to merit itself, of which we have been so
dreadfully afraid, we are rewarded according to our
works, yea, because of our works. How does this
differ from "for the sake of our works"? And how
differs this from secundum merita operum, which is no

1 To get rid of bombastic and long-drawn words.
2 Works, iii. 308. 3 Id. viii. 277. * Id. a. 432.

112

John Wesley.

more than " as our works deserve " ? Can you split this
hair ? I doubt I cannot' x
This position he declared to be agreeable both to
Scripture and sound experience, and he reasserted it in
1772, in the same words, in his Remarks on Mr. Hill's
Review; adding in 1773, 'I believe that final salva
tion is by works as a condition. And let any one read
over the 25th chapter of S. Matthew, and deny it if he

can.

ASSURANCE.

When Wesley, in a storm at sea on his return from
Georgia in 1738, wrote the oft-quoted words, ' I went to
America to convert the Indians, but oh ! who shall
convert me ?' he immediately afterwards explains what
he meant by ' conversion.' ' I have,' he adds, ' a fair
summer religion : I can talk well, nay, and believe
myself, while no danger is near. But let death look me
in the face, and my spirit is troubled, nor can I say, " To
die is gain." .... Oh, who will deliver me from this
fear of death ?
' I have a sin of fear, that when I 've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore !
' The faith I want is a sure trust and confidence in
God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are
forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God.' And
for lack of this feeling he called himself ' unconverted '
— ' alienated from the life of God ' — ' a child of wrath '
— ' an heir of hell.' 3
The account which he gives of his conversion, which
1 Works, viii. 337. 2 Id. xiii. 21, and x. 380, and 432. 3 Id. i, 74, 77.

Assurance. 113
took place four months afterwards, under Moravian
influence, is as follows.
Listening to one who was reading Luther's preface to
the Epistle to the Romans, '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 my salvation ; and
assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins,
even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.' x
Thus wrote- Wesley on the 14th May 1738, and this is
the day from which his followers date his ' conversion.'
But, as might be expected, these feelings soon left him,
and a few months afterwards, viz. on 4th January 1739,
he affirmed that even then he ' was not a Christian ' —
' this he knew as assuredly as he knew that Jesus is the
Christ, for he had neither the love of God, nor joy in the
Holy Ghost, nor the peace of God : ' — and being asked
how he knew this, he replied, ' Because I feel it' 2
And having set up his feelings — or rather the absence
of them — as the sole test of his spiritual condition, he
forthwith applied it as a test of the faith of others.
Now this, it will be remembered, is the exact doctrine
of one of the Lambeth Articles drawn up by certain
Calvkiists in 1595, but pointedly rejected, not only by
the English Church generally, but by almost all her
leading divines individually. The sixth of those
Articles runs as follows : ' A true believer, that is, one
who is endued with justifying faith, is certified by the
full assurance of faith that his sins are forgiven.' (The
Article adds, ' and that he shall be everlastingly saved
by Christ.') Certainty of final salvation was also held
1 Works, i. 103. 2 Id. p. 171.
H

1 14 John Wesley.
by Wesley for a short time, but only for a short time.
In 1767, writing to his brother Charles, he says, ' Can
one who has attained it (i.e. sanctification) fall?
Formerly I thought not ; but you, with Thomas Walsh
and John Jones, convinced me of my mistake.'1
The Assurance which John Wesley preached vigor
ously for some years consisted in the necessity of an
absolute certainty that one's sins are at present forgiven,
without denying the possibility of falling from grace.
He did not, however, remain long under this delusion.
To the passage in his Journal of February 1738 (which
is such a favourite quotation among the Methodists), ' I,
who went to America to convert others, was never
myself converted to God,' he subsequently added the
note (printed in Wesley's own edition of 1771, but
suppressed in the edition of 1 809, and generally ignored),
' I am not sure of this.'2 In 1747 we find him writing :
' The assertion that faith is a sense of pardon is contrary
to reason : it is flatly absurd. For how can a sense of
our having received pardon be the condition of our
receiving it ? ' 3
In 1761 he wrote : 'We believe a man may be a real
Christian without being assured of his salvation.' 4
In 1768 he made the following statement, which
seems to be adopted from S. Thomas Aquinas, Sum.
Prim. Sec. Ques. cxii. Art. 5, and accords with the teach
ing of the Council of Trent5
' I believe that a few, but a very few, Christians have
an assurance from God of everlasting salvation.
' I believe more have such an assurance of being now
1 Works, xii. 123. 2 Id. i. 76. 3 Id. xii. no. * Id. 247.
- -A Nisi ex speciali revelatione, sciri non potest quos Deus sibi eligerit
(Ses. vi. cap. xii.).

Assurance. 1 1 5
in the favour of God, as excludes all doubt or fear. I
believe a consciousness of being in the favour of God
(frequently weakened — nay, perhaps, interrupted) is the
common privilege of Christians fearing God and working
righteousness ; yet I do not affirm there are no excep
tions to this general rule. Possibly some may be in the
favour of God, and yet go mourning all the day long.
. . . Therefore, I have not, for many years, thought a
consciousness of acceptance to be essential to justify
ing faith.' x
Finally, in his old age, he said to Mr. Melville Home
these memorable words : ' When, fifty years ago, my
brother Charles and I in the simplicity of our hearts
told the good people of England that unless they knew
their sins were forgiven, they were under the wrath and
curse of God, I marvel, Melville, they did not stone us !
The Methodists, I hope, know better now. We preach
Assurance as we always did, as a common privilege of
the children of God ; but we do not enforce it, under
the pain of damnation denounced on all who enjoy it
not'2 I have in my possession a tract entitled Considerations
on a Separation of the Methodists from the Established
Church (Second Edition, Bristol, 1794). It is anony
mous, but bears evidence of having been written by
Wesley's old friend, Alexander Knox. The author
writes (p. 29) : ' I have heard Mr. Wesley in his last
years animadvert with severity on his own and his
brethren's rashness of speech in the commencement of
their course. " We used to tell the people," said he, " if
1 Works, xiv. 361.
2 I have been unable to find this letter in any edition of Wesley's Works.
It is transcribed from Southey's Life of Wesley, i. 251, ed. of 1846.

116 John Wesley.
you don't know your sins forgiven, you '11 be damned.
I am astonished that they did not take up stones and
stone us like mad dogs." '1
As regards what is termed Wesley's ' conversion ' ' we
find it impossible,' says Miss Wedgwood (John Wesley,
p. 149), ' to representit as coincident with the rise of any
new conviction in his mind. The -word faith seemed to
take a new meaning for him, but it cannot be said that
the objects of faith were in any way different. Law
cautioned him " not to be too hasty in believing that
because he had changed his language or expressions he
had therefore changed his faith." '
If, however, we are to look about for the precise time
of Wesley's conversion in any scriptural or real sense of
the word, it should be assigned to the year 1725, when
he was twenty-two years old. He describes himself as
being at that time ' exceedingly affected ' at reading
Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Rules and Exercises of Holy
Living and Holy Dying, and that part in particular which
relates to purity of intention. ' Instantly I resolved,'
he says, ' to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts,
words, and actions, being thoroughly convinced there
was no medium, but that every part of my life (not
some only) must be a sacrifice to God, or myself,
that is, in effect, to the devil.' And on reading S.
Thomas a Kempis' Christian Pattern the following
year, the nature and extent of inward religion, and the
necessity of giving all his heart to God, ' appeared to
him in a stronger light than ever it had done before.'
A year or two after, Law's Christian Perfection and Seri
ous Call helped to confirm him in his resolution.2 This
1 See Methodist Tracts, vol. i. 2 Works, xi. 366.

The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness . 1 1 7
may not unreasonably be called ' conversion,' or turning
to God. But to call the assurance which Wesley, under
the tutelage of Bohler the German Moravian, professed
in May 1738 (and so soon after lost) by the name of
' conversion,' is to disregard the meaning of words.

THE IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S
RIGHTEO USNESS.
Against this as held by the Calvinists, Wesley pro
tested very vigorously. ' Must we not put off the filthy
rags of our own righteousness before we can put on the
spotless righteousness of Christ ? Certainly we must ;
i.e., in plain terms, we must repent before we can believe
the Gospel. . . . But do you not believe in inherent
righteousness ? Yes, in its proper place ; not as the
ground of our acceptance with God, but as the fruit of
it ; not in the place of imputed righteousness, but as
consequent upon it. . . . What we are afraid of is
this, lest any should use the phrase " the righteousness
of Christ," or " the righteousness of Christ is imputed
to me," as a cover for his unrighteousness. We have
known this done a thousand times. A man has been
reproved, suppose, for drunkenness. " Oh," said he, " I
pretend to no righteousness of my own. Christ is my
righteousness." Another has been told that the unjust
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. He replies with
all assurance, "I am unjust in myself, but I have a
spotless righteousness in Christ'"1
' In what sense is the righteousness of Christ imputed
1 Sermon XX., A.D. 1765. Works, v. 241-244.

1. 1 8 John Wesley.
to us? We do not find it expressly affirmed in
Scripture that God imputes the righteousness of Christ
to any ; although we do find that faith is imputed to us
for righteousness.' 1
' Warn them against making void that solemn decree
of God, " Without holiness no man shall see the Lord "
— that if they remain unrighteous, the righteousness of
Christ will profit them nothing, — that for this very end
the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us that " the
righteousness ofthe Law may be fulfilled in us.'"2
' The nice metaphysical doctrine of imputed righteous
ness, instead of furthering men in holiness, makes them
satisfied without any holiness at all. I have known a
thousand instances of this.' 3
Thus did John Wesley get rid of his Lutheranism
and Calvinism. But the seeds of error which he sowed
in his earlier days seem to be ineradicable.4
1 Minutes of 1744. Works, viii. 277.
2 Ser?non XX. as above. 3 Works, x. 387, A.D. 1772.
4 The Calvinistic doctrine of Imputed Righteousness finds a striking
parallel in an ancient Jewish superstition. They believe that ' God
promised to Abraham that if his children were wicked, He would consider
them as righteous on account of the sweet odour of his circumcision.'
See Maimonides's More Nevochim, by Townley, p. 400, n.

The Fathers. 119

ATHANASIAN CREED.
Stevens, in his History of Methodism (Bk. vi. c. i.),
states that Wesley used the Athanasian Creed in public
service. In Sermon LV. Wesley says that the Athan
asian Creed 'was the best explication of 1 S. John
v. 7 that he ever saw,' and proceeds to state why he
had no scruples in using what are vulgarly called the
Damnatory Clauses ; whilst in another place he writes
that ' the fundamental doctrine of the people called
Methodists is, "Whosoever will be saved, before all
things it is necessary that he hold the true faith ;'" and
when accused of falsifying the words of the Creed,
replied that he had only changed the hard word
'Catholic' into the easier one 'true,' for the sake of
readers of the class of his accuser.1

THE' FATHERS.

As early as 1738, John Wesley fully recognised the
rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, and wrote as follows : ' It
was not long before Providence brought me to those
who showed me a sure rule of interpreting Scripture,
viz. Consensus Veterum : quod ab omnibus, quod
ubique, quod semper creditum ' 2 (Whitehead, ii. 56).
He wrote to the same effect in 1749, 'Scripture and
indubitable antiquity are the authority we appeal to :
1 Works, iii. 30.
2 The consent of the Ancients : that which has been believed by all
Christians, everywhere, and always. Tyerman refers to this passage, but
omits Wesley's statement that he was guided herein by Providence.

120 John Wesley.
thither we refer our cause ; and can heartily conclude
with that of Vincentius Lyrin. : " That is to be held which
hath been believed everywhere, always, and by all." ' J
These words he republished in his collected works in
1773- And accordingly we always find him speaking with
the greatest reverence of the early Fathers. In putting
forth a translation of SS. Clement, Ignatius, and Poly-
carp in his Christian Library, in 1749, he expressed
himself in these words : ' The authors of the following
collection were contemporaries of the Holy Apostles,
one of them bred under our Lord Himself, and the
others well instructed by those great men whom He
commissioned to go forth and teach all nations. We
cannot therefore doubt but what they deliver to us is
the pure doctrine of the Gospel ; what Christ and His1
Apostles taught, and what these holy men had them
selves received from their own mouths.' He believed
them ' to be endued with the extraordinary assistance
of the Holy Spirit,' and that ' their writings, although
not of equal authority with the Holy Scriptures, are
worthy of much greater respect than any compositions
that have been made, since 'not only were they not
mistaken in their interpretation of the Gospel of Christ,
but in all necessary parts of it were so assisted by the
Holy Ghost as to be scarce capable of mistaking.' 2
In his Address to the Clergy, written in 1756, he
speaks of ' the great lights of antiquity, the Ante-Nicene
Fathers,' and puts the following form of self-examination
into the mouth of each of the clergy addressed by him:
' Am I acquainted with the Fathers, at least with those
1 Works, a. 128. 2 Id. xiv. 238.

The Fathers. 121
venerable men who lived in the earliest ages of the
Church? Have I read over and over the golden re
mains of Clemens Romanus, of Ignatius, and Polycarp ?
And have I given one reading at least to the works of
Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandri-
nus and Cyprian? . . . Who would not likewise desire
to have some acquaintance with SS. Chrysostom, Basil,
Jerome, Austin ; and above all, the man of a Broken
Heart, Ephraim Syrus ? ' 1 And he frequently appeals
to others of the Fathers also, such as Augustine, Chry
sostom, etc. In 1782 he wrote : ' I regard no authorities
but those of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.' 2
Nor did his reading stop with the Fathers. There
are indications of his having read some of the school
men, e.g. S. Thomas Aquinas. (See his use of the
scholastic term, fides formata, viii. 369-371.) He put
forth in 1742, and republished several editions of A
Companion for the Altar, as well as The Christian
Pattern, both extracted from S. Thomas a Kempis.
He put forth some nine or ten editions of his sum
mary of Dr. Brevint's treatise on the Christian Sacra
ment and Sacrifice, the theology of which is truly
catholic ; and his Notes on the New Testament — one of
the legal standards of doctrine to his followers — are, as
he himself tells us, chiefly translations from Bengel,
whom he calls 'that great light ofthe Christian world ;'3
whilst his Christian Library contains extracts from.
Bishops Jeremy Taylor, Leighton, Patrick, Ken, and
Sanderson, etc.
1 Works, x. 482, 492. 2 Id. xii. 414. 3 Id. xiv, 252.

122 John Wesley.
SAINTS' DA YS.
Very devout was Wesley in observing the rules of
the Church as to All Saints' Day and certain other
holy days. ' November ist, 1748, being All Saints'
Day, we had a solemn assembly at the chapel, as I
cannot but observe we have had on this very day for
several years.' x
' November ist, 1756, was a day of triumphant joy, as
All Saints' Day generally is. How superstitious are
they who scruple giving God solemn thanks for the
lives and deaths of His Saints.' 2
November ist, 1766: ' God, Who hath knit together
His elect in one communion and fellowship, gave us a
solemn season at West Street (as usual) in praising
Him for all His Saints. On this day in particular I
commonly find the truth of these words : —
' The Church, triumphant in His love,
Their mighty joys we know ;
They praise the Lamb in hymns above,
And we in hymns below.' 3
November ist, 1767: 'All Saints' Day, a festival I
dearly love.' 4
Christmas 1774: 'During the twelve festival days
we had the Lord's Supper daily — a little emblem of the
primitive Church. May we be followers of them in all
things, as they were of Christ ! '
Easter Day 1777 : ' During the Octave I administered
the Lord's Supper every morning, after the example of
the primitive Church.' 5
1 Works, ii. 119. 2 Id. p. 388. 3 Id. iii. 268.
4 Id. p. 302. 5 /dm iv_ 3gj 9j_

' Gospel Sermons .' 123

FASTING.
It would be tedious to quote the many places in which
Wesley recommends fasting, and gives rules for it.
1 Which of us,' he asks, ' fasts every Friday in the year ? '
—(Large Minutes}) ' Without fasting and early rising
it is impossible to grow in grace.' 2 '
In his Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,
written in 1744 and republished by him in 1772, he
declared that he always observed with scrupulous ex
actness the Rubric enjoining fasting or abstinence on
the forty days of Lent, the Ember Days at the four
seasons, the three Rogation Days, and all the Fridays
in the year except Christmas Day.3
Suffice it to say that, in his 116th Sermon, he says,
that ' according to the Word of God, the man that never
fasts is no more in the way to Heaven than the man
that never prays.' And every Preacher, according to
Wesley's rules, bound himself to recommend fasting
both by precept and example.

GOSPEL SERMONS.'

John Wesley repeatedly expresses the most unmiti
gated contempt for what in the cant of that, as well as
of the present day, were called ' Gospel Sermons.' ' I
myself find more life,' he wrote to Miss Bishop in 1778,
' in the Church Prayers than in any formal extemporary
1 Works, vi. 386, ed. 1809. 2 Hampson, Iii. 182. 3 Works, viii. 32..

124 John Wesley.
prayers of Dissenters. Nay, I find more profit in
sermons on either good tempers or good works, than in
what are vulgarly called " Gospel Sermons." That term
has now become a mere cant word ; I wish none of our
Society would use it. It has no determinate meaning.
Let but a pert, self-sufficient animal, that has neither
sense nor grace, bawl out something about Christ, or
His Blood, or justification by faith, and his hearers cry
out, " What a fine Gospel Sermon ! " Surely the Method
ists have not so learned Christ ! We know no Gospel
without salvation from sin.1
' If we duly join faith and works in all our preaching,
we shall not fail of a blessing. But of all preaching,
what is usually called " Gospel preaching " is the most
useless, if not the most mischievous — a dull, yea, or
lively harangue on the sufferings of Christ, or salvation
by faith without strongly inculcating holiness. I see
more and more that this naturally tends to drive holi
ness out of the world.' 2
Again : ' The " Gospel Preachers," so called, corrupt
their hearers : they vitiate their taste so that they can
not relish sound doctrine, and spoil their appetite, so
that they cannot turn it into nourishment. They, as it
were, feed them with sweetmeats, till the genuine wine
of the Kingdom seems quite insipid to them. They
give them cordial upon cordial, which make them all
life and spirit for the present ; but meantime their
appetite is destroyed, so that they can neither retain
nor digest the pure milk of the Word. Hence it is that
(according to the constant observation I have made in
all parts both of England and Ireland) Preachers of

Works, xiii. 134. 2 Id. xii. 130.

Ritual.

125

this kind (though quite the contrary appears at first)
spread death, not life, among their hearers. As soon
as that flow of spirits goes off, they are without life,
without power, without any strength or vigour of
soul. And it is extremely difficult to recover them,
because they still cry out, " Cordials ! cordials ! " of
which they have had too much already, and have no
taste for the food which is convenient for them ; nay,
they have an utter aversion to it (and that confirmed
by principle, having been taught to call it husks, if not
poison), how much more to those bitters which are pre
viously needful to restore their decayed appetite.' x

RITUAL.

Like other Dissenters, the Methodists are for ever
proclaiming that the practices of the Ritualists, so
called — such as bowing at the Holy Name of Jesus, or
towards the Altar, or having Lighted Candles thereon
— are essentially Popish. Let us see what John Wesley
thought of such matters. In 1738, after his 'conver
sion,' Wesley went to a place in Germany called Ber-
tholdsdorf. It was a Lutheran village, and the wor
ship was a Protestant worship ; and he thus describes
what he saw there amongst those good Protestants :
'Two large candles stood lighted upon the Altar. (It
was at nine o'clock in the morning, in the month of
August) The Last Supper was painted behind it ;
the pulpit was placed over it, 'and over that a brass
image of Christ on the Cross. At nine began a long
1 Works, xi. 485.

126 John Wesley.
voluntary on the organ, closed with a hymn. . . . Then
the Minister walked up to the Altar, bowed, sang those
Latin words, Gloria in excelsis Deo, bowed again, and
went away. This was followed by another hymn ; . . .
then the Minister went to the Altar, again bowed, sang
a prayer, read the Epistle, and went away.' And so on.
And what said Wesley to all this? Does he de
nounce it as idolatrous, or Popish, or use any of the
bitter language which we are accustomed to hear from
Modern Wesleyans concerning such things ? Far from
it. He spent another Sunday in the neighbourhood,
and thus records his verdict: 'I would gladly have
spent my life here ; but my Master calling me to labour
in another part of the vineyard, I was constrained to
take my leave of this happy place. Oh, when shall this
Christianity cover the earth as the waters cover the
seas ? ' 1
'I think it prudent ... to turn to the East at
the Creed ' (MS. of John Wesley's in the possession of
R. Denny Urlin, Esq., of the Middle Temple).
' May I never mention Thy Venerable Name unless
on just, solemn, and devout occasions, nor even then
without acts of adoration ' (Wesley's Prayers for every
Day in the Week, republished by him in 17712).
Wesley several times expressed his approval of
Choral Celebrations of the Lord's Supper. Speaking

1 Works, i. 1 15-120. It has been asked whether this praise of Wesley's
may not have been given to the service and congregation of Hernuth
rather than to that of Bertholdsdorf. But a reference to Wesley's Journal
of 14th August 1738 will show that the Moravians at Hernuth deemed
themselves to be an integral part of ' the Church ' of Bertholdsdorf, going
thither to receive the Lord's Supper, and speaking of the Bertholdsdorf
clergyman as 'their Pastor.' 2 Id. xi. 212.

Ritual. 127
of it at Exeter Cathedral, he says, ' The music of " Glory
be to God in the highest " I think exceeded the Messiah
itself.' J
In another place he says that the music during the
celebration 'so affected many that they could not
refrain from tears.' 2 He often had a hymn sung dur
ing the celebration of the Lord's Supper.3
It was one of Wesley's standing rules that in public
worship the sexes should sit apart ; 4 and he went so
far as to say that if he came into any new Preaching-
House and 'saw the men and the women sitting to
gether, he would immediately go out' 5
High pews (said to have been invented by Bishop
Burnet) he waged war against The seats in his
Preaching- Houses were all open, and no one was
allowed to call a seat or pew his own.
In his letter to Dr. Conyers Middleton, Wesley
defends the use of the mixed Chalice, and the reserva
tion of the Eucharist, as being in accordance with the
Divine institution, and as mentioned by SS. Irenseus,
Cyprian, and Justin Martyr.6
That he was always a scrupulous observer of the
Rubrics is shown by his Appeal to Men of Reason and
Religion, written in 1774, and republished by himself in
1772 : 'As to your advice to have a greater regard to
the rules and orders of the Church, I cannot, for I
now regard them next to the Word of God.'
Again : ' In every parish where I have been curate yet,
I have observed the Rubrics with scrupulous exactness.

1 Works, iii. m. 2 Id. iv. 223-234. 3 Tyerman, ii. 283.
4 Large Minutes — Works, vi. 373, ed. 1809. " Works, viii, 332.
6 Id. x. 9.

128 John Wesley.
And this so far as belongs to an unbeneficed minister or
to a private member of the Church I do now.' . . . ' I
have observed them punctually, yea at the hazard of
my life.' J

CONCLUSION

It has thus been shown conclusively — not by un
supported assertions, but by the production of John
Wesley's own words — that the very doctrines and
practices which so many modern Methodist Preachers
vilify as ' Popish,' and as intended to lead men to Rome,
were held and recommended by their 'venerated
Founder ' himself — and that not at one period only of his
ministry, but throughout the last fifty years of his life ;
and further, that Wesley's theology, and that of those
who now call themselves after his name, are as wide as
the poles asunder.
I have too practical acquaintance with Modern
Wesleyanism and its spirit to imagine that the Wesley
ans will in our day adopt the only consistent course
open to them, if they persist in calling themselves by
the name of Wesley, and return as a body to the Church.
But I strive to hope that they will in future use more
charitable language towards the only modern exponents
of John Wesley's doctrines — our so-callecLHigh Church
men. For, indeed, as stated by a writer in the Times of 14th
of October 1872, who signs himself ' A Methodist of the
third generation,' a total change has of late years come
1 Works, viii. 1 19, 32-3.

Conclusion. 129
over the feelings with which the Wesleyan Preachers
regard the Church. This feeling, as he admits, is but
little shared in by the Wesleyans at large ; but in the
minds of very many of the Preachers he describes it as
one of bitter hostility. He speaks of them in magni
loquent phrase as being like the eager soldiers at
Waterloo — only waiting for a leader to cry, 'Up,
Guards, and at them,' to make 'a final and decisive
charge ' against the Church ! ! 'In Methodism,' he adds,
' no less than in other Nonconformist communities, the
animosity against the Church of England is chiefly
inspired and fanned by Ministers' — a statement which
is in painful accordance with the utterances of the
Modern Preachers above referred to. ' Methodists
must see to it,' says a Lincolnshire Wesleyan Preacher
in a recent publication, entitled Village Methodism,
' that the Church's ministrations do not become
acceptable and efficient' ! ! x
In 1804, when the Committee of the Bible Society
was being formed, the Wesleyan Methodists refused
to nominate (as they had been asked to do) two
members from their body, assigning as a reason
that they considered themselves represented by the
Bishops.2 In 1826 Dr. Adam Clarke wrote (Letter to Rev. J. T.
Wilkinson) : ' I reverence the Liturgy next to the Bible.'
And so late as 1868, one of their most respected
Preachers, Thomas Jackson, wrote (Letter to the
Methodist Recorder), that throughout his life he had
1 ' To feel, and much more to express, either contempt or bitterness
towards the Clergy betrays an utter ignorance of ourselves, and of the
spirit which we especially should be of.' — Wesley's Works, xiii. 196.
2 See History of the Bible Society, i. 81.
I

130 John Wesley.
' revered the Church of England as the embodiment of
the Reformation, a protest of the nation against the
Popery by which it was formerly enslaved, and one of
the bulwarks of the Protestant religion.'
Only six years elapse from the date of this declara
tion, when we find leading Preachers in the Conference
of 1874 protesting against the use of the Prayer Book
in their Preaching-houses, declaring that it contains
' language of a Romanising tendency,' and that it is
' the chosen instrument of those who wish to destroy
the Protestant Reformation,' and this, and such
like pitiable outpourings, received by the assembled
Preachers with a chorus of assent ; whilst a published
letter from the Primate of Ireland on the subject of
Burials, dated 3d of January 1876, described the Wes
leyans in that country as more inclined to trouble the
Church than even the Papists. What a contrast is all
this to the spirit of Wesley's prayer transcribed on
page 1 34 of this volume ! and what a woful departure
from the spirit of the old Wesleyan motto — 'The
friends of all and the enemies of none ' !
Now, inasmuch as, by the confession of the more
candid Wesleyans themselves, ' never had the Church of
England such a body of earnest and faithful Clergy as
she has at this time ' — (see Thomas Jackson's letter to
the Methodist Recorder, September 1868) ; and whereas
Dr. Osborn the Wesleyan said in 1880 that the Church
which was formerly ' asleep is now wide awake,' and
that certain clergy of his acquaintance ' are patterns to
all Christian ministers of every kind in zeal and untiring
labour,' it is important to consider what has brought
about this change of feeling on the part of so many of
the Weslevan Preachers.

Conclusion. \%x
There are four obvious reasons : —
I.— As intimated by the ' Wesleyan of the third gen
eration' before quoted, the Wesleyans are being urged to
become (what they were not in times past) Political
Dissenters. A letter appeared recently in the London
newspapers from a Wesleyan, complaining not only of
political sermons, but also of political prayers, in which
her Majesty's Ministers were 'held up to obloquy.'
Some years ago a Preacher was expelled the Society
for taking part in a public attack on the Church ; and
in 1839 the late Thomas Jackson said that the Wesley
ans ' would do the same again if there were the like
occasion.'1 In 1875, however, a resolution was passed
by Conference, the effect of which will be to untie their
hands for this sort of work.2
II. — Not only are the Wesleyan Preachers very
angry that Churchmen are unable to regard them in
their newly assumed characters of Bishops and Presby
ters ; but, further, whereas John Wesley wrote (Large
Minutes — Works, viii. 310), 'Do not affect the gentleman.
You have no more to do with this character than with
that of a dancing-master,' they are also exceedingly
sore that the Clergy do not associate with them on
terms of social equality. Dr. Rigg, writing to the
International Review in 1877, says that an equal social
status with the Clergy ' is at present the special form of
equality which Nonconformist ministers covet'
1 Centenary of Wesleyan Methodism, p. 269.
2 One of the many bodies into which the Methodists are now sub
divided, ' The United Methodist Free,' passed a resolution in their
Annual Assembly of 1872 in favour of the scheme for plundering the
Church as put forth by the late Mr. Miall.

132 John Wesley.
III. — The increased attention which, within the last
few years, has been bestowed upon the writings of John
Wesley by people outside the Wesleyan Society, has
placed Modern Wesleyan Preachers before the reading
public in the uncomfortable position of being pointed
at as men who are engaged in vehement repudiation
of much of the practice and most of the leading prin
ciples of him whom they still term their 'venerated
Founder.' IV. — But perhaps the chief reason of all is that so
many Methodists are returning to the Church. ' It is
not an uncommon complaint of Methodists to-day,'
says Dr. Rigg in the above-mentioned pamphlet, ' that
their children, when they grow up, migrate to the
Church of England.' That they do so migrate — especi
ally the better educated ones — is notorious. It was
said some years ago that there were at that time no
less than eight hundred sons of Wesleyan Preachers
who had received Holy Orders in the Church of Eng
land. — (See Guardian, 1870, p. 858.)
Of course if Wesleyanism only held its own, it would
increase in numbers along with the increasing popula
tion of the country ; but so far is this from being the
case, that whereas the population of Great Britain has
increased since 1850 forty-five per cent, the numbers of
the Wesleyan Society have increased only ten per cent. ;
whilst their own published returns reveal the significant
facts that their members are leaving the Connexion at
the rate of 40,000 per annum. The Minutes of Con
ference for 1884, whilst stating a net increase of 3281,
confess to a leakage of 43,104. In 1885 the net in
crease was 2797, with a leakage of 41,320 ; whilst in

Conclusion. 133
1886, in spite of 45,230 new members, there is a net
decrease of 779, the total number of members in Great
Britain being 412,384, and the leakage, after allowing
for deaths, being 40,634.
In the year 1787 John Wesley said: 'When the
Methodists leave the Church of England, God will leave
them ; ' x and fifteen months before his death he wrote :
' I never had any design of separating from the Church ;
I have no such design now. I do not believe the
Methodists in general design it when I am no more
seen. I do, and will do, all that is in my power to
prevent such an event. Nevertheless, in spite of all I
can do, many will separate from it, although I am apt to
think not one-half, perhaps not a third of them. These
will be so bold and injudicious as to form a separate
party, which consequently will dwindle away into a
dry, dull, and separate party. In flat opposition to
these, I declare once more that I live and die a member
of the Church of England, and that none who regard my
judgment or advice will ever separate from it! 2
' When, some years before his (Wesley's) death, I
asked him in a private conversation how he would wish
his friends to act in case of the Methodists withdrawing
from the Church, his answer was : " I would have them
adhere to the Church and leave the Methodists " '
(Alexander Knox, Remarks on the Life and Character
offohn Wesley).
 <  1 
1 Works, xii. 488. 2 Id. xiii. 240. See Note D.

134 John Wesley.
ARCHBISHOP LAUD'S PRAYER FOR THE
HEALING OF DIVISIONS.
' Especially bless Thy Holy Catholic Church, and
fill it with truth and grace : where it is corrupt, purge
it : where it is in error, rectify it : where it is right, con
firm it : where it is divided and rent asunder, heal the
breaches thereof, O Thou Holy One of Israel.' 1
1 Adopted by Wesley, and inserted amongst his Prayers for Every Day
in the Week (Works, xi. 215).

APPENDIX. A.
THE SCHISM WITHOUT EXCUSE.
We have seen that Wesley himself confessed that in the
earlier part of his career he had leaned to the errors both of
Calvin and Luther. The hysteria and convulsions that he
produced he attributed sometimes to the Holy Spirit, some
times to Satan, and at other times to witchcraft. The
extremely unfavourable portrait which he himself drew of his
followers may be seen post, p. 144. And when it is further re
membered that he was firmly believed to be a Papist engaged
in raising an army for the Pretender, we find some very
sufficient reasons for the opposition which he met with during
the earlier portion of his itinerancy. But he himself has
recorded the countenance afforded him by many of the most
eminent of the Bishops during his earlier years, in spite of his
admitted irregularities.
So early as 1760 Charles Wesley wrote: ' If pride and the
enemy did not precipitate them, our Preachers would
infallibly find the door into the outward ministry opened to
them soon.' Again : ' Neither have I the least doubt but the
porter will be commanded to open the door and to admit by
imposition of hands as many as have addicted themselves to
God's service in the Established Church. I have more reason
for believing this than is commonly known, and am assured, if
our Preachers do not ruin themselves and the work by their
own precipitation, our Lord will take care of every one of
them.' x But about this time several of the Preachers took
1 Jackson's Life of Charles Wesley, ii. 185, 188.

1 J

6 John Wesley.

upon themselves to administer the Sacraments, 'with,' as
Charles Wesley expressed it, ' no other ordination or authority
than a sixpenny licence,' and by so doing necessarily closed ,
' the door ' against themselves.
Five-and-twenty years afterwards Charles wrote his brother :'
' The Bishops have let us alone, and left us to act just as we
pleased for these fifty years. At present some of them are
quite friendly toward us, particularly to you. The churches
are all open to you (Dr. Rigg confesses this), and never could
there be less pretence for separation.'1
Shortly after Wesley's death his old friend Alexander Knox
put forth a pamphlet entitled Considerations of a Separation of
the Methodists from the Established Church, the following
extract from which shows beyond dispute what was at that
time the attitude of the Church towards Methodism, as well as
the wantonness of the separation then consummated : —
'For fifty years you have been declaring to all mankind
your steady, conscientious attachment to the Established
Church. You have professed, times without number, that
you considered yourselves called, not to form a sect, but to
invite sinners of every sect and party, not from their
respective persuasions, but merely from sin to true religion
and virtue ; and that every circumstance in your rise, progress,
and success, concurred to convince you that this was the will
of God concerning you. Has, then, any event occurred
which proves all this to have been a mistake, and which will
justify you in thus trampling on your own uniform profes
sions ? Are you again repelled from the Altars of the
Church? Do its ministers lead on mobs at this day to
extirpate you ? or is the signal for persecution sounded from
its pulpits? All this, it seems, you formerly encountered.
But all this was insufficient to divert you from that path, in
which you believed you found the presence and the blessing

Charles Wesley's Life, ii. 396.

Appendix. 1 3 7
of your God. Nay, amidst all this, you made those very
declarations which you are now about to violate. Had you
then thought of separation: had you then listened to the
expostulations of your milder and more sagacious opponents,
who saw that the power of the Methodists lay in their peculiar
Catholicism, like the strength of Samson in his hair, and there
fore repeatedly urged upon you the question, ' Why do you
not leave us?' what even in that case your principles as
Christians would not have justified, your weakness as men
might have excused. But to have rejected such a measure
then, and to adopt it now ; to have protested against it when
there was some shadow of cause, and to violate all those
protestations now when there is no cause — now when the
Established Church comparatively caresses you — invites you
to its Sacraments, and is ready almost to fold you in its
bosom ! What, my friends, can we say to this ? Is it not
just matter of offence to Jew and Gentile, as well as to the
Church of God ? Nay, will not charity itself be reduced to
the dilemma of either concluding that the Methodists, having
no fixed principles, are carried about with every wind of
doctrine, or that for fifty years they have been wearing a mask
which they at length find it convenient to throw off? ' l

THE WORKING OF METHODISM, CLASS AND BAND
MEETINGS, AND 'REVIVALS!
The following is John Wesley's description of a revival,
written when he was eighty-two, and had learned to give less
encouragement than before to such manifestations :• — ¦
' It is chiefly among these enormous mountains (at Chapel-
le-Frith) that so many have been awakened, justified, and
1 Written in 1794. See Methodist Tracts, vol. i.

138 John Wesley.
soon after perfected in love : but even whilst they are full of
love, Satan strives to push many of them to extravagance.
This appears in several instances: ist. Frequently three or
four, yea, ten or twelve pray aloud all together. 2d. Some of
them — perhaps many — scream all together as loud as they
possibly can. $d. Some of them use improper, yea, indecent
expressions in prayer. 4th. Several drop down as dead, and
are as stiff as a corpse ; but in a while they start up and cry
" Glory ! Glory ! " perhaps twenty times together. Just so do
the "French prophets," and very lately the "Jumpers" in
Wales, bring the real work into contempt.' x
In his 117th Sermon — written two years before his death —
Wesley rebukes his followers both for their ' odious familiarity
with God,' and for behaviour, 'both of men and women,
shocking not only to religion, but to common decency.'
More than once does he complain that his people at their
class meetings conceived ' an inordinate affection for each
other;' and he also records how confessions made at 'band'
meetings had been divulged (some of them of a most painful
character), and narrates the lamentable consequences that
followed.2 'There is in Methodism,' said Edward Irving, 'far too
little of spiritual conscience, far too much of temporal appetite.
It goes hunting and watching after its own emotions, i.e.
mainly its own nervous system : an essentially sensuous
religion, depending upon the body, not on the soul.' 3
The Rev. Edwin Sidney (the biographer of Rev. Samuel
Walker, of Truro), drawing a contrast between Walker's system
and Wesley's, says : ' Laymen endeavouring to eclipse their
minister in prayer ; women forgetting the modesty of their sex
and the propriety of their situation in the enthusiastic utter
ance of feelings real or imaginary ; youths put forward because
of a gift, to the destruction of all humility; ignorant and
1 Works, iv. 329. 2 See Works, iv. 18, 349 ; xii. 474 ; xiii. 23.
3 Retniniscences, by Thomas Carlyle, i. 298.

Appendix. 139
illiterate persons permitted to give vent to unintelligible
rhapsodies — exhibit violations of decency and order such as it
is surprising that any leader of a sect should ever have per
mitted, much less encouraged.'
The Rev. S. Walker himself, speaking of his classes, says :
' It hath been our singular blessing that we have had no
disputes amongst us, which, under God, we ascribe to the
nature of our constitution, which is that no one is to be talking
there but myselj. That private persons should be speaking in a
large company we had observed from the Methodists to be so
great a temptation to conceit (and the next step to that is always
envy, strife in the heart, and contention), that we dared not
venture upon it.' — Sydney's Life of Rev. S. Walker, pp. 61-63.
In 1802, John Walker, a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin,
addressed the Methodists as follows : ' I am persuaded that
meetings, conducted as yours are, must prove in many in
stances highly injurious ; and perhaps they are most injurious
to those who like them most. At them, each member of
your Society is weekly called on to declare the state of his
soul, in the presence of others, to the number of twelve or
twenty. The most truly experienced Christian is best able to
say how nice and trying a matter it is to speak before others
of himself and of his walk with God. It is not at all times or
at any periodical intervals that he will dare to attempt it ; and
when he does see it expedient to speak upon the subject, it
will be with holy fear, whether he speaks of his sorrows or of
his joys. But among you the weakest are every week put
upon this exercise : those who have no real experience in
religion at all are brought forward to declare their experience,
and drilled either in hypocrisy or self-deceit. They hear one
and another around them speaking the language of complaint
or of rejoicing, of distressing anxiety or assured confidence;
and they, in their turn, retail the gleanings of the phraseology
they have heard. They utter, perhaps, the most humiliating
complaints of themselves, and are secretly filled with a proud

140 John Wesley.
satisfaction at the thought of having complained so well, and
spoken so humbly. Set in motion by this gust of self-com
placency, they are ready to receive the exhortation, which
their class leader gives them, to work out strenuously what is
wanting of their salvation. They report progress at the next
meeting, for which they have been preparing in the interval.
They have now to say (as they have heard others say) that
they are thirsting — wrestling — on the stretch — for justification.
They are sent away with encouragement, perhaps, to win it
that night by violence ; and in all probability, by the following
meeting they will have to declare that they have obtained —
that which they are taught to call justification — a lively im
pression on their minds of some words of Scripture, as if a
voice from heaven told them that their sins were forgiven.
The poor creature is then rejoiced over, and rejoices over
himself, as having experienced the blessing ; talks of this
experience with delight ; and mistakes his fondness of talking
of it for zeal and spiritual fervour. He is given to understand
that all he needs now is to keep up those feelings, and to go
on in the same way, to attain what is called sanctification. He
is questioned weekly as to his progress in this effort, or perhaps
is employed to question others ; and if he only continue regular
in attending his class, and precise in the observation of Method
ist discipline, no doubt is entertained by himself or others of
his Christianity, while he has only exchanged, perhaps, the
sins of drunkenness and swearing, for the sins of spiritual pride,
covetousness, and hypocrisy. If he can only deceive himself
then sufficiently to imagine that all sin is at some instant
exterminated from within him, the course is finished, and his
experience held up as a pattern to all the Society ' (Expostu-
latory Address to the Members of the Methodist Society in
Ireland, by John Walker, late Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, 1802, p. 21).
The same author says : ' The custom of calling on the
members indiscriminately and weekly to declare before each

Appendix. 141
other their experience and the state of their souls,' originated
' in ignorance at once of the varied deceitfulness and corrup
tions of the human heart, and of the nature and character of
the work of grace ; ' and that it must needs ' kindle and
spread the flame of false and fanatical religion.' It is ' but
an apparatus for drilling men either into hypocrisy or self-
deceit, being adapted to fall in with all the self-deceiving
tendencies of our hearts, and just to give a new and worse
direction (though a more specious one) to our natural vanity
and self-love " (Id. p. 135-142).
With regard to ' Revivals ' so called, our author writes as
follows : ' Brethren, I hold as strongly as any of you that all
true religion begins and is carried on by the power of God
experienced in the heart; but I know that this is perfectly
distinct from the natural agitation of the passions into which
it seems the object of the Methodist system to lash the minds
of its members. I can see no Divine power in the mechanical
groan and periodical Amen, without which you think your
religious meetings lifeless. I can see no Divine power in those
tumultuous assemblies, which have at various times been en
couraged among you, and are now encouraged, where two or
three or more are at the same moment uttering petitions to
God with stentorian voices, and others are going about among
the people urging them to cry out, till their nerves are wrought
upon to screeching, swooning, and various hysterical affec
tions, which you are taught to consider as the power of God.
When attempts are made to impose this on the world for
religion, serious Christians will be disposed to weep, and
the rest of mankind to laugh. . . . There must be some
awful delusion on the minds of a Society, which not only
tolerates, but countenances and approves of such practices'
(Id. p. 20).
It is instructive to note the view taken of band and class
meetings by a sober-minded Nonconformist : —
'What could he (Wesley) imagine would be the con-

142 John Wesley.
sequence of instructing his class leaders l to demand of each
member an unreserved exposure of a week's sins and temp
tations? What is it that could be the product of such
disgorgements, when each was solemnly enjoined, with a
remorseless disregard of delicacy, of reserve, of diffidence, to
pour forth before all the moral ills of the past seven days ?
May there not be some ground for the alleged comparative
harmlessness of auricular confession ? The gross-minded and
the shameless will be prompted by egotism and by a bad
ambition to discharge the week's accumulations of their
bosoms very copiously ; but it is certain that the sensitive,
whose consciences are the most alive to feelings of healthful
compunction in the recollection of sin, will not, until the
system itself has spoiled them, be able to bring themselves up
to any such pitch of ingenuousness; those who should be
silent will be loquacious ; those who might speak will violate
their best feelings if they do. . . . So far as these unedify-
ing outpourings of ill-conditioned bosoms may still take place
in a class-meeting, one cannot but be dismayed in thinking of
what must be the moral consequence which, in a course of
time, will be produced upon the imagination and the religious
sentiments of those whose fate it is to listen to the same !
Again we must profess the hopeful belief that such ill con
sequences are (one knows not precisely how) reduced always,
or generally, to a minimum. Yet it is exceedingly difficult to
imagine that a weekly listening to the revelations of the class-
meeting can have otherwise than a very corrupting influence
upon young and uncontaminated minds' (Isaac Taylor's
Wesley and Methodism, p. 252).
The unreality that in general characterises the class-meeting
is thus described by the Rev. A. Hawkins Jones, an ex-Method
ist Preacher : ' I found the class-meetings ordinarily (though
1 Confession was enforced only in the ' bands,' which were subdivisions
ofthe 'classes.' But although it was not compulsory to meet in band, all
were expected to do so.

Appendix. 143
occasionally there were bright exceptions) dull and profitless,
the same things being repeated from week to week, and in the
same tone of voice.'
Thomas Cook, the great American revivalist, who recently
paid Plymouth a visit, said : ' Persons say the same thing in
the prayer-meetings week after week, and year after year,
repeating the old phrases continually.'
The following graphic account of a revival was written in
1739 by one of Wesley's Preachers called Cennick, at that
time one of his most devoted followers : 'On Monday
evening I was preaching at the school on the forgiveness of
sins, when two persons, who the night before had laughed at
others, cried out with a loud voice and bitter cry. So did
many more in a little time. Indeed it seemed that the devil
and much of the powers of darkness were come among us.
My mouth was stopped, and rny ears heard scarce anything
but such terrifying cries as would have made any one's knees
tremble. Only judge. It was pitch dark; it rained much;
and the wind blew vehemently. Large flashes of lightning
and loud claps of thunder mixed with the screams of frightened
parents and the exclamations of nine distressed souls ! The
hurry and confusion caused thereby cannot be expressed. The
whole place seemed to me to resemble nothing but the
habitation of apostate spirits, many raving up and down, and
crying, " The devil will have me ! I am his servant ! I am
damned ! my sins can never be pardoned ! I am gone for
ever ! " — a young man in such horrors that seven or eight
could not hold him, still roaring like a dragon, " Ten thousand
devils, millions, millions of devils are about me ! " This
continued three hours. One cried out, " That fearful thunder
is raised by the devil ; in this storm he will bear me to hell."
Some cried out with a hollow voice, " Mr. Cennick ! bring me
to Mr. Cennick." I came to all that desired me. They then
spurned with all their strength, grinding their teeth and
expressing all the fury that heart can conceive. Indeed their

144 John Wesley.
staring eyes and swelling faces so amazed others that they
cried out almost as loud as they that were tormented. I have
visited several since who told me their senses were, taken away;
but when I drew near, they said they felt fresh rage, longing
to tear me to pieces.' x
It seems to have been generally supposed that Wesley,
having taken his course, carried it out to the end without any
misgivings or apprehensions either with respect to his own
conduct or the results to his followers. This, however, was far
from being the case. In 1772, when he was in his seventieth
year, he wrote his brother : ' I often cry out, Vita me redde
priori I Let me be again an Oxford Methodist ! I am often in
doubt whether it would not be best for me to resume all my
Oxford rules, great and small. I did then walk closely with
God, and redeem the time. But what have I been doing
these thirty years ? ' 2
' My doctrine,' said Luther in his later years, ' has only
served hitherto to aggravate the disorder of the world, tp
make it more grasping, more pitiless, and more undisciplined
wherever it is accepted. . . . There is not one of our
Evangelicals who is not seven times worse than he was before
he belonged to us. If we have driven out one devil, seven
others worse than the first have come in his place.'
Just so there were, as Southey, remarks, 'times when
Wesley himself perceived and acknowledged how little real
reformation had been effected in the great body of his
followers.' In his sermon on ' The Vineyard of the Lord,'
written in 1789, he says : 'When I saw what God had done
among His people forty or fifty years ago — when I saw them
warm in their first love, magnifying the Lord and rejoicing in
God their Saviour, I could expect nothing else than that
all these would have lived like Angels here below. ... But
instead of this, it brought forth error in ten thousand shapes
1 Hampson's Memoirs, ii. 70. 3 Works, xii. 131.

Appendix. 145
turning many of the simple out of the way. . . . It brought forth
pride, robbing the Giver of every good gift, of the honour due
to His Name. It brought forth prejudice, evil surmisings,
censoriousness, judging and condemning one another. . . .
It brought forth anger, hatred, malice, revenge, and every evil
word and work— all direful fruits— not ofthe Holy Spirit, but of
the bottomless pit . . . It brought forth self-indulgence of
every kind, delicacy, effeminacy, softness — but not softness of
the right kind, that melts at human woe. It brought such
base, grovelling affections, such deep earthly-mindedness, as
that of the poor heathens which occasioned the lamentations
of their own poet —
" O curvas in terras animae, et Ccelestium inanes "
(O souls bound down to earth, and void of God).' 1
In the Large Minutes of 1789 he places on deliberate
record these words : ' Personal religion either toward God or
1 Sermon cvn., Works, vii. 210. Richard Watson, the late Methodist
writer, makes a savage onslaught on Southey for having quoted these
words as above, calling him a ' semi-infidel ' (which Dr. Rigg, with his
usual felicity of expletive, dilates into 'a semi-rationalistically-orthodox
Anglican'), and alleges that Wesley was here speaking of the nation at
large, and not of the Methodists. Every one who ventures to hint at <i
fault in Methodism must be prepared to. encounter scurrility of this kind.
Dr. Pusey fares even worse at Watson's hands, and two of Wesley's early
biographers, Hampson and Whitehead, who were unable to close their eyes
to certain motes in the sunbeam, are pursued with unceasing disparagement.
But the audacity of Watson's statement is amazing, seeing that, in the very
beginning of this same sermon, Wesley expressly limits his remarks to his
own followers : ' In the narrowest sense of all, one may mean by the
phrase " the vineyard of the Lord " the body of the people commonly
called Methodists. In this sense I understand it now, meaning thereby
that society only which began at Oxford in the year 1729, and remains
united at this day.' I gladly record the fact that the latest of Wesley's
biographers — Mr. Telford — writes in a very different spirit. He speaks of
' Southey's beautiful and appreciative life having one blot — that of
attributing ambition to Wesley — which he himself afterwards recognised,
and was prepared to remove.' K

146 John Wesley.
man is amazingly superficial among us. . . . Family religion
is shamefully wanting, and almost in every branch.' J
Nor is this account of the condition of his followers to be
attributed merely to a passing feeling of despondency on Wes
ley's part. Fletcher of Madeley — one of his dearest friends —
writing in defence of Methodism in 1771, said : 'At this time
we stand in danger of splitting upon the Antinomian rock.
Manysmatterers in Christian experience talk of "finished salva
tion in Christ," or boast of being in a state of justification and
sanctification while they know little of themselves, and less of
Christ. Their whole behaviour testifies that their heart is void
of humble love and full of carnal confidence. They cry
Lord ! Lord ! with as much assurance and as little right as
the foolish virgins. They pass for " sweet Christians," " dear
children of God;" but their secret reserves evidence them to
be only such believers as Simon Magus, Ananias, and
Sapphira. . . . Some have forsaken the right way, and are
gone astray following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages
of unrighteousness. . . . Some, with the incestuous Corinthian,
are led captive by sinful lusts, and fall into the greatest
enormities. Others, with the language of the awakened
publican in their mouths, are fast asleep in their spirits. You
hear them speak of the corruptions of their hearts in as
unaffected and airy a manner as if they talked of freckles
upon their faces. It seems they run down their sinful
nature only to apologise for their sinful practices, or to
appear great proficients in self-knowledge and court the praise
due to genuine humility. . . . Forms and fair shows of
godliness deceive us : many whom our Lord might well
compare to whited sepulchres look like angels of light when
they are abroad, and prove tormenting fiends at home. We
see them weep under sermons, we hear them pray and sing
with the tongues of men and angels : they even profess the
1 Works, viii. 302.

Appendix. 147
faith that removes mountains, and yet by and by we discover
that they stumble at every molehill: every trifling tempta
tion throws them into peevishness, fretfulness, impatience,
ill-humour, discontent, anger, and sometimes into loud
passion.' ' Relative duties are by many grossly neglected : husbands
slight their wives, or wives neglect and plague their husbands.
Children are spoiled, parents disregarded, and masters
disobeyed. Yea, so many are the complaints against servants
professing godliness on account of their unfaithfulness,
indolence, pert answering again, forgetfulness of their
condition or insolent expectations, that some serious persons
prefer those who have no knowledge of the truth to those
who make a high profession of it.'
Envy, jealousy, false accusations, malice, revenge, per
secution, ' and a hundred such evils, prevail among religious
people, to the great astonishment of the children of the
world, and the unspeakable grief of the true Israelites that
yet remain among us. But this is not all: some of our
hearers proceed to that pitch of covetousness and daring
injustice as not to pay their just debts ; yea, and to cheat and
extort whenever they have a fair opportunity. How few of
our Societies are there where this or some other evil has not
broken out, and given such shakes to the Ark of the Gospel
that had not the Lord wonderfully interposed it must long
ago have been over-set.' 1
Doubtless Wesley's exertions amongst the colliers of
Kingswood were at the time very beneficial ; but the reforma
tion does not seem to have been lasting, for at the Reform
riots of 1 83 1 at Bristol (the mob of which city, Macaulay tells
us, has ever been the fiercest in England) the Kingswood
colliers are recorded to have been ' very active in the work of
destruction.' On that occasion the Mansion House, the
1 Fletcher's Checks to Antinomianism, i. Letter II.

148 John Wesley.
prisons, and many other public as well as private buildings,
were burnt to the ground, the Cathedral barely escaping
the same fate : the military had to act, and many lives
were lost.1
In 1753 Wesley said that he 'trusted that he had stayed
the plague of smuggling ' in West Cornwall, where it was most
rife. But thirty-one years afterwards, viz. in 1784, he wrote
Mr. Pitt, then Prime Minister : ' I firmly believe that in
Cornwall alone the King is defrauded of half a million yearly
in customs,' and of not so little as five millions in the
kingdom at large.2

C.
DEVELOPMENT OF METHODISM.
Among the Large Minutes — reaffirmed in several Con
ferences — are the following instructions to Wesley's Preachers :
' Let all our Preachers go to church. Let all the people go
constantly, and receive the Sacrament at every opportunity.
Warn them against calling our Society a " Church," 3 or " the
Church;" against calling our Preachers "Ministers," our
houses " Meeting-houses : " call them plainly " Preaching-
houses." License yourself as a Methodist Preacher.'
It has recently been alleged that Wesley once, about
eighteen months before his death, called his Society, by
inference, a Church : ' I have never heard of . . . any other
Church which builds on so broad a foundation as the

1 Molesworth's History of England, i. 222. 2 Tyerman, iii. 451.
3 Works, Wesley's own edition of 1771, vol. xv. p. 311. Editions of
1809 and 1818, vi. 358. In the edition of 1829 the words 'a church or'
are omitted.

Appendix. 1 49
Methodists do, which requires of its members no conformity
either in opinions or modes of worship, but barely this one
thing, to fear God, and to work righteousness.' x
But in this very entry in his Journal he speaks of meeting
' the Society,' and explaining to them the nature of Method
ism : and in a parallel passage written the previous year, he
says, 'There is no other religious Society under heaven which
requires nothing of men in order to their admission into it
but a desire to save their souls. Look all around you ; you
cannot be admitted into the Church, or Society of the Pres
byterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, or any others, unless you
hold the same opinions with them, and adhere to the same
mode of worship. I do not know any other religious Society ;'
etc. ' Here is our glorying, and a glory peculiar to us. What
Society shares it with us ? ' 2
This of course may easily be the case with a mere society,
such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice, or the Bible
Society, but the idea of ' a Church ' without ' conformity in
opinions or modes of worship ' is simply inconceivable.
'The term Church,' says Watson in his Observations on
Southey's Life of Wesley, ' Mr. Wesley never applied to his
Societies, but to the Church of England.'
Being charged with usurping the functions of the Governors
of the Church in excluding some of his members, Wesley
replied : ' No ; not the power of excluding from a private
society! s
The year before his death, he wrote to Thomas Taylor :
' The Methodists are to spread life among all denominations ;
which they will do till they form a separate sect.'4
From all which it is evident that not only is the above-
mentioned inference not warranted, but also that the
Methodists, being in the time of their ' venerated Founder ' a
1 Journal, 26th Aug. 1789. "• Id. 18th May 1788.
3 Works, viii. 443. 4 Tyerman, iii. 605.

150 John Wesley.
' private society,' can be nothing more than ' a private society '
(or rather a number of private societies) still, seeing that a
stream cannot rise above its source: and thus having
separated from the Church, they must needs be — if Wesley's
judgment be of any value — not a Church or number of
Churches, but sects.
In 1746 Wesley wrote (and reaffirmed in 1772): 'If any
man separate from the Church, he is no longer a member of
our Society ' ( Works, viii. 443).
And in 1778: 'We inserted in the very first rules of
our Society, "They that leave the Church leave us"' (Id.
xiii. 134).
In 1793 Conference forbids Wesleyan Preachers to
assume the title of ' Reverend ' (Smith's History, ii. 23).
In 1794 Conference repeats this prohibition (Id. 102).
In 18 18 Conference confers on '¦Methodist Preachers' the
title of 'Reverend,' and in 1875 Soes to law to compel other
people to recognise what the court termed their ' laudatory
epithet! In 1839 Conference speaks of ' Our Body in common with
all other Protestant " Churches." '
In 1840 the term 'Preacher' dropped by Conference, and
' Minister ' substituted — both in defiance of John Wesley.
In 1846 was published a volume by 'the Reverend' W. H.
Rule, entitled, ' Wesleyan Methodism Regarded as the System
of a Christian Church.'
In 1850, at the laying of the joundation-stone oj the new
Kingswood Wesleyan School, near Bath, the trowel was
inscribed as having been 'presented by the Ministers and
Societies of the Wesleyan Members ofthe Catholic Church!
1858. — ' We insist on the strict propriety of calling the
Wesleyan Connexion the Methodist Church' (Smith's History
of Methodism, ii. p. 141).
1885, 16th March. — ' We are not the National Church, but
a National Church ' (President of the Wesleyan Conference at

Appendix. 1 5 1
Truro). As though National Churches were 'as plenty as
blackberries ' !
In 1785 John Wesley wrote thus to the so-called Wesleyan
Bishop Asbury : ' How can you, how dare you suffer yourself
to be called "Bishop"? I shudder, I start at the very
thought ! Men may call me a knave, or a fool, a rascal, a
scoundrel, and I am content : but they shall never, by my
consent, call me " Bishop " ' (Smith's History of Wesleyan
Methodism, i. p. 524).
' The Presbyter who presides over a "District" is for the
time a true Bishop, although known in England by the secular
name of Chairman " (W. H. Rule, as above, p. 68).
1872. — In placards posted in London, the President of the
Wesleyan Conference was styled ' The Right Reverend '
(See Guardian, 5th June 1872).
As a standing injunction to his followers, Wesley wrote, and
republished in the Large Minutes in 1772-89: 'Build all
Preaching-houses, where the ground will permit, in the octagon
form. It is best for the voice, etc. . . . Let there be no pews,
and no backs to the seats, which should have aisles on each
side, and be parted in the middle by a rail running all along,
to divide the men from the women.'
And again : ' Let all Preaching-houses be built plain and
decent, but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoid
able' ( Works, viii. 332).
But recently we read oj a ' Preaching-house ' in a certain
town in Berkshire, with a raised Chancel and several Crosses,
and above all ' a niche for the reception of a statuette, such as
may be seen in old English and Continental Churches.
A surpliced choir is also said to be in contemplation. '
At the opening of a new Preaching-house at Manningham,
Bradford, in 1879, thirty-six boy choristers were described as
' sitting in stalls attired in black surplices!
We are told of a new 'Preaching-house' in Devonshire,
cruciform in shape, with Chancel, and coloured tiles, and

152 John Wesley.
painted walls, and a tower and spire ninety-five feet high ; and
amongst the sculptured representations of S. Peter, S. Paul, S.
John and the other Apostles, stands out 'the Head of John Wes
ley, whose lively " effigies " thus keeps guard over the mitiistry!
In October 1878 The Watchman stated that the uncon
sented portion of the cemetery at Broomhill having been but
little used, Mr. Harlin, a Wesleyan Preacher, proceeded to
consecrate it for Dissenters by perambulating it with extem
pore prayers, and having completed the circuit, pronounced
the ground to be properly consecrated. 'If,' said he,
' there was anything in the act of consecration, why should
not they participate in its blessings ? ' ! !
In a volume entitled Temporal Prosperity and Spiritual
Decline, by a Wesleyan Minister, 1866, the author bewails the
introduction into Methodist Preaching-houses of 'the fine-
toned organ,' and ' the skilful choir composed of gay young
men and giggling girls,' ' the frequent fingering of note-books
during prayer, the stealthy whispers and self-complacent
smiles,' ' the beautiful Liturgy and the semitoned (sic) service ' ! !
But prodigious as is the progress of ritualism amongst the
Methodists of England, its full development must be sought
for in America : and there we read of a Preaching-house in
Washington of Gothic architecture, with painted windows —
an Altar — and relics in abundance; viz., a stone from the
ruins of Solomon's Temple; wood from the Cedars of Lebanon
for the pulpit ; panels for the Altar from the Garden of
Gethsemane : and moreover, they call the building ' a Cathe
dral.' What a huge stride, from John Wesley's 'octagon
Preaching-house, plain and decent,' to a ' Gothic Cathedral '
full of relics ! !
Nor are these the only sort of relics recorded. The remains
of Whitfield lie (they can hardly be said to rest) in an open
coffin beneath the pulpit of a Presbyterian place of worship in
Newburyport, near Boston, U.S. They are resorted to, we are
informed, by ' many pilgrims,' and Dr. Abel Stevens, in his

Appendix. 153
History of Methodism, describes the descent into the crypt,
and the aspect of 'the bare and decaying bones,' and tells how
' the thoughtful spectator handles the full-orbed cranium.'
The crania of the three Magi, Gaspar, Melchior, and Baltha-
zer, are also on view in Cologne Cathedral, but you may not
handle them.
!793- — The Conference addressed the Methodists in these
words : ' We do assure you that we have no design or desire of
making our Societies separate Churches. We have never
sanctioned Ordination in England, either in this Conference or
any other, in any degree, nor ever attempted to do it. The
representation of us concerning this point is entirely false ! '
(Minutes of Conference, 1793.)
1836. — 'The ceremony of Ordination then commenced. The
President (Jabez Bunting), the ex-President, the Secretary, and
three of the other senior ministers, laid their hands on the head of
every candidate, to each of whom the President said: 'May est thou
receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Christian
minister now comtnitted unto thee by the imposition of our hands:
and be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of His
Holy Sacraments, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost.' x
This Ordination, however, was obviously no development,
but an entirely new departure. For five-and-forty years the
Methodists neither had nor pretended to any Ordination
whatever. Wesley, although he thought a priest qualified to
ordain, never dreamed that any unordained person could do so.
Jabez Bunting and his associates having been ordained by
nobody, committed the offices of 'a Christian Minister' to
other Preachers 'by the laying on of our hands;' thus
originating the present Wesleyan ministry, which, as a ministry,
has not the remotest connection with John Wesley, and is in
fact simply a ministry after the order of Jabez Bunting.
1 Dr. Smith's History, iii. 327.

154 John Wesley.

THE RESULTS OF METHODISM.
The following extract from The Spiritual Quixote, a work of
some celebrity, by Rev. Richard Graves, published in 1773,
foretells with singular— I might almost say prophetic-
accuracy the results of Methodism : —
'I would by no means undervalue the great talents and
the pious labours of Mr. Wesley and many of their leaders.
They are, I am convinced, men of sound learning and true
devotion ; and whilst they live to inspire and give vigour to
their new establishment, some good may probably result from
it. But when they come to be succeeded by men who,
instead of a zeal for religion, will be led by interest to prefer
the ease and advantage of a teacher to the drudgery of a
mechanic trade, the same indifference and negligence will
soon prevail amongst them which they have complained of in
the Established Clergy, and their classes will probably be as
much neglected as some of our parishes now are. So that
after prejudicing the people against their proper Pastors, they
will leave them a prey to the ignorance, and perhaps much
greater immorality, of illiterate plebeians ; and so will have
made another schism in our Church to very little purpose '
(The Spiritual Quixote, vol. iii. p. 275, ed. 1783).
All the results here foretold have been fulfilled with painful
accuracy. But one further evil the author seems not to have
anticipated, viz. that Methodism would within a century after
Wesley's death have developed into more than a quarter of a
hundred different sects, each with its own organisation, meet
ing-houses, and preachers. (It was however distinctly foretold
by Charles Wesley — see Life, ii. 121.)
The following list is taken from Whitaker's Almanack for
1887, being there transcribed from the list of places of public
worship certified to the Registrar-General on behalf of the sects

Appendix.

155

mentioned. I have placed the date of their separation
opposite some of the better known ones.
1. Wesleyans under Wesley's Deed of Settlement.
II. New Connexion under Kilham split off in . 1797.
in. Primitive Methodists  1810.
iv. Revivalists about the same time.
v. Brianites, now called Bible Christians, . . 181 5.
( Protestant Methodists, . . . 1828
VI. < Wesleyan Methodists' Association, 1834
(. Wesleyan Reform Association, 1849
These three coalesced under the
title of the 'United Free Methodist
Church/ or ' United Free Methodist
Churches 'in . . J 1857.
vn. Free Methodists, about 1871.
viii. Benevolent Methodists.
ix. German Wesleyans.
X. Independent Methodists.
xi. Inghamites, about . ... 1745.
XII. Methodist Army.
xiii. Methodist Reform Union.
xiv. Modern Methodists.
XV. New Methodists.
XVI. Primitive Methodists.
xvii. Reform Free Church Wesleyan Methodists.
xviii. Refuge Methodists.
xix. Temperance Methodists.
xx. Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.
xxi. Welsh Wesleyan Methodists.
xxn. Wesleyan Reformers.
xxiii. Wesleyan Reform Glory Band.
XXIV. Ranters.
xxv. Salvation Army.
xxvi. Free Salvation Army.
xxvn. Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.
xxvm. Reyival Band.
Neither the Irish nor the many American sects of Methodists
are included in this list. The Irish ' Primitive Methodists '

156 John Wesley.
were for a long while a very distinct and different body from
the Primitives of England. They were what their title implies
—Methodists after the ideal of the Wesleys, a society within
the Church, whose Preachers did not celebrate the Sacraments.
They continued so until after the late plundering of the Irish
Church, since when they, or most of them, have deserted her.
The 'Salvation Armies' are distinct offshoots of Methodism.
Not only do they hold, in the main, the same doctrines as
modern Methodists, but their founder was well known as a
revivalist preacher in Cornwall in Wesleyan and other
Methodist Preaching-houses about the year 1861, The play
ing at soldiers, however, had not then been invented.
' An influential Methodist,' writing to the Birmingham Daily
Post at the beginning of the present year, says that 'the
Salvation Army is — barring certain extravagances — essentially
Methodist.' It is a remarkable fact that of all the above eight-and-
twenty sects only seven were represented at, or took part in
the so-called 'CEcumenical Methodist Conference ' of 1881.
But indeed Wesley's Society seems from the first to have
carried in its bosom the elements of disruption. By the end
of 1741 Methodism had split into three companies — the
followers of the Wesleys, the Calvinists, and the 'United
Brethren ' or Moravians, who opposed the hysteria of the
other two, and whom Wesley, after two years' acquaintance,
declared to be ' the most dangerous Antinomians in England.'
Wesley's three first Lay-preachers were Joseph Humphreys,
John Cennick, and Thomas Maxfield. Humphreys described
himself as having been ' perfected in love.' But this perfect
love did not last long, for in 1741 he renounced all communion
with the Wesleys, and 'published an invective against them
in a newspaper,' and in company with Cennick got a treatise
of Wesley's from one of his followers, and burnt it. x
1 Wesley's Works, iv. 493 ; Charles Wesley's Journal, i. 267.

Appendix. 157
Maxfield, who had travelled with Charles Wesley, ' perhaps,'
says Tyerman, 'in the capacity of a servant,' began to preach in
London during Wesley's absence, and he hurried up to town
to stop him. But his mother bid him take care, for ' that
young man,' said she, ' is as surely called of God to preach as
you are.' Some years afterwards Wesley got him ordained by
the Bishop of Derry, as mentioned in the preface. But he
became tainted with Antinomianism, which, to use Fletcher's
words, ' had spread like wildfire through some of the Societies.'
In 1763 he seceded, to Wesley's intense mortification, and
after grossly calumniating his benefactor, set up an opposition
Preaching-house in the same neighbourhood, taking with him
two hundred of the London Society.
Wesley himself wrote in August 175 1 : 'I see plainly the
spirit of Ham, if not of Corah, has fully possessed several of
our Preachers ' (Whitehead, ii. 268).
Rev. B. Ingham, one of the Oxford Methodists who had
accompanied Wesley to Georgia, left him, and after consorting
some years with the Moravians, itinerated on his own account
in Yorkshire. Gambold, another ofthe Oxford Society, joined
the Moravians, and became one of their ' Bishops.' Indeed
nearly all the Oxford Methodists — and among them Hervey,
Clayton, Ingham, Broughton, and Whitelamb, all of them
clergymen — separated from the Wesleys. We learn from
Charles Wesley's Journal, that in 1756 constant disruptions
were taking place in Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire.
'At Leeds Mr. Edwards had assumed the character of an
Independent minister, as Charles Skelton had done in the
south, and drawn away the greater part of the Society with
him. Titus Knight afterwards followed the same course
at Halifax; and several of the Baptist and Independent
bodies were formed in those times in a great measure out of
the Methodist societies.' The Baptists are spoken of as
carrying away out of one society forty members, out of another
fifty. Four Methodist Preachers had set up for themselves as

158 John Wesley.
Independents, and at Manchester ' itching ears had reduced
the society to half its numbers.' x
Some of the Methodists about this time ran into the wildest
extravagances, 'bringing the societies,' to use Romaine's
words, 'into the wilderness of rant and madness.' One
Preacher — George Bell — prophesied that the world would be
brought to an end on the 28th February 1763, and drew away
many Methodists after him, who turned out — some to elevated
spots to witness the conflagration, others into the fields to
escape the destruction which was certainly to fall on London,
if not on the world at large.
John Bennet, for whose sake Grace Murray jilted Wesley,
left the Connexion and set up for himself, taking with him not
only the faithless Grace, but five-sixths of the society at Bolton,
and all its members at Stockport except one. Hall, Wesley's
brother-in-law, deserted him and founded ' a church ' of his
own, repudiating the doctrines and ridiculing the tenets of
the Wesleys, and teaching that there is no resurrection of the
body, nor general judgment day.
Edward Perronet, an itinerant Preacher, and one of Wesley's
most intimate friends, wrote an elaborate and scurrilous attack
on the Church, which, with the exception of a very few copies,
Wesley got suppressed. Perronet seceded from the Society
and settled in Canterbury, where he became an Independent
Preacher, and the editor of a newspaper, in which he carried
on his railing.
In 1755 a very serious agitation arose headed by Joseph
Cownley, Wesley's best Preacher, and Thomas Walsh, his best
scholar (fomented by the Perronets), on the question whether
it was lawful to separate from the Church, or for the Preachers
to administer the Sacraments. It raged hotly for some time,
but in the following year Wesley wrote : ' My brother and I
closed the conference with a solemn declaration of our purpose
never to separate from the Church, and all our brethren
1 Life of C. Wesley, ii. 105-121.

Appendix. 159
concurred therein.' In 1758, and again in 1760, Wesley
published his twelve Reasons against Separation.
In the year 1756 Charles Wesley wrote his brother : ' Is it
not our duty to stop J. C. (ay. Joseph Cownley) and such-like
from railing and laughing at the Church? Should we not,
now at least, shut the stable door ? The short remains of my
life are devoted to this very thing — to follow our sons (as C. P.
told me we should you) with buckets of water to quench the
flame of strife and division which they have or may kindle.' J
In April 1785, after his brother's ' Ordination ' of Dr. Coke,
Charles wrote Dr. Chandler: 'Some ofthe Lay-preachers very
early discovered an intention to separate, which induced my
brother to print his Reasons against Separation. As often as
it appeared we beat down the schismatical spirit. If any one
did leave the Church, at the same time he left our Society.
For nearly fifty years we kept the sheep in the fold.' 2
In the year 1779 — five years before Coke went out as
Bishop — a large portion of the Societies of the Southern States
of America ' revolted,' to use Dr. Abel Stevens's phrase, and
the Preachers, wholly unordained, laid hands upon each other,
thus setting up a precedent for Jabez Bunting's Ordinations of
1836. On the promulgation of the Deed of Declaration of 1784 —
' the Magna Charta of Methodism ' — nearly thirty of the
Preachers withdrew altogether from the Society. 3
Thus apt were Wesley's children in learning the lesson of
insubordination which he had set them.
CORNWALL AND METHODISM.
Wherever Methodism has been largely developed, as in
Cornwall, the mere results of this multiplication of sects (and
it is common to find three or four of them in a single parish)
is in itself disastrous. Numbers of the uneducated (educated

Journal, 21st October 1756. 2 Life, ii. 391. 3 Tyerman, iii. 423.

160 John Wesley.
only to believe that there can be no good in the Church)
being quite bewildered by the conflicting claims of rival
proselytisers, and, in their sober moments, despising the
fanatical and too frequently simulated professions of revival
ists, grow disgusted with all religious observances, and
become what the late Rev. E. G. Harvey, in his History of
Mullyon, aptly designated as ' Home Christians,' i.e. people
who, without renouncing the leading doctrines of Christianity,
never go to any place of worship, except to a funeral, or
perhaps on Christmas Day. At some period of their lives
they have undergone what in Methodistic language is called
' conversion ' — i.e. received a positive assurance that their
sins are pardoned ; and in that they rest more or less satisfied.
' But,' I have often been asked, ' what would Cornwall
have been now but for Methodism ? ' In order to show what
my grounds are for my answer to this question, I must lay
before my readers some facts as to the religious condition of
Cornwall before Methodism was planted in it.
But first I must deal with the calumnious charge brought
against Cornwall that its inhabitants — before Wesley's time —
were accustomed to murder shipwrecked mariners. I have
traced this slander up to an anonymous publication of that
most charming of all romance-writers, but most unscrupulous
of fabricators, the author of Robinson Crusoe. In his Tow-
through the whole Island of Great Britain, by a Gentleman,
published in 1724, he describes the inhabitants of the Scilly
Isles as ' a savage, fierce, and ravenous people like those of
the coast of Sussex, so greedy and eager for prey that they
are charged with strange, bloody, and cruel dealings, . . .
the rocks themselves being not more merciless to poor ship
wrecked seamen than the people who range about them for
prey.' Additions were made to this book subsequently by
another celebrated writer of fiction, Richardson, and it
obtained a large circulation, reaching by the year 1778 its
eighth edition. Now although the author professed to narrate

Appendix. 1 6 1
what he himself witnessed, it was conclusively proved by
Heath — the officer in command of the forces at Scilly, who in
1750 published his book, An Account of the Islands of Scilly
and a General Account of Cornwall — that De Foe had never
visited Scilly at all, and that his accounts of those islands, as
well as of other parts of England which he mentions, were
taken 'from the dictates of his own imagination.' It is
almost equally certain that De Foe never in his life set foot in
any part of. Cornwall.
Amongst other disproofs of De Foe's slander, Heath shows
how abhorrent such cruelty is to the genius of the people,
seeing that, even when we were at war with France, the
Scillonians, ' at the extreme hazard of their own lives,'
delivered a French crew from perishing among the western
rocks in a vessel which they had captured from the English,
and brought in there by mischance.
Late in life John Wesley fathered the slander, extending it
to the Cornish people generally; and in the year 181 2 Joseph
Benson copied Wesley's words into his Apology for Methodism.
But Polwhele, the Cornish historian, indignantly repudiated
it, and challenged Benson to produce one single instance of
such an atrocity. Benson was silent.
On the repetition of the slander a few years ago by some
public speaker, one of the Cornish members of Parliament
challenged the production of a single authenticated case.
Again the slanderer was silent.
The myth is reproduced from time to time by anonymous
or pseudonymous writers, and not unfrequently embellished
with a much cherished tale of a man who, to entice vessels on
to the rocks, used to drive his donkey at night along the cliffs
with a lantern around its neck and one fore-leg tied up, so
that the halting gait of the animal might cause the light to be
mistaken for that of a vessel tossing among the waves. Why a
man so disposed should employ the simulative donkey rather
than wave the lantern himself has never been thought to need
L

1 62 John Wesley.
explanation ; just as the feasibility of driving a donkey on three
legs along a Cornish cliff by night has never been demonstrated.
Like other myths, this one has its variations, and the last time
I met with it the donkey had disappeared, and it was ' Uncle
Mike's old white horse' that was the light-bearer; and in place
of decorating his neck, the light was pendent from his tail.
Whenever we hear of the Cornish people, we are struck
with their intense religiousness. Not to go further back than
the days of the Tudors, history records more than one rising
of theirs in defence of their religion. In the seventeenth
century we find them petitioning for a continuance of their
parish feasts, ' for the purpose,' they said, ' of commemorating
the dedication of churches, for civilising the people, for the
composing of differences by the interposition of friends, for
the increase of love and unity by these feasts of charity, and
for the relief and comfort of the poor.' J
Hall, Bishop of Exeter, writing shortly before the Restora
tion, describes the eagerness with which the inhabitants of this
Diocese flocked to receive the rites of the Church. ' It cannot
be spoken,' says he, ' With what fervour and violence of desire
that people were wont to sue for the sacred ceremony of Con
firmation. . . . How have we been oppressed with the throngs
of the multitude striving for first admission,' And their being
deprived of it by Bishop Coverdale he states to have been one
cause of their insurrection in the time of Edward vi.2
The bravery of their ancestors, which secured for them the
van as the post of honour in the day of battle, and which in the
sixteenth century caused them to be described as ' the stoutest
of all British nations,' was equally conspicuous in their
descendants at the time of the Great Rebellion. They twice
rescued the royal cause in the West, first in the campaign of
1643 by the victories of Stratton and Lansdown, and again in

1 Kitchen's and Drew's Cornwall, i. 725.
2 Bishop Hall's Works, x. 446.

Appendix. 163
1644, when — against heavy odds— they drove Essex across the
border; whilst the Bristol garrison under Colonel Fiennes
surrendered to the King's troops almost without a blow, from
mere terror of the Cornish ; and on their return homewards,
Devizes, although strongly fortified, yielded to them at the
first summons. But brave as they were, 'the Cornish,'
says Clarendon, ' were always more sparing than is usually
known in civil wars, shedding very little blood after resistance
was given over, and having a very noble and Christian sense
of the lives of their brethren; insomuch as the common
men, when they have been pressed by some fiercer officer to
follow the execution, have answered " they could not find in
their hearts to hurt men who had nothing in their hands."
. . . The Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer, he says, was
a most general object of veneration with the people ; and the
suspicion that the Parliamentarians intended to alter it was a
principal advancement of the King's service.' The Cornish
Royalist regiments (in marked distinction from all that we
know of those of other counties) engaged in solemn prayer
before going into battle, and in a service of thanksgiving —
singing the Te Deum — after victory.1
Fuller, the historian, writing about the same time, celebrates
' the chastity of Cornish wives.'
How twenty thousand Cornishmen, when the seven Bishops
were sent to the Tower by James 11., rose and marched to
Exeter, determined to know ' the reason why,' is well known,
as also is their eagerness in enrolling themselves to the number
of ten thousand to repel the French invasion threatened in
1690, when Admiral Tourville sacked and burnt Teignmouth.
Bishop Trelawny, who in 1707 was translated from Exeter
to Winchester, in his first charge to the clergy of the latter
diocese in 1708, 'trusted that he might find there a clergy of
as deserved honour and estimation as he left (in the diocese
1 Clarendon's History, iii. 429.

164 John Wesley.
of Exeter) for learning, piety, incessant pains, exemplary lives,
wholesome and instructive doctrine.'
Hurling, which had begun to decline in Cornwall before
Wesley's advent, is certainly a rougher game than croquet
or lawn tennis, and as Wesley strictly prohibited games of
all sorts, even among the children of his schools (who never
theless were notorious for turning out badly), he of course
looked upon it with no favour. It contrasts very favourably,
however, with the diversions of the London Nickers and
Hawcubites and Mohawks in the earlier part of the eighteenth
century. It was not to Cornishmen that the question was put
by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, pleading for considera
tion for the hapless offspring of vice : ' After all, who can be
sure that the state which he thus visits with contempt is not
his own ? — which of us can say that he is not spurious ? ' It was
a wholly different race of people that Addison satirised when
he put into the mouth of one of his correspondents in The
Tatler, " For my part, I was born in wedlock, and do not care
who knows it." And whilst Walpole, on being charged with
having ' bought the honour of half the nation,' replied, ' It was
a purchase easily made,' it should be remembered that the
man in the House of Commons, ' whose price he said he did
not know,' was a certain Cornish baronet.
De Foe, writing in the year 1724, says that whilst there were
then in Devonshire seventy Dissenters' meeting-houses, some
of them exceedingly large, he was assured that there were but
four in all Cornwall, three of them being insignificant in point
of size.1
Coming to Wesley's time, I find it recorded that in a certain
parish in West Cornwall the Rector estimated his average
morning congregation at 1000 souls. The population of the
parish has increased threefold since his day, and there are
three or four large Preaching-houses : — and yet, from my know
ledge of the place, I am led to doubt whether the church and
1 Tour through Great Britain, i. 355.

Appendix. 165
all the Preaching-houses together now contain 1 000 worshippers
on an ordinary Sunday morning. This does not look as if
Methodism had benefited that locality.
It is further recorded that this same Rector excommunicated
one of the chief men in his parish for getting drunk ; from
which it may be inferred that ecclesiastical discipline had not
then fallen altogether into abeyance in Cornwall, whatever
may have been the case elsewhere.
Public penances for incontinency, after formal presentation
and conviction in the Archdeacon's Court, were done in the
parish churches of Cardynham, Blisland, and Temple in the
year 1777. That public opinion should have- sanctioned its
punishment shows that the sin must have been much less
common then than it is now.
In the Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend Thomas Wills it
is recorded (p. 16) that about the year 1780 the Saints' days
were habitually kept as holidays by the Cornish miners, and
that on those days they attended church.
The Societies for devotional meetings, first established by
Drs. Homeck and Beveridge under episcopal sanction about
the year 1667, and subsequently advocated by Dr. Woodward,
were in operation in Cornwall, as elsewhere, long before the
Wesleys entered that county; and it was to attend one of
them, then numbering about 120 members, that Charles Wesley
paid his first visit to S. Ives in 1743. They were essentially
Church Societies, Dissenters not being admitted into them;
and twenty years afterwards, viz. 1763, John Wesley preached
his forty-fifth sermon before one of them.
When the brothers first visited Cornwall they were very
roughly treated, but that was because that right loyal people
had been fully persuaded they were Papists, and had come
thither to raise an army for the Pretender. Here is John
Wesley's own account in his Journal of the 4th July 1745.
He had been mobbed in the morning at Falmouth, and had
been rescued by the clergyman. Arriving at Wendron that

1 66 John Wesley.
evening, he found the people in great commotion, but fortu
nately the Rector of Redruth befriended him, and one of the
gentlemen said, ' Sir, I will tell you the ground of this : All the
gentlemen of these parts say that you have been a long time
in France and Spain, and are now sent hither by the Pretender,
and that these Societies are to join him.' And Charles
Wesley gives the same explanation of his having been mobbed
at S. Ives.
But a short time afterwards, when the objects of the
Methodists were better known, we find Wesley himself writ
ing from S. Ives, ' How strangely has one year changed the
scene in Cornwall ! This is now a peaceable, nay, honour
able station. They give us good words almost in every
place. What have we done that the world should be so civil
to us ? ' And again, ' Wherever we went we used to carry our
lives in our hands ; now there is not a dog to wag his tongue ;' ]
whilst Charles Wesley wrote to his wife from Cornwall in
1753, 'A dear friend of ours brought up an evil report of this
land. It flows with milk and honey. ... By and by I shall
allure you hither.' 2
And as regards the Clergy of Cornwall in those days, there
is ample testimony both from the Wesleys and from others
that they were as a rule most exemplary. Quite indepen
dently of the Wesleys — and indeed by means not at all in
accordance with theirs 3 — the Rev. Samuel Walker, curate of
Truro, produced an effect for good on the inhabitants of that
town more unmixed than Methodism ever produced anywhere.
1 Works, ii. 62 ; xii. 1 52. 2 Life by Jackson, ii. 22.
s ' It hath been our singular blessing, ' wrote Walker, giving an account
of his meetings, ' that we have had no disputes among us ; which under
God we ascribe to the nature of our constitution, which is that no one is
to be talking there but myself. That private persons should be speaking in
a large company, we had observed, from the Methodists, to be so great a
temptation to conceit (and the next step to that is always envy, strife in
the heart, and contention), that we dared not venture upon it ' (Life by
Sidney, p. 63).

Appendix. 167
Walker, who is said to have had 600 of his parishioners under
his especial direction, died in 1761; but he had been pre
viously singled out by John Wesley for especial commenda
tion from amongst all the Clergy of England ; and although
he was warmly opposed to the Wesleyan system of band and
class meetings, John Wesley unhesitatingly addresses him in
the year 1757 in these words : ' I am clearly satisfied that you
have far more faith, more love, and more of the mind which
was in Christ than I have.' l Such a clergyman would have
done honour to any age and any place.
Again, speaking of two young Cornish clergymen, Wesley
says : ' Surely God has a favour for the people of these parts !
He gives them so serious, zealous, lively ministers.' 2
He records having heard ' an excellent sermon in Sancreed
Church, and at Port Isaac Church.3
Of another Cornish clergyman, Mr Vowler, he wrote : ' He
both preached and lived the Gospel, and was an upright,
zealous, and indefatigable labourer in the Master's vineyard,'
and that 'he had heard him preach at S. Agnes such a
sermon as he had scarce heard these twenty years.' 4
More than once he applauds the excellent preaching of Mr.
Collins of Redruth,5 and says moreover that he was surprised
at the excellent behaviour of the people of that town. This
of course was before Methodism had taken root there ; as was
also the account which he gave of Cornish reverence : ' The
people generally kneel in Cornwall.' 6 ' A Wesleyan minister,'
in his book entitled Temporal Prosperity and Spiritual Decline,
complains that his co-religionists of the present day do not
generally kneel.
The Vicar of S. Gennys was for nearly forty years Wesley's
highly esteemed friend. Wesley also praises the ' excellent '
sermon of Mr. Walker of S. Agnes (elder brother of Mr.

1 Works, xiii. 173. 2 Id. iii. 15. 3 Id. iii. 15, 343.
4 Id. ii. 423 ; iii. 1 14. 5 Id. ii. 203-344. 6 Id. ii. 427.

1 68 John Wesley.
Walker of Truro), and characterises his curate, Mr. Phelps, as
being 'eminently humble, serious, and zealous for God.'1
At a later period he writes : ' At S. Ives, where God had
made all our enemies to be at peace with us, we had a useful
sermon at Church, and another in the afternoon delivered in
a strong earnest manner.' 2
The Rector of Falmouth was accounted a godly man, and
we read of Walker of Truro protesting against Wesley's going
there and stirring up strife and confusion.
Mr. Mitchell, Vicar of Veryan from 1743 to i773>is spoken
of in favourable terms by Jones, the editor of the mutilated
edition of Whitehead's Life of Wesley?
The Rev. Charles Peters, Vicar of S. Mabyn from 1726 to
!77S> was one of the first HeDrew scholars of his day, and
Bishop Lowth held him to have thoroughly confuted Bishop
Warburton, 'giving that prelate,' as Lowth expressed it, 'a
Cornish hug.' He was described as ' a friend to the poor, a
father of the fatherless, a Christian indeed in whom was no
guile,' and the portions of his diary published by Polwhele
attest his piety.4
Of Mr. Bedford, Vicar of Philleigh, it is recorded that he
was ' a truly godly man, attentive to all his parochial duties.'
Whitaker, the historian, Vicar of Ruan Lanihorne, showed
his conscientiousness by refusing a very valuable living offered
to him because the patron was a Unitarian. His dauntless
rebuke of profanity in exalted stations is on record as well as
his ' zeal as a Christian minister ; ' and ' in proportion as his
people became acquainted with his kind disposition, the
transitoriness of his resentments, and after injuries, his prompt
ness to forgive and anxious wish to be forgiven, they endea
voured to cultivate his friendship, and at length loved and
reverenced him as a father.5
1 Works, iii. 113. 2 Id. iii. 408. 3 Life of Wesley, ii. 506.
Polwhele's Reminis., i. 71 ; iii. 168. 5 Polwhele, iii. 25.

Appendix. 1 69
Dr. Stackhouse, Rector of S. Erme from 1732 to 1772, was
described as manifesting in his life ' the beauty of holiness.'
Polwhele, father of the historian, was described by the Rev.
T. Wills (a person of a different school) as ' a true disciple of
Christ.' No more zealous and devoted clergyman ever lived than
Mr. Wills, who was curate of S. Agnes from 1764 to 1778. So
well filled was his church, that ofttimes ' it was with difficulty
he could get to the reading-desk ; ' and he was as popular as
John Wesley himself, preaching on at least two occasions to
audiences of 10,000 in Gwennap Pit.
The following epitaph on Mr. Penrose, who was Vicar of
S. Gluvias from 1741 to 1776, was written by Mrs. Hannah
More : — ' If social manners — if the gentlest mind —
If zeal for God, and love for humankind —
If all the charities that life endear,
Can claim affection or demand a tear,
Then, Penrose, o'er thy venerable urn
Domestic love may weep and friendship mourn.
The path of duty still un tired he trod —
He walked with safety, for he walked with God.
When passed the power of precept and of prayer,
Yet still his flock remained the shepherd's care ;
Their wants still nobly watchful to supply,
He taught his last best lesson — how to die.'
I do not think that any part of England can produce such
a roll of clerical worthies as Cornwall possessed during the
early and middle part of the last century.
'It was not,' wrote the late Mr. Edward Ostler (author
of the life of Lord Exmouth, and for many years editor
of a Cornish county newspaper), 'that Methodism civilised
and converted a barbarous and heathen country, but that
it took the increase of an orderly and Christian population,
which in consequence of the improvements in mining intro-

170 John Wesley.
duced by the steam-engine, nearly doubled itself in the first
half of the nineteenth century. The most effectual mission
aries of Methodism in Cornwall were Boulton and Watt."
Speaking of the state of a very remote Cornish parish into
which Methodism, in the year 1782, had not penetrated,
Polwhele, the county historian, says that in church our parish
ioners 'stood up, or knelt, or sat down according to the Rubric.
But they had neither Bibles nor Prayer Books, for they could
not read. Yet several of the elderly people could repeat the
prayers and the psalms more accurately than many who "read
and write, and cypher too," repeat them at this moment.' x
Contrast this with the essential ignorance of the majority
of Methodists at the present day, as vouched for by one of
themselves, the editor of their leading newspaper : ' Though
startling, it would be quite safe to assert that not one-half of
the members of our Society could repeat with verbal accuracy
the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, or even the
Lord's Prayer.' 2
On the other hand, there are two localities in Cornwall
which Wesley claimed to have converted from having been
the roughest and most turbulent in the county to the quietest.
But although Methodism took deep root in these places, they
have not yet lost the character which they bore before his
advent ; and there was one parliamentary borough which he
singled out for especial animadversion, on account of the
bribery and corruption practised in it, which, strong as it is in
Methodism, was up to the day of its extinction anything but a
model of political purity.
Twice within the last five-and-twenty years has a certain
town in Cornwall been selected for holding the annual Wes
leyan Conference, as being the chief centre of Western Method
ism. And it is this very town that has recently acquired

1 Traditions and Recollections, p. 139.
2 Methodist Recorder, 16th May 1879.

Appendix. 1 7 1
such an unenviable notoriety for lawlessness, and the only
town in the county to which the military have been in recent
times thrice summoned to suppress or prevent riots.
The late Mr. Spender, who was for many years the editor
and proprietor of the leading west country newspaper, wrote
as follows in his book entitled Fjord, Isle, and Tor: 'The social
condition of the Cornish people offers some seemingly irrecon
cilable contradictions. There are few counties in England
where there is less crime, none in which there is less drunken
ness, and probably only one district in which there is so
much unchastity.' As regards their sobriety and freedom
from crime there is no question. But the other statement is
not, in these general terms, correct. Cornish wives are as
virtuous as Fuller described them in the seventeenth century.
M. Esquiros, in his Cornwall and its Coasts, writing of the Isles
of Scilly, says : ' Marriage here is nearly always a consequence
of maternity : it is not maternity which — as elsewhere — is the
fruit of marriage.' And this is but too true of the labouring
classes of Cornwall generally. But, as Mr. Spender truly
remarks, ' when we have said this, we have said the worst. . . .
Marriage does take place, and desertion after seduction is
rare.' Now there is much in modern Methodism to foster this
state of things. In ' revivals ' — so called — the wild excite
ment kept up in a heated atmosphere during late hours of the
night (it is a common remark that ' revivals ' occur only in the
dark winter months) by youths of both sexes so arouses the
passions as to lead to the worst consequences. Moreover, the
kind of unchastity described by Mr. Spender is defended
amongst the Methodists of Cornwall on scriptural grounds. It
is very commonly believed by them that 1 Cor. vii. 36 (the
true meaning of which is now happily placed beyond mistake
in the Revised Version) affords the fullest sanction for this
species of incontinence. Of course the Itinerant Preachers
are not chargeable with this perversion of Scripture, but it is

172 John Wesley.
not uncommon among the lower ranks of Local Preachers and
class leaders, and pretty general amongst the labouring
population.1 Nor have the 'band' and 'class' meetings exercised a
wholesome influence on the Cornish mind. In the former
(now little if at all used) each member was once a week
questioned in the presence of the others, ' with as many
and as searching questions as may be,' not only as to what
sins he had committed, but also as to any that he might
have been tempted to commit. In the class-meeting the
' leader ' is to question each member ' how he grows in
the knowledge and love of God,' and 'to advise, reprove,
comfort, and exhort, as occasion may require.' And the
members are expected to narrate severally their spiritual
experiences. The great Apostle, when he was once ' compelled,' in order
to vindicate his Divine mission, to cast aside for a moment
that reserve in speaking of his own inward life which
characterises the best Christians, even then calls himself ' a
fool ' in so doing. But it is the very glory of the modern
Methodist to know no reserve of this kind, but to expose to
the gaze of his neighbours his inmost thoughts, feelings,
temptations, and failings — that is, he is supposed to do so.
But in reality virtues are said to be more frequently con
fessed than failings, and self-conceit and spiritual egotism are
wofully fostered, as well as that moral obliquity which in the
County of Cornwall has been so severely commented on by
County Court judges, magistrates, and others, who have
bewailed ' the gulf and severance that exists between fervent
religionism and moral practice.'
A class consists of from 12 to 20 persons. And as the
Wesleyans alone claim upwards of 410,000 members in this

1 Methodism is much stronger in Wales than in Cornwall, and all
accounts agree in representing its moral condition as far worse.

Appendix. 1 73
kingdom, it follows that they consider that this single section
of the Methodists possesses from 20,000 to 30,000 'leaders'
qualified to act the part of spiritual directors as implied in
the above rule.
Many pages might be filled illustrative of their qualification
for this office, but I will only cite two instances in addition to
the specimen of Biblical exegesis above mentioned. I have
heard a so-called marriage between a man and his step
daughter defended by a Local Preacher on the ground that
' she was no relation to him : ' this same Local Preacher having
married his wife's niece.
In Told for a Memorial: The Story of Mary Ann (Nisbet,
1886), a lamentable account is given of a poor Cornish
woman, all of whose scruples about marrying her deceased
husband's own nephew were overcome by two different Method
ist class leaders, who assured her that 'there was nothing
unlawful in the marriage.'
In after life, when the connection had been broken off and
she had been enlightened as to its incestuous nature, she was
accustomed to say, ' It was a great sin. The Lord has for
given me, but I can't forgive myself.'
There can be no doubt in the mind of any one who has a
competent knowledge of Cornwall past and present, that as
regards all practical religion and morality the county was in a
far more healthy condition in the earlier half of the last
century than it is at the present time. Certain it is that what
is called ' the social evil ' was not known in the county until
after the commencement of the present century. Methodism
at any rate has not preserved us from that.
Early in Wesley's career the question had been put, ' Why
cannot these gentlemen (the Wesleys and their followers) leave
the Church? — then they could do no more harm.' 'Read
no more good,' replied Wesley in the year 1786, ' and it would
have been a truth. I believe if we had then left the Church,
we should not have done a tenth of the good which we have

174 John Wesley.
done.'1 This is in exact accordance with the conclusion that
I have arrived at. As long as Methodism remained what its
authors intended it to be, an auxiliary to the Church, the
good which it wrought largely preponderated over the evils
encouraged by some of its extravagances.
But when the Methodists set up for ' a Church,' and made
it their business to vilify not only the Clergy, but also the
doctrines of the Church ; and introduced, not merely separa
tion from Church, but also their own different sub-sects, with
their respective jealousies and animosities, into almost every
parish, to say nothing of the Calvinism and Antinomianism
which their teaching has fostered, then, to use John Wesley's
words before quoted, ' they frustrated the very end for which
God raised them up,' and the balance was turned the other
way. Nor do I think that any one who is acquainted with
Cornwall, the chief scene of Wesleyan triumphs, will say that
its morals and religion in those places most given up to
Methodism are such as to afford any ground for disputing
this conclusion.

E.
THE TITLE OF ' REVEREND' AND THE OUSTAN
FERRY CASE.
So far was Wesley from sanctioning the title of ' Reverend '
for his Preachers, that he would not allow them to call them
selves ' Ministers,' but only ' Methodist Preachers.' And this
rule seems to have been adhered to up to the year 1818,
when for the first time eight ' Reverends ' figure in the Minutes
of Conference, to be followed by three or four more in the
following year, Jabez Bunting being the prominent figure
1 Tyerman, iii. 477.

Appendix. 175
amongst them. In certain proceedings in Chancery in Dr.
Warren's case in the year 1835, the Large Minutes of 1797
were put in and made an exhibit, and received the sanction of
both Vice-Chancellor and Lord Chancellor as ' the Code of
Laws of the (Wesleyan) Methodists (see Peirce's Ecclesiastical
Principles of the Wesleyan Methodists, p. 786). Number
xxix. of these Minutes runs thus : ' Nor shall gowns and
bands be used among us, nor the title of " Reverend " be used at
all.' Twice previously since Wesley's death, viz. in 1793 and
1794, had Conference made a similar enactment. In spite of
all this, the Conference in the year 1875-76 went to law, and at
a cost, it is said, of between ^1000 and ^2000, appealed
from one Court to another, and at last to the Privy Council,
to compel the Vicar of Oustan Ferry to allow a Wesleyan
Preacher to place this forbidden title of 'Reverend' on a
tombstone in the churchyard of that parish. The case was
argued on behalf of the Conference with an ostentatious dis
play of erudition, but with no apparent knowledge of Wesley's
injunctions or the ' Methodist Code of Laws,' a strong point
being made of the allegation that three or four hundred years
ago the title was not always confined to the Clergy,1 nor even
to the male sex, but was sometimes bestowed upon women.
The Court — true to its well-earned reputation for fancy
judgments when assuming ecclesiastical functions, and in
defiance of the Father of Methodism and its code of laws,
and ofthe Vice-Chancellor and Lord Chancellor of 1835, and
the reiterated prohibition of previous Conferences, awarded
the Preacher the coveted title; but on the express ground
that ' he was not a person in Holy Orders!
In delivering the unanimous judgment of the Court, Lord
Chancellor Cairns, after laying it down that the word
'Reverend' was not a title of honour, but 'an adjective used
' Dogberry, we all know, addressed Leonato as ' a most thankful and
reverend youth. '

1 76 John Wesley.
as a laudatory epithet,' said : ' This inscription in substance
states that although the person placing it there thinks right to
prefix the word " Reverend," he does not claim to be a person
in Holy Orders. He claims to be nothing more than what
he states — to be a minister of the Wesleyan order.'
This decision seems to open out a large field to the ambi
tion of people whose great grievance is — as Dr. Rigg assures
us — 'lack of social position.' There are other titles which
were not always confined to those who now bear them, that
usually bestowed on Archdeacons being one. Several years
ago the Wesleyan Conference took to itself as a body the
'laudatory epithet' of venerable; and under this ruling of
Her Majesty's Privy Council there seems nothing now to
hinder any individual member thereof from so lauding himself,
seeing that Dryden in his Britannia Rediviva addresses the
new-born babe of James 11. : —
' See how the venerable infant lies
In early pomp ! '

F.

WESLEY'S ABRIDGED AND REVISED
PR A YER BOOK.
We have seen that when Wesley was in his eighty-second
year he laid hands on Coke, and sent him out to America as
'Superintendent' In September of the same year he put
forth an abridged Prayer Book under the title of The Sunday
Service of the Methodists in the United States of America.
The whole of this issue is said to have fallen into the hands
of ' Bishop ' Asbury, and he (like Pawson a few years after,
when he got hold of Wesley's mss.), not being satisfied with

Appendix. i 7 7
it, destroyed the entire edition with the exception of a few
copies which were accidentally mislaid. Not one in a hundred
of the American Methodists have ever seen the book, or even
heard of its existence, and only about five copies are now
known to exist in all that country.1
There lies before me an edition of this book without any name
of printer, publisher, or place (except London), but described
as being 'printed in the year 1788,' the words 'in the United
States of America ' being omitted : but inasmuch as it contains
the identical preface of the edition of 1784, it is presumably a
copy of that book except that it contains prayers for King
George and the Royal family. But in spite of this fact, it is
hard to believe that the book was intended for use in
England (he is said to have recommended it to the Scotch,
who, however, would have nothing to do with it), seeing that
it contains a marriage service differing from that of the
Church, the use of which would have subjected all parties
concerned to severe penalties, whilst, if celebrated by a
Preacher, the marriage would of course have been null and void.
In his preface to these editions, Wesley says : ' I believe
there is no liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern
language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational
piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.
. . . Little alteration is made in the following edition of it
except in the following instances : —
' 1. Most of the Holy days (so called) are omitted, as at
present answering no valuable end :
1 2. The service of the Lord's Day, the length of which has
been often complained of, is considerably shortened :
' 3. Some sentences in the offices of Baptism and for the
Burial of the Dead are omitted : and,

1 See A Methodist in search of the Church, by the Rev. S. Y.
M 'Masters, D.D. and LL.D., late President of S. Paul's College,
Palmyra. New York, Dutton. M

178 John Wesley.
' 4. Many Psalms left out, and many parts of the others, as
being highly improper for the mouths of a Christian
congregation.'
The alterations are not by any means so few and un
important as might be supposed from Wesley's preface.
The Venite, the Benedicite, the Benedictus, the Magnificat,
the Nunc Dimittis, the Athanasian and the Nicene Creeds, the
Catechism, the offices for Confirmation and Visitation of the
Sick, the Commination, and the Churching of Women, are
expunged bodily, and the Collect for the 24th Sunday after
Trinity supplies the place of the Absolution, and ' minister '
the place of priest. In the Baptism of Infants no sponsors
are provided for, (although he had previously written a very
good tract in defence of them,) and the prayer for the sanctifi-
cation of the water, the thanksgiving for the regeneration, and
all mention of the Apostles' Creed, are suppressed. In the
Marriage service the ring disappears, in that for the Burial of
the Dead there is no expression of hope, nor any directions
for the interment of the body.
In this book Wesley reduces the Thirty-nine Articles to
twenty-five, and amongst many other omissions strikes out
altogether Art. III., which speaks of Christ's descent into Hell;
Art. VIII., which speaks of the three Creeds ; the portion of
No. IX. which says that the infection of nature remains in
the regenerate ; the whole of Art. XV., which says that Christ
alone was without sin ; XVII., on Predestination ; XVIII., that
salvation is to be obtained only by the name of Christ ; XX.,
that the Church has power to decree ceremonies ; and, very
significantly, Art. XXIIL, which states that a lawful call and
mission is necessary for public preaching and ministering the
Sacraments; Art. XXVI., of the unworthiness of ministers ; and
the portion of Art. XXVII. which states that those who re
ceive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church, and the pro
mises of forgiveness and adoption are visibly signed and sealed.
The residuum presents a strange mingle-mangle of doctrine.

Appendix. 1 79
But more extraordinary still is his treatment of the Psalms.
He terms them in this book 'Select Psalms,' and accordingly
omits thirty-four altogether, besides mutilating upwards of
sixty others. That he should have struck out what are
vulgarly termed the 'imprecatory Psalms' as 'unfit for a
Christian congregation' need not much surprise us, for
although S. Augustine had explained their use more than
thirteen centuries previously, they were and are much
misunderstood ; but that he should have expunged the 88th,
one of the Passion Psalms, the 13 2d, which foretells the
lineage and reign of Christ the son of David according to the
flesh, the 14th and 53d, which show the folly of Atheism and
its connection with a corrupt life, and above all the eminently
Messianic Psalm, the noth, which is quoted or referred to
some eight or nine times in the New Testament, and once by
our Lord Himself, exhibits a lack of judgment only to be
accounted for by mental decay. But in addition to this, a
great many of the Psalms retained are mutilated in the oddest
manner. One of his rectifications of the sacred writers is to
strike out nearly every reference to instrumental music from
one end of the Psalter to the other, e.g. the 150th Psalm is
pared down to three verses — the two first and the last. It is
recorded of the Rev. T. Charles of Bala — the chief founder
of the Bible Society — that he hoped ' to moralise the people of
Wales ' by extruding from the principality all its harps, ' those
ensnaring hindrances.' But what good effect on the morals of
his American followers Wesley expected to accomplish by
docking the Psalmist not only of his harp, but also of every
single timbrel, cymbal, lute, pipe, and shawm, must be left to
conjecture. It was a later author who wrote —
' Hence, soul-dissolving Harmony,
That lead'st the oblivious soul astray ! '

180 John Wesley.
G.
DR. COKE AND HIS MISSION.
Mr. Tyerman, in his Life of Wesley (iii. 433), says that ' Dr.
Coke was dangerously ambitious, and that the height of his
ambition was to be a Bishop : ' and this his letters sufficiently
attest. He considers that ' Wesley had no idea of ordaining
any one himself, but that he had intended Coke — who as a
presbyter of the same Church had co-equal power — to go out
to America for that purpose.' But that ' at Coke's request he
acquiesced ' in the Ordination scheme. Nor can it be doubted
that it was with this view that for a year or two before he
persuaded Wesley to lay hands on him, Coke had — as he con
fesses in his letter to Bishop Seabury — ' promoted a separa
tion from the Church as far as his influence reached.'
In March 1783, eighteen months before Coke's consecration,
the Clergy of Connecticut assembled and elected Dr. Seabury
to be their Bishop, and in the following July he arrived in
London with a view to his receiving consecration at the
hands of English Bishops. Some difficulties however arose,
and he was consecrated by the Scotch Bishops on the 14th
November 1784, within three months of Coke's mission. It is
hardly possible that Coke was ignorant of Seabury's election,
or of his subsequent presence in England ; and anxiety to be
first in the field with the title (however obtained) of ' Bishop '
would account for the haste and secrecy with which he induced
Wesley to act. Charles Wesley, in a letter to Dr. Chandler,
thus expresses himself on the subject: 'What will become of
those poor sheep in the wilderness — the American Methodists?
How have they been betrayed into separation from the Church
of England, which their Preachers and they no more intended
than the Methodists here ! Had they had patience a little
longer, they would have seen a real Bishop in America conse
crated by three Scotch Bishops who have their consecration

Appendix. 1 8 1
from the English Bishops, and are acknowledged by them as
the same with themselves. There is therefore not the least
difference between the members of Bishop Seabury's Church
and the members of the Church of England. He told me
that he looked upon the Methodists in America as sound
members of the Church, and was ready to ordain any of
their Preachers whom he should find duly qualified. His
Ordination would be indeed genuine, valid, and Episcopal.
But what are your poor Methodists now ? Only a new sect of
Presbyterians! x
It may throw some additional light on Coke's character if
before transcribing his letters some mention is made of his
literary productions. The unhappy Dr. Dodd — author of the
well-known Prison Thoughts — was the author or compiler of a
commentary on the Scriptures published in 1770 in three
volumes folio — a book which when issued was held in good
estimation. Dr. Dodd was executed in 1777. In 1800 the
Wesleyan Conference requested Dr. Coke to prepare a com
mentary for the use of the Preachers ; and accordingly in
1801-3 the expected book appeared in six volumes 4to, entitled
A Commentary on the Holy Bible, by Thomas Coke, LL.D.,
of the University of Oxford, embellished with a full-length
portrait of the writer. ' There is not,' says a writer in The
Guardian of 1879, p. 1094, 'a line on the title-page of any of
the volumes, or in any other part of the work, which even
remotely suggests any other authorship than that of Dr. Coke.
Yet the commentary of poor Dr. Dodd, particularly in the
Old Testament part, is there with scarcely an alteration. In
the New Testament portion of the commentary Coke added
what are called " Reflections," which are appended to many of
the Chapters — wordy matter of his own of scarcely any value.'
To another person — Samuel Drew, the Cornish 'meta
physician among Methodists, and Methodist among meta-
1 Jackson's Life of Charles Wesley, ii. 392.

1 82 John Wesley.
physicians' (as Polwhele termed him) — Dr. Coke was, as
Etheridge informs us in his Life of Coke, ' under very material
obligations.' The biographer fails entirely in his effort to
place Coke's conduct in a tolerable light. Indeed he shows
that Coke for years availed himself of Drew's services without
even mentioning his name in his publications ; and when
brought to book in 1811, promised in future 'to incorporate
the author's name with his own ; but in the title-pages of the
books which had already appeared this could not be done.'
After Coke's death in 1814, Drew generously said that 'the
world was not interested in knowing to what extent he had as
sisted the Doctor, and that he being the sole depositary of the
secret, it was his full intention that it should perish with him.'
On the 9th August 1784, Coke wrote Wesley: 'The more
maturely I consider the subject, the more expedient it appears
to me that the power of ordaining others should be received
by me from you by the imposition of your hands, and that
you should lay hands on brother Whatcoat and brother Vasey
for the following reasons : ist, it seems to me the most Scrip
tural way, and most agreeable to the practice of the Primitive
Churches : 2nd, I may want all the influence in America
which you can throw into my scale.' He goes on to say that
Asbury, then in America, had written ' that he would not re
ceive any person deputed by Wesley with any part of the super-
intendency of the work invested in him :' that an authority
formally given by Wesley would be fully admitted by the
people, but that without that formal authority his exercising the
office of Ordination might be disputed and perhaps opposed.
' I could therefore earnestly wish you would exercise that
power in this instance which I have not the shadow of a
doubt but God hath invested you with for the good of the
Connexion. ... It appears to me that everything should be
prepared and everything proper be done that can possibly be
done this side the water. You can do all this in Mr. C  n's
house in your chamber, and afterwards (according to Mr.

Appendix. 183
Fletcher's advice) give us letters testimonial of the different
offices with which you have been pleased to invest us. For
the purpose of laying hands on brothers Whatcoat and Vasey
I can bring Mr. Creighton down with me, by which you will
have two Presbyters with you.
'In respect to brother Rankin's argument that you will
escape a great deal of odium by omitting this, it is nothing.
Either it will be known, or not known. If not known, then
no odium will arise : but if known, you will be obliged to
acknowledge that I acted under your direction, or suffer me to
sink under the weight of my enemies, with perhaps your brother
at the head of them. I shall entreat you to ponder these
things.' 1
DR. COKE TO BISHOP WHITE.
Copy of a Letter written by Dr. Coke to Bishop White,
addressed ' The Right Reverend Father in God, Bishop
White, Philadelphia.'
Right Reverend Sir, — Permit me to intrude a little on
your time upon a subject of great importance. You, I believe,
are conscious that I was brought up in the Church of England,
and have been ordained a Presbyter of that Church. For
many years I was prejudiced even, I think, to bigotry in favour
of it : but through a variety of causes or incidents, to mention
which would be tedious and useless, my mind was exceedingly
biassed on the other side of the question. In consequence of
this, I am not sure but I went farther in the separation of our
Church in America than Mr. Wesley, from whom I had
received my commission, did intend. He did indeed solemnly
invest me, as far as he had a right so to do, with Episcopal
authority, but did not intend, I think, that an entire separa
tion should take place. He being pressed by our friends on
1 Whitehead, ii. 415. Tyerman justly stigmatises Coke's lack of
chivalry as shown in the latter part of this letter.

184 John Wesley.
this side of the water for Ministers to administer the Sacra
ments to them (there being very few clergy of the Church of
England then in the States), he went farther, I am sure, than
he would have gone, if he had foreseen some events which
followed. And this I am certain of, — that he is now sorry for
the separation.
But what can be done for a re-union, which I much wish for ;
and to accomplish which Mr. Wesley, I have no doubt, would
use his influence to the utmost ? The affection of a very con
siderable number of the Preachers and most of the people is
very strong towards him, notwithstanding the excessive ill-
usage he received from a few. My interest also is not small ;
and both his and mine would readily and to, the utmost be
used to accomplish that (to us) very desirable object, if a
readiness were shown by the Bishops of the Protestant
Episcopal Church to re-unite.
It is even to your Church an object of great importance. We
have now above 60,000 adults in our Society in these States,
and about 250 travelling Ministers and Preachers, besides a
great number of Local Preachers, very far exceeding the number
of Travelling Preachers ; and some of these Local Preachers
are men of very considerable abilities. But if we number the
Methodists as most people number the members of their Church,
viz. by the families which constantly attend the Divine Ordi
nances in their places of worship, they will make a larger body
than you probably conceive. The Society, I believe, may be
safely multiplied by five on an average to give us our stated con
gregations ; which will then amount to 300,000. And if the
calculation which, I think, some eminent writers have made, be
just, that three-fifths of mankind are un-adult (if I may use the
expression) at any given period, it will follow that all the families,
the adults of which form our congregations in these States,
amount to 750,000. About one-fifth of these are Blacks.
The work now extends in length from Boston to the south
of Georgia; and in breadth from the Atlantic to Lake

Appendix. 185
Champlain, Vermont, Albany, Redstone, Holstein, Kentucky,
Cumberland, etc. But there are many hindrances in the way.
Can they be removed ?
1. Our Ordained Ministers will not, ought not, to give up
their right of administering the Sacraments. I don't think
that the generality of them, perhaps none of them, would
refuse to submit to a reordination, if other hindrances were
removed out of the way. I must here observe that between
60 and 70 only out of the two hundred and fifty have been
ordained Presbyters, and about 60 Deacons (only). The
Presbyters are the choicest of the whole.
2. The other Preachers would hardly submit to a re-union,
if the possibility of their rising up to Ordination depended on
the present Bishops in America. Because though they are
all, I think I may say, zealous, pious, and. very useful men,
yet they are not acquainted with the learned languages.
Besides, they would argue, if the present Bishops would
waive the Article of the Learned Languages, yet their suc
cessors might not.
My desire of a re-union is so sincere and earnest that these
difficulties almost make me tremble : and yet something must
be done before the death of Mr. Wesley, otherwise I shall
despair of success : for though my influence among the
Methodists in these States as well as in Europe is, I doubt
not, increasing, yet Mr. Asbury, whose influence is very
capital, will not easily comply : nay, I know he will be exceed
ingly averse to it.
In Europe, where some steps had been taken, tending to a
separation, all is at an end. Mr. Wesley is a determined
enemy of it, and I have lately borne an open and successful
testimony against it.
Shall I be favoured with a private interview with you in
Philadelphia ? I shall be there, God willing, on Tuesday the
1 7th of May. If this be agreeable, I '11 beg of you just to
signify it in a note directed to me at Mr. Jacob Baker's,

1 86 John Wesley.
Merchant, Market Street, Philadelphia, or, if you please, by
a few lines sent me by the return of the post at Philip
Rogers's, Esq., in Baltimore, from yourself or Dr. Magaw : and
I will wait upon you with my friend Dr. Magaw. We can
then enlarge on these subjects.
I am conscious of it, that secrecy is of great importance in
the present state of the business, till the minds of you, your
brother-Bishops, and Mr. Wesley, be circumstantially known.
I must therefore beg that these things be confined to your
self and Dr. Magaw, till I have the honour of seeing you.
Thus, you see, I have made a bold venture on your honour
and candour, and have opened my whole heart to you on the
subject as far as the extent of a small letter will allow me.
If you put equal confidence in me, you will find me candid
and faithful.
I have, notwithstanding, been guilty of inadvertencies. Very
lately I found myself obliged (for the pacifying of my con
science) to write a penitential letter to the Rev. Mr. Jarratt,
which gave him great satisfaction : and for the same reason I
must write another to the Rev. Mr. Pettigrew. When I was
last in America I prepared and corrected a great variety of
things for our Magazines, indeed almost everything that was
printed, except some loose hints which I had taken of one of
my journeys, and which I left in my hurry with Mr. Asbury,
without any correction, entreating that no part of them might
be printed which would be improper or offensive. But
through great inadvertency (I suppose) he suffered some
reflections on the characters of the two above-mentioned
gentlemen to be inserted in the Magazine, for which I am
very sorry : and probably shall not rest till I have made my
acknowledgment more public ; though Mr. Jarratt does not
desire it.
I am not sure whether I have not also offended you, sir, by
accepting of one of the offers made me by you and Dr. Magaw
of the use of your Churches about six years ago on my first
visit to Philadelphia, without informing you of our Plan of

Appendix. 1 8 7
Separation from the Church of England. If I did offend (as
I doubt I did, especially from what you said on the subject to
Mr. Richard Dallam of Abingdon), I sincerely beg yours and
Dr. Magaw's pardon. I '11 endeavour to amend. But, alas !
I am a frail, weak creature.
I will intrude no longer at present. One thing only I will
claim from your candour — that if you have no thoughts of
improving this proposal, you will burn this letter, and take no
more notice of it (for it would be a pity to have us entirely
alienated from each other), if we cannot unite in the manner
my ardent wishes desire. But if you will further negotiate
the business, I will explain my mind still more fully to you on
the probabilities of success.
In the meantime permit me, with great respect, to subscribe
myself, Right Rev. Sir, your very humble servant in Christ,
Thomas Coke.
Richmond, April 24th, 1791.
The Right Rev.
Father in God, Bishop White.
You must excuse interlineations, etc., as I am just going
into the country, and have no time to transcribe.
(This and" the following letter to Bishop Seabury are from
copies printed in facsimile by the Historical Club of the
American Church. It will also be found in Bishop White's
History of the Church in America, p. 408. I am not aware
that they have been before published in this country.)
DR. COKE TO BISHOP SEABURY.
Right Reverend Sir, — From your well-known character I
am going to open my mind to you on a subject of very great
moment. Being educated a Member of the Church of England from
my earliest infancy, being ordained of that Church, and having
taken two degrees in Arts and two degrees in Civil Law in the
University of Oxford, which is entirely under the patronage of

1 88 John Wesley.
the Church of England, I was almost a bigot in its favour
when I first joined that great and good man Mr. John Wesley,
which is fourteen years ago. For five or six years after my
union with Mr. Wesley I remained fixed in my attachments
to the Church of England : but afterwards, for many reasons
which it would be tedious and useless to mention, I changed
my sentiments, and promoted a separation from it as far as
my influence reached. Within these two years I am come
back again : my love for the Church of England has returned.
I think I am attached to it on a ground much more rational,
and consequently much less likely to be shaken, than formerly.
I have many a time ran into error; but to be ashamed of
confessing my error when convinced of it has never been one
of my defects. Therefore when I was fully convinced of my
error in the steps I took to bring about a separation from the
Church of England in Europe, I delivered before a congre
gation of about 3000 people in our largest chapel in Dublin,
on a Sunday evening after preaching, an exhortation which in
fact amounted to a recantation of my error. Sometime after
wards, I repeated the same in our largest chapels in London,
and in several other parts of England and Ireland: and I
have reason to believe that my proceedings in this respect
have given a deathblow to all the hopes of a separation
which may exist in the minds of any in those kingdoms.
On the same principles I most cordially wish for a re-union
of the Protestant Episcopal and the Methodist Churches in
these States. The object is of vast magnitude. Our work
now reaches to Boston, northward; to Wilkes County in
Georgia, southward ; and to Albany, Vermont, Lake Cham
plain, Redstone, and Kentucky, westward — a length of about
13 or 1406 miles, and a breadth of between 500 and 1000.
Our Society in the States amounts to upwards of 60,000.
These, I am persuaded, may with safety be multiplied by
five to give us our regular Sunday's congregations, which will
make 300,000. If the calculations of some great writers be

Appendix. 189
just, three-fifths of any given country consist of un-adults.
So that the families, the adults of which regularly attend
Divine Service among us, amount, according to this mode of
calculation, to 7 50,000. About a fifth part of these are Blacks.
How great then would be the strength of our Church (will
you give me leave to call it so? I mean, the Protestant
Episcopal) if the two Sticks were made one !
But how can this be done ? The magnitude of the object
would justify considerable sacrifices. A solemn engagement to
useyour Prayer Book in all our places of worship on the Lord's
Day would of course be a sine aud non, a concession we
should be obliged to make on our parts (if it may be called
a concession) ; and there would be, I doubt not, other conces
sions to be made by us. But what concessions would it be
necessary for you to make ? For the opening of this subject
with all possible candour, it will be necessary to take a view
of the present state of the Ministry in the Methodist Church
in these States.
We have about 250 Travelling Preachers; and a vastly
greater number of Local Preachers, I mean, Preachers who
live on their plantations or are occupied in the exercise of
trades or professions, and confined to a small sphere of action
in respect to their ministerial labours. About seventy of our
Travelling Preachers are Elders (as we call them) or
Presbyters. These are the most eminent and most approved
of the whole Body: and a very excellent set of Clergy I
really believe they are. We have about the same number of
Deacons among the Travelling Preachers, who exercise the
office of Deacon according to the Plan of the Church of Eng
land. These Ministers, both Presbyters and Deacons, must
be elected by a majority of the Conference, before they can be
ordained. A Superintendent only ordains the Deacons ; and a
Superintendent must make one of the Presbytery for the
Ordination of a Priest or Elder : and the Superintendents are
invested with a negative voice in respect to the Ordination of

190 John Wesley.
any person that has been elected for the office either of
Elder or Deacon. Among the Local Preachers there is no
higher office than that of a Deacon. The Local Preacher
does not pass through an election for this office : but if he
bring a testimonial signed by three elders (one of whom
must be, what we call, a Presiding Elder, one who has the
government of a district, i.e. several circuits joined together),
three Deacons, three unordained Preachers, and the majority
of the class of which he is a member (or the Stewards and
Leaders of the whole Society of which he is a Member), a
Superintendent may then, if he please, ordain him : and a
great many of the oldest and wisest of the Local Preachers
have been ordained Deacons on this plan.
Now, on a re- union's taking place, our Ministers, both
Elders and Deacons, would expect to have, and ought to
have, the same authority they have at present, of admin
istering the Ordinances according to the respective powers
already 'invested in them. For this purpos'e I well know they
must submit to a re-ordination, which I believe might be
easily brought about, if every other hindrance was removed
out of the way. But -the grand objection would arise from
the want of confidence which the Deacons and unordained
Preachers would experience. The present Bishops might
give them such assurances as would perhaps remove all their
fears concerning them. But they could give no security for
their successors, or for any new Bishops who may be conse
crated for the Episcopal Church in those States which have
not at present an Episcopal Minister. The requisition of
Learning for the ministry (I mean the knowledge of the New
Testament in the original, and of the Latin tongue) would
be an insuperable objection on this ground, as the present
Bishops, and the present Members of the General Convention,
can give no sufficient security for their successors. And the
Preachers could never, I believe, be induced to give up the
full confidence they have in their present Superintendents,

Appendix. 191
that they shall in due time rise to the higher offices of the
Church according to their respective merits, for any change of
situation in which the confidence they should then possess
would not be equivalent.
But what can be done to gain this confidence on the plan
of a re-union ofthe two Churches ? I will answer this important
question with all simplicity, plainness, and boldness : and the
more so, because, ist, I am addressing myself, I have no
doubt, to a person of perfect candour : 2dly, I have a re-union
so much at heart, that I would omit nothing that may,
according to the best of my judgment, throw light on the
subject ; and, 3dly, because I think I am not in danger from
your charitable spirit, to be suspected in the present instance
of pressing after worldly honour : as it is probable I shall be
elected President of the European Methodists, and shall not,
I believe, receive greater marks of respect from the Metho
dists in these States, supposing I ever be a Bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, than they are at present so
kind as to show me.
Mr. Asbury, our Resident Superintendent, is a great and
good man. He possesses, and justly, the esteem of most of
the Preachers and most of the people. Now, if the General
Convention of the Clergy consented that he should be
consecrated a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church on
the supposition of a re-union, a very capital hindrance would
be removed out of the way.
Again, I love the Methodists in America, and could not
think of leaving them entirely, whatever might happen to me
in Europe. The Preachers and people also love me. Many
of them have a peculiar regard for me. But I could not with
propriety visit the American Methodists, possessing in our
Church on this side of the water an office inferior to that of
Mr. Asbury.
But if the two" Houses of the Convention of the Clergy
would consent to the consecration of Mr. Asbury and me as

192 John Wesley.
Bishops of the Methodist Society in the Protestant Episcopal
Church in these United States (or by any other title, if that be
not proper), on the supposition of the re-union of the two
Churches under proper mutual stipulations ; and engage that
the Methodist Society shall have a regular supply on the
death of their Bishops, and so, ad perpetuum, the grand
difficulty in respect to the Preachers would be removed ; they
would have the same men to confide in whom they have at
present, and all other mutual stipulations would soon be settled;
I said in respect to the Preachers, for I do not fully know Mr.
Asbury's mind on the subject. I have my fears in respect to
his sentiments : and if he do not accede to the Union, it will
not take place so completely as I could wish. I wish you
could see my sinful heart, but that is impossible.
I think I need not observe that if things were brought to a
happy issue, we should still expect to enjoy all our rights as a
Society in the most exclusive sense, as we do now in Europe :
I mean the receiving or rejecting members in or from our
Classes, Bands, Love-feasts, etc.
I have had the honour of three interviews with Bishop
White on this subject, and some correspondence. In the
present state of things I must entreat the favour of you to lay
this business only before your confidential friends. And if you
honour me with a letter by the June Packet, directed to the Rev.
Dr. Coke, at the New Chapel, City Road, London, I will write
to you again immediately after the English Conference, which
will commence in Manchester the last Tuesday in next July.
The importance of the subject on which I have now written
to you will, I think, prevent the necessity of an apology for
the liberty I have taken in writing to you.
Permit me to subscribe myself, with great respect, Right
Rev. Sir, your very humble and obedient servant,
Thomas Coke.
Philadelphia, May 14, 1791.
The Right Reverend
Father in God, Bishop Seabury.

Appendix. 193

DR. COKE TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.
At Samuel Hague's, Esq.,
Leeds, April 14, 1813.
Dear and Highly Respected Sir, — A subject which
appears to me of great moment lies much upon my mind ;
and yet it is a subject of such a delicate nature, that I cannot
venture to open my mind upon it to any one, of whose can
dour, piety, delicacy, and honour I have not the highest
opinion. Such a character I do indubitably esteem you, sir ;
and as such, I will run the risk of opening my whole heart to
you upon the point.
For at least twelve years, sir, the interests of our Indian
Empire have lain very near my heart. In several instances I
have made attempts to open a way for missions in that
country, and even for my going over there myself. But every
thing proved abortive.
The prominent desire of my soul, even from my infancy
(I may almost say), has been to be useful. Even when I was
a Deist for part of my time at Oxford (what a miracle of
grace !) usefulness was my most darling object. The Lord
has been pleased to fix me for about thirty-seven years on
a point of great usefulness. My influence in the large Wes
leyan connection, the introduction and superintendence of
our missions in different parts of the globe, and the wide
sphere opened to me for the preaching of the Gospel
to almost innumerable large and attentive congregations,
have opened to me a very extensive field for usefulness.
And yet I could give up all for India. Could I but close
my life in being the means of raising a spiritual Church
in India, it would satisfy the utmost ambition of my soul
here below.
I am not so much wanted in our Connexion at home as I
N

194 John Wesley.
once was. Our Committee of Privileges, as we term it, can
watch over the interests of the body, in respect to laws and
government, as well in my absence as if I was with them.
Our Missionary Committee in London can do the same in
respect to missions ; and my absence would only make them
feel their duty more incumbent upon them. Auxiliary Com
mittees through the nation (which we have now in contempla
tion) will amply supply my place in respect to raising money.
There is nothing to influence me much against going to
India but my extensive sphere for preaching the Gospel
But this, I do assure you, sir, sinks considerably in my cal
culation, in comparison of the high honour (if the Lord was
to confer it upon me in His providence and grace) of begin
ning or reviving a genuine work of religion in the immense
regions of Asia.
Impressed with these views, I wrote a letter about a fort
night ago to the Earl of Liverpool. I have either mislaid the
copy of it, or destroyed it at the time, for fear of its faffing
into improper hands. After an introduction, drawn up in the
most delicate manner in my power, I took notice of the
observations made by Lord Castlereagh in the House of
Commons concerning a religious establishment in India con
nected with the Established Church at home. I then simply
opened my situation in the Wesleyan Connexion, as I have
stated it to you, sir, above. I enlarged on the earnest desire
I had of closing my life in India, observing that if His Royal
Highness the Prince Regent and the Government should think
proper to appoint me their Bishop in India, I should most
cheerfully and most gratefully accept of the offer. I am
sorry I have lost the copy of the letter. In my letter to Lord
Liverpool I observed that I should, in case of my appoint
ment to the Episcopacy of India, return most fully and faith
fully into the bosom of the Established Church, and do every-
thing'in my power to promote its interests, and would submit
to all such restrictions in the fulfilment of my office as the

Appendix. 195
Government and the bench of Bishops at home should think
necessary; that my prime motive was to be useful to the
Europeans in India; and that my second (though not the
least) was to introduce the Christian religion among the
Hindoos by the preaching of the Gospel, and perhaps, also, by
the establishment of schools.
I have not, sir, received an answer. Did I think that the
answer was withheld because Lord Liverpool considered me
as acting very improperly by making the request, I should take
no further step in the business. This may be the case ; but his
Lordship's silence may arise from other motives : on the one
hand, because he did not choose to send me an absolute refusal;
and, on the other hand, because he did not see it proper, at
least just now, to give me any encouragement. When I was
in some doubt this morning whether I ought to take the
liberty of writing to you, my mind became determined, on my
being informed about three hours ago, that in a letter received
from you by Mr. Hay, you observed that the generality of the
House of Commons were set against granting anything of an
imperative kind to the Dissenters or Methodists in favour of
sending Missionaries to India. Probably I may err in respect
to the exact words which you used.
I am not conscious, my dear respected sir, that the least
degree of ambition influences me in this business. I possess
a fortune of about ^1200 a year,1 which is sufficient to bear
my travelling expenses, and to enable me to make many
charitable donations. I have lost two dear wives, and am now
a widower. Our leading friends through the Connexion
receive me and treat me with the utmost respect and hos
pitality. I am quite surrounded with friends who greatly
love me;, but India still cleaves to my heart. I sincerely
believe that my strong inclination to spend the remainder
of my life in India originates in the Divine Will, whilst
1 His first wife brought him upwards of ,£20,000.

196 John Wesley.
I am called upon to use the secondary means to obtain the
end. I have formed an intimate acquaintance with Dr. Buchanan,
and have written to him to inform him that I shall make him
a visit within a few days, if it be convenient. From his house
I intend, Deo volente, to return to Leeds for a day, and then
to set off next week for London. The latter end of last
November I visited him before, at Moat Hall, his place of
residence, and a most pleasant visit it was to me, and also to
him, I have reason to think. He has been, since I saw him,
drinking of the same bitter cup of which I have been drink
ing, by the loss of a beloved wife.
I would just observe, sir, that a hot climate peculiarly
agrees with me. I was never better in my life than in the
West Indies, during the four visits I made to that archipelago,
and should now prefer the torrid zone, as a climate, to any
other part of the world. Indeed, I enjoy in this country,
though sixty-five years of age, such an uninterrupted flow of
health and strength as astonishes all my acquaintance. They
commonly observe that they have perceived no difference in
me for these last twenty years.
I would observe, sir, as I did at the commencement of my
letter, that I throw myself on your candour, piety, and
honour. If I do not succeed in my views of India, and it
were known among the Preachers that I had been taking the
steps I am now taking (though from a persuasion that I am
in the Divine Will in so doing), it might more or less affect
my usefulness in the vineyard of my Lord, and that would
very much afflict me. And yet, notwithstanding this, I can
not satisfy myself without making some advances in the
business. I consider, sir, your brother-in-law, Mr. Stephen, to be a
man of eminent worth. I have a very high esteem for him.
I know that his yea is yea, and what he promises he certainly
will perform. Without some promise of confidence he might

Appendix. 197
(if he were acquainted with the present business) mention it
to Mr.  , with whom I know Mr. Stephen is acquainted.
If Mr.  were acquainted with the steps I am taking, he
would, I am nearly sure, call immediately a meeting of our
Committee of Privileges, and the consequence might be
unfavourable to my influence, and consequently to my useful
ness among the Methodists. But my mind must be eased.
I must venture this letter, and leave the whole to God, and
under Him, sir, to you.
I have reason to believe that Lord Eldon had (indeed I
am sure of it), and probably now has, an esteem for me.
Lord Sidmouth, I do think, loves me. Lord Castlereagh
once expressed to Mr. Alexander Knox, then his private
secretary in Ireland, his very high regard for me : since that
time I have had one interview with his Lordship in London.
I have been favoured on various occasions with public and
private interviews with Lord Bathurst. I shall be glad to
have your advice whether I should write letters to those
noblemen, particularly the two first, on the present subject ;
or whether I had not better suspend everything, and have the
pleasure of seeing you in London. I hope I shall have that
honour. I shall be glad to receive three or four lines from
you (don't write unless you think it may be of some immedi
ate importance), signifying that I may wait on you immediately
on my arrival in London. — I have the honour to be, with very
high respect, my dear sir, your very much obliged, very
humble, and very faithful servant,
T. Coke.1
1 From The Correspondence of William Wilberforce, vol. ii. p. 256.

198 John Wesley.

H.
WESLEY'S REASONS AGAINST SEPARATING FROM
THE CHURCH.
The following pamphlet is from a facsimile reprint by the
' Historical Club of the American Church.' It is also to be
found (except the title-page and Bishop White's note) in
Wesley's Works, vol. xiii. p. 193.
In 1778 John Wesley recommended this tract to a member
of his Society, adding, ' Those reasons were never yet answered,
and I believe they never will.' 'We inserted,' said he, 'in
the very first rules of our Society : " They that leave the
Church leave us ;" and this we did, not as a point of prudence,
but a point of conscience. We believed it unlawful to separate
from the Church, unless sinful terms of communion were
imposed.' 1
In 1785 he declared that he still subscribed to those
reasons; and the Large Minutes from 1770 to 1789 (both
inclusive) all contain the words, ' We dare not separate from
the Church.' 1 Works, xiii. 134,

REASONS

AGAINST a

SEPARATION

FROM the

CHURCH OF ENGLAND
By JOHN WESLEY, A.M.
Printed in the Year 1758
With
Hymns for the Preachers among
The Methodists (so called)
By CHARLES WESLEY, A.M.

LONDON
Printed by W. STRAHAN, and sold at the
Founder^ in Upper-Moorfields
md c CLX

When yo Rev* Charles
Wesley put this pam
phlet into my hands
he remarked — ' These
twelve reasons, issued
26 years ago against se
parating from y« Church
of England, are equally
applicable to what
has been lately done
in America'— meaning un
der ye Superintendency of
D* Coke.
Wm White
(first Bishop of Pennsylvania).

REASONS against a Separation from the
Church of England.
Whether it be lawful or no, (which itself may be disputed,
being not so clear a point as some may imagine,) it is by no
means expedient for us to separate from the Established
Church : —
i. Because it would be a contradiction to the solemn and
repeated declarations which we have made in all manner of
ways, in preaching, in print, and in private conversation.
2. Because (on this as well as many other accounts) it
would give huge occasion of offence to those who seek and
desire occasion, to all the enemies of God and his truth.
3. Because it would exceedingly prejudice against us many
who fear, yea, who love God, and thereby hinder their
receiving so much, perhaps any farther, benefit from our
preaching. 4. Because it would hinder multitudes of those who
neither love nor fear God from hearing us at all.
5. Because it would occasion many hundreds, if not some
thousands, of those who are now united with us, to separate
from us ; yea, and some of those who have a deep work of
grace in their souls.
6. Because it would be throwing balls of wild-fire among
them that are now quiet in the land. We are now sweetly
united together in love. We mostly think and speak the same
thing. But this would occasion inconceivable strife and
contention, between those who left, and those who remained
in the Church, as well as between those who left us, and
those who remained with us ; nay, and between those very
persons who remained, as they were variously inclined one
way or the other.

202 John Wesley.
7. Because, whereas controversy is now asleep, and we in
great measure live peaceably with all men, so that we are
strangely at leisure to spend our whole time and strength in
enforcing plain, practical, vital religion, (O what would many
of our forefathers have given, to have enjoyed so blessed a
calm !) this would utterly banish peace from among us, and
that without hope of its return. It would engage me, for one,
in a thousand controversies, both in public and private ; (for I
should be in conscience obliged to give the reasons for my
conduct, and to defend those reasons against all opposers ; )
and so take me off from those more useful labours which
might otherwise employ the short remainder of my life.
8. Because to form the plan of a new Church would require
infinite time and care, (which might be far more profitably
bestowed,) with much more wisdom and greater depth and
extensiveness of thought than any of us are masters of.
9. Because from some having barely entertained a distant
thought of this, evil fruits have already followed; such as
prejudice against the clergy in general, and aptness to believe
ill of them ; contempt (not without a degree of bitterness) of
Clergymen, as such ; and a sharpness of language toward the
whole order, utterly unbecoming either gentlemen or
Christians. 10. Because the experiment has been so frequently tried
already, and the success never answered the expectation.
God has since the Reformation raised up from time to time
many witnesses of pure religion. If these lived and died
(like John Arndt, Robert Bolton, and many others) in the
Churches to which they belonged, notwithstanding the wicked
ness which overflowed both the Teachers and people therein,
they spread the leaven of true religion far and wide, and were
more and more useful, till they went to Paradise. But if,
upon any provocation or consideration whatever, they separ
ated, and founded distinct parties, their influence was more
and more Confined ; they grew less and less useful to others,

Appendix. 203
and generally lost the spirit of religion themselves in the
spirit of controversy.
11. Because we have melancholy instances of this, even
now before our eyes. Many have in our memory left the
Church, and formed themselves into distinct bodies. And
certainly some of them from a real persuasion that they
should do God more service. But have any separated them
selves and prospered ? Have they been either more holy, or
more useful, than they were before ?
12. Because by such a separation we should not only
throw away the peculiar glorying which God has given us,
that we do and will suffer all things for our brethren's sake,
though the more we love them, the less we be loved ; but
should act in direct contradiction to that very end for which
we believe God hath, raised us up. The chief design of his
providence in sending us out is, undoubtedly, to quicken our
brethren. And the first message of all our Preachers is, to
the lost sheep of the Church of England. Now, would it not
be a flat contradiction to this design, to separate from the
Church? These things being considered, we cannot appre
hend (whether it be lawful in itself or no) that it is lawful for
us; were it only on this ground, that it is by no means
expedient. II. It has been objected, that till we do separate, we can
not be a compact, united body.
It is true, we cannot till then be ' a compact united body,'
if you mean by that expression, a body distinct from all
others. And we have no desire so to be. It has been
objected, secondly, ' It is mere cowardice and fear of per
secution which makes you desire to remain united with
them.' This cannot be proved. Let every one examine his own
heart, and not judge his brother.
It is not probable. We never yet, for any persecution,

204 John Wesley.
when we were in the midst of it, either turned back from the
work, or even slackened our pace. But this is certain ; that
although persecution many times proves an unspeakable
blessing to them that suffer it, yet we ought not wilfully to
bring it upon ourselves. Nay, we ought to do whatever can
lawfully be done, in order to prevent it. We ought to avoid
it so far as we lawfully can ; when persecuted in one city, to
flee to another. If God should suffer a general persecution,
who would be able to abide it we know not. Perhaps those
who talk loudest might flee first. Remember the case of Dr.
Pendleton. III. Upon the whole, one cannot but observe how desir
able it is, that all of us who are engaged in the same work
should think and speak the same thing, be united in one
judgment, and use one and the same language.
Do we not all now see ourselves, the Methodists (so called)
in general, the Church and the Clergy, in a clear light ?
We look upon ourselves, not as the authors or ringleaders
of a particular sect or party ; (it is the farthest thing from our
thoughts ;) but as messengers of God to those who are
Christians in name, but Heathens in heart and in life, to call
them back to that from which they are fallen, to real genuine
Christianity. We are therefore debtors to all these, of what
ever opinion or denomination ; and are consequently to do all
that in us lies, to please all, for their good, to edification.
We look upon the Methodists (so called) in general, not
as any particular party ; (this would exceedingly obstruct the
grand design, for which we conceive God has raised them
up ;) but as living witnesses, in and to every party of that
Christianity which we preach ; which is hereby demonstrated
to be a real thing, and visibly held out to all the world.
We look upon England as that part of the world, and the
Church as that part of England, to which all we who are
born, and have been brought up therein, owe our first and

Appendix. 205
chief regard. We feel in ourselves a strong o-TO/oyij, a kind
of natural affection for our country, which we apprehend
Christianity was never designed either to root out or to
impair. We have a more peculiar concern for our brethren,
for that part of our countrymen to whom we have been joined
from our youth up, by ties of a religious as well as a civil
nature. True it is, that they are, in general, ' without God
in the world : ' So much the more do our bowels yearn over
them. They do lie ' in darkness and in the shadow of death :'
The more tender is our compassion for them. And when we
have the fullest conviction of that complicated wickedness
which covers them as a flood, then do we feel the most (and
we desire to feel yet more) of that inexpressible emotion with
which our blessed Lord beheld Jerusalem, and wept and
lamented over it. Then are we the most willing ' to spend
and to be spent ' for them, yea, to ' lay down our lives for
our brethren.'
We look upon the Clergy, not only as a part of these our
brethren, but as that part whom God by his adorable provi
dence has called to be watchmen over the rest, for whom
therefore they are to give a strict account. If these then
neglect their important charge, if they do not watch over them
with all their power, they will be of all men most miserable,
and so are entitled to our deepest compassion. So that to
feel, and much more to express, either contempt or bitterness
towards them, betrays an utter ignorance of ourselves and of
the spirit which we especially should be of.
Because this is a point of uncommon concern, let us con
sider it a little farther.
(1.) The Clergy, wherever we are, are either friends to the
truth, or neuters, or enemies to it. If they are friends to it,
certainly we should do everything, and omit everything we
can with a safe conscience, in order to continue, and, if it be
possible, increase, their good-will to it.
If they neither further nor hinder it, we should do all that

206 John Wesley.
in us lies, both for their sakes and for the sake of their several
flocks, to give their neutrality the right turn, that it may.
change into love rather than hatred. If they are enemies,
still we should not despair of lessening, if not removing, their
prejudice. We should try every means again and again ; we
should employ all our care, labour, prudence, joined with
fervent prayer, to overcome evil with good, to melt their
hardness into love.
It is true, that when any of these openlywrest the Scriptures,
ahd deny the grand truths of the Gospel, we cannot but
declare and defend, at convenient opportunities, the important
truths which they deny. But in this case especially we have
need of all gentleness and meekness of wisdom. Contempt,
sharpness, bitterness, can do no good. ' The wrath of man
worketh not the righteousness of God.' Harsh methods have
been tried again and again (by two or three unsettled railers)
at Wednesbury, St. Ives, Cork, Canterbury. And how did
they succeed? They always occasioned numberless evils;
often wholly stopt the course of the Gospel. Therefore,
were it only on a prudential account, were conscience uncon
cerned therein, it should be a sacred rule to all our Preachers,
¦ — ' No contempt, no bitterness, to the Clergy.'
(2.) Might it not be another (at least, prudential) rule for
every Methodist Preacher, not to frequent any Dissenting
meeting? (Though we blame none who have been always
accustomed to it.) But if we do this, certainly our people will.
Now, this is actually separating from the Church. If, there
fore, it is (at least) not expedient to separate, neither is this
expedient. Indeed, we may attend our Assemblies, and
the Church too ; because they are at different hours. But we
cannot attend both the Meeting and the Church, because
they are at the same hours.
If it be said, 'But at the Church we are fed with chaff,
whereas at the Meeting we have wholesome food ; ' we answer,
(1.) The prayers of the Church are not chaff; they are sub-

Appendix. 207
stantial food for any who are alive to God. (2.) The Lord's
Supper is not chaff, but pure and wholesome for all who
receive it with upright hearts. Yea, (3.) In almost all the
sermons we hear there,, we hear many great and important
truths : And whoever has a spiritual discernment, may
easily separate the chaff from the wheat therein. (4.) How
little is the case mended at the meeting ! Either the Teachers
are ' new light ' men, denying the Lord that bought them, and
overturning his Gospel from the very foundations ; or they are
Predestinarians, and so preach predestination and final per
severance, more or less. Now, whatever this may be to them
who were educated therein, yet to those of our brethren who
have lately embraced it, repeated experience shows it is not
wholesome food ; rather, to them it has the effect of deadly
poison. In a short time it destroys all their zeal for God.
They grow fond of opinions, and strife of words ; they despise
self-denial and the daily cross ; and, to complete all, wholly
separate from their brethren.
(3.) Nor is it expedient for any Methodist Preacher to
imitate the Dissenters in their manner of praying ; either in
his tone, — (all particular tones, both in prayer and preaching
should be avoided with the utmost care) nor in his language,
— all his words should be plain and simple, such as the lowest
of his hearers both use and understand; or in the length
of his prayer, which should not usually exceed four or five
minutes, either before or after sermon. One might add,
neither should we sing, like them, in a slow, drawling manner :
we sing swift, both because it saves time, and because it tends
to awake and enliven the soul.
(4.) Fourthly, if we continue in the Church, not by chance,
or for want of thought, but upon solid and well-weighed
reasons, then we should never speak contemptuously of the
Church, or anything pertaining to it. In some sense, it is the
mother of us all who have been brought up therein. We
ought never to make her blemishes matter of diversion, but

208 John Wesley.
rather of solemn sorrow before God. We ought never to talk
ludicrously of them ; no, not at all, without clear necessity.
Rather, we should conceal them, as far as ever we can, with
out bringing guilt upon our own conscience. And we should
all use every rational and scriptural means, to bring others to the
same temper and behaviour. I say, all ; for if some of us are
thus minded, and others of an opposite spirit and behaviour,
this will breed a real schism among ourselves. It will of
course divide us into two parties ; each of Which will be liable
to perpetual jealousies, suspicions, and animosities against the
other. Therefore, on this account likewise, it is expedient, in
the highest degree, that we should be tender of the Church
to which we belong.
(5.) In order to secure this end, to cut off all jealousy and
suspicion from our friends, and hope from our enemies, of
our having any design to separate from the Church, it would
be well for every Methodist Preacher, who has no scruple
concerning it, to attend the service of the Church as often as
conveniently he can. And the more we attend it, the more
we love it, as constant experience shows. On the contrary,
the longer we abstain from it, the less desire we have to attend
it at all.
(6.) Lastly, whereas we are surrounded on every side by
those who are equally enemies to us and to the Church of
England ; and whereas these are long practised in this war,
and skilled in all the objections against it ; while our brethren,
on the other hand, are quite strangers to them all, and so, on
a sudden, know not how to answer them ; it is highly expedient
for every Preacher to be provided with sound answers to
those objections, and then to instruct the societies where he
labours, how to defend themselves against those assaults. It
would be therefore well for you carefully to read over the
' Preservative against unsettled Notions in Religion,' together
with ' Serious Thoughts concerning Perseverance,' and ' Pre
destination Calmly Considered.' And when you are masters

Appendix. 209
of them yourselves, it will be easy for you to recommend and
explain them to our societies ; that they may ' no more be
tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine ; ' but, being settled
in one mind and one judgment by solid scriptural and
rational arguments, ' may grow up in all things into Him who
is our Head, even Jesus Christ.' John Wesley.
I think myself bound in duty, to add my testimony to my
brother's. His twelve reasons against our ever separating
from the Church of England, are mine also. I subscribe to
them with all my heart. Only with regard to the first, I am
quite clear, that it is neither expedient nor lawful for me to
separate : And I never had the least inclination or temptation
so to do. My affection for the Church is as strong as ever :
And I clearly see my calling ; which is, to live and to die in
her communion. This, therefore, I am determined to do, the
Lord being my helper.
I have subjoined the Hymns for the Lay Preachers; still
farther to secure this end, to cut off all jealousy and suspicion
from our friends, or Hope from our enemies, of our having
any design of ever separating from the Church. I have no
secret reserve, or distant thought of it. I never had. Would
to God all the Methodist Preachers were, in this respect, like-
minded with Charles Wesley.
In this fac-simile reprint the Hymns have been omitted.
Chas. R. Hale,
Secretary ofthe Historical Club.

O

210 Postscript.

POSTSCRIPT.
The Bishops' Treatment of Wesley (cf. p. 13).
' So persistent were Wesley's irregularities, that it has always
seemed to me that great indulgence on the part of the Bishops
was exercised, or he would have been in every diocese in
hibited with rigour.' Rev. W. Arthur (Wesleyan)
In the Contemporary Review of July 1887.

Decrease of Members.
The Wesleyan returns for 1887 show a further decrease of
members, as do also the returns of the Primitive Methodists.

INDEX.

Absolution, 103.
Accusations against Wesley, 23, 102.
Alteration of inscription on Wes
ley's monument, 7°, 77 > °f °is
hymns, 96 ; of Baptismal Service,
86.
American ' Methodist Episcopal
Church, ' origin of ' Orders ' in,
61, 159; Dr. Coke on, 188.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, 121.
Antinomianism, 108-10, 117; early
Methodists leaned to, no.
Apostolical Succession, 39 ; what
it means, 46 ; as claimed by
the Presbyterians, 65 ; if valid
through Presbyters yet not pos
sessed by Wesleyans, 65, 68, 76 ;
what modern Wesleyans mean
by it, 79 ; hymn upon it, 80.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 90, 114, 121.
Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ec-
clesice, 109-12.
Asbury 'ordained' by Dr. Coke,
59 ; mentioned, 151, 176, 182,
191.
 and Coke, etc., ' formed them
selves into an Episcopal Church,'
60.
Assurance, 107, 112; deemed
necessary to salvation, 114; not
necessary, 115-16.
Athanasian Creed, 119.
Auricular Confession, 100.

Bands, 100, 137, 166, 172.
Baptismal Regeneration, 81.
Baptismal Service of the Wesley
ans, 86 ; revised form adopted,
88.
Baptist and Independent Societies
formed out of seceding Method
ists, 157.
Bengel, Wesley's Notes on New
Testament, chiefly from, 121.
Benson, 8, 9, 161.
Bishops and Clergy, their treatment
of Wesley, 13, 24, 136, 210.
Bishop and Priest, whence the
notion that they were the same,
°5-
Brevint, Dr., on the Christian
Sacrament and Sacrifice, 92, 95,
121.
Bunting, Jabez, 35, 68, 75, 78, 79,
153, 174; founder of the existing
order of Wesleyan Ministers, 35,
75-9-
Calvinism, early Methodists
leaned to, 107-9.
Calvinists, 21-3.
Charles, Rev. T., assumes power
of ordination, 48 ; mentioned,
179.
Chastity of Cornish folk, 163, 165,
171.
Chrichton, Rev. J., 48.

212

Index.

Christian Library, 92, 120.
Christian Pattern, 121.
'Church,' Wesley's Society not to
be called a, 148-9.
Church of England ; see Wesley.
Church Societies for devotional
meetings, 165.
Clarke, Dr. Adam, 66 ; his opinion
of true and sham Orders, 68 ; on
the Prayer Book, 129.
Classes and Bands, 100, 137, 140,
166, 172.
Clergy, why at first hostile to Wes
ley, 16; befriend John Wesley,
20; bitterly assailed by Methodists
at St. Ives, Wednesbury, Cork,
and Canterbury, 206.
Coke, Rev. Dr., 34, 35. 43. 5' -3;
Mather and others propose
themselves to be Methodist
Bishops, 35 ; his endeavours to
succeed to Wesley, 53 ; his ' or
dination, ' 49, 58, 182; 'ordains'
Asbury, 59 ; applies to Ameri
can Bishops for Ordination, 60,
183 ; and to Lord Liverpool for
appointment in India, 61 ; his
claim to be a Bishop, 76 ; his Mis
sion, 1 80 etseq.; his Commentary,
181 ; his use of Mr. Drew, 182 ;
letter to Bp. White, 183 ; to Bp.
Seabury, 187 ; wishes the Bishop
' could see his sinful heart,' 192 ;
letter to Wm. Wilberforce, 193 ;
if appointed a Bishop would re
turn to the Church, 61, 194.
Collins, Mr., 20, 167.
Companion for the Altar, 121.
Conference, declaration of, on sepa
ration, 26, 150, 153; issues com
mission to administer Sacraments,
34 ; rejects proposals to form an

'Episcopal Church,' 35; and
Wesley's authority, 55 ; adopts
' ordination,' 67, 68, 76, 153 ;
and a new Baptismal Service,
86 ; on the title of Rev. 150,
175-
Confession in class meetings, 142,
172.
 private, 101.
Confirmation, 88.
Consecration of Cemetery by a
Wesleyan minister, 152.
Consensus veterum, 119.
' Conversion,' J. Wesley's so-called,
112-117.
 real in 1725, 116.
Cornishmen's character, 162-3 > ae"
voted to the Prayer Book, 163.
Cornish clergy, 166-9.
Cornwall, calumnies on, 161.
 and Methodism, 159, 169.
Dimming, Dr., on Apostolic Suc
cession, 65.
Curteis's Bampton Lecture, 83.
Daily Communion, 122.
Dates of chief events in Wesley's
life, 2.
Decrease of Wesleyans, 133, 210.
Deed of Declaration, 54, 56, 159.
Defoe, Daniel, 160, 164.
Development of Methodism, 148.
Disruption amongst early Method
ists, 21, 156.
Dissent in Cornwall before Method
ism, 164.
Dissenters the chief persecutors of
the Methodists, 18-20.
Dissenters and Wesley, 18-20, 28,
207.
Dissenting ministers hostile to the
Church, 129-31.

Index.

213

Dissenting meetings — to attend
them an actual separation from
the Church, 206.
Disturbances, 19, 20-3, 147, 165-6.
Divination by lots, 66.
Divisions, prayer for the healing of,
134-
Dodd, Dr., 181.
Drew, Samuel, 181.
Episcopacy, Divine right of, 80.
Epitaph, Wesley's falsified, 77 ;
Mr. Waddy on, 78.
Erasmus, Bishop, ordains Mr.
Jones, 41, 47 ; further ordina
tions, 42 ; his relations with
Wesley, 43 ; and Mr. Coughlan,
43-
Eucharist, Holy, 89.
Eucharistic adoration, 98.
Evening Communion, 67.
Excommunication in Cornwall, 165.
' Experiences,' the felling of, 172.
Extempore prayer, 32, 123.
Extravagancies of Methodists, 158.
Fasting, 123.
Fathers, the, 119.
Fenwick, Michael, and his Sermon,
54-
Final perseverance, 1 14.
Fletcher, of Madeley, on Method
ism, 146.
Fruits of Methodism, 160, 170.
Fuller's character of the Cornish,
163.
Gibbon, on Episcopacy, 45, n.
Gibson, Bp., 14.
' Gospel ' Preachers, 124.
Grimshaw, Rev. W., on 'per
fection,' 90, «.

Hall deserts Wesley, 158.
Hall, Bishop, 162.
Hampson, 48, 55, 56.
Heath, his account of Cornwall, 161.
Hill, Rowland, his scurrility, 23,
43-
Hooker, Richard, on Baptism, 86 ;
on Evening Communion, 67.
Hostility of Modern Wesleyan
Preachers to the Church, 128-
131 ; not shared by the Wesleyans
generally, 129.
Hours of service, 27, 206.
Humphreys, Joseph, 'perfected in
love,' 156.
Hurling, 164.
Hymns, published, 95 ; quoted, 80,
90, 93, 96; the brothers equally
responsible for them, 96 ; sup
pressed, 72 ; mutilated, 96-7.
Hysteria in America, Bordeaux,
Germany, Ireland, London, Port
Royal, 16.
Ignorance of early Methodist
Preachers, 54, 56; of Modern
Methodists, 170.
Imputation of Christ'srighteousness,
117.
Incestuous marriages and ' the social
evil,' 172.
Ingham, Rev. B., 157.
Intermediate state, 104.
Irving, Edward, on Methodism, 138.
Jackson, Thomas, on Apostolic
Succession, 79; quoted, n, 20,
52, 74> 75. 78, 80, 135, 181 ; on
the Church of England, 129, and
her clergy, 130.
Jerome, St., on schism, 88 ; garbled
quotation of, 64.

02

214

Index.

Jesuit teaching on Orders, 65, n.
Johnson, Dr., his opinion of Wes
ley, 24.
Jones, Rev. A. Hawkins, on class
meetings, 142.
Jones, John, mutilates Dr. White
head's Life of Wesley, 2, 168.
Justification (Lutheran), 107.
Ken, Bishop, 92.
King, Lord, influence of his book
on Wesley, 47, 58, 61.
 recants it, 61.
Kingswood colliers, 147.
Knox, Alexander, 3, 6, 25, 50, 115,
133. 136. 197-
' Korah ' sermon, 7, 33, 44.
Lambeth Articles, 113.
' Large Minutes ' altered, I, 28.
Lay Preachers, all Wesleyan
Preachers laymen, 70, 176.
Laud, Archbishop's prayer, 134.
Law, W. , letter of J. Wesley to,
84.
 his writings confirm Wesley in
his conversion, 116.
Leeds Conference, A.D. 1789, 32.
Lichfield, secret conclave at, 35.
Liturgy, the, Wesley on, 177.
 Dr. Adam Clarke on, 129.
Lombard, Peter, on Orders, 65.
Lots cast to decide on the adminis
tration of the Sacraments, 65.
Lowth, Bishop, 14, 24, 168.
Luther, M., 49, 50, 109, 135, 144.
Lutheranism, early Methodists
leaned to, 107-n.
Macaulay, Lord, 147.
 on the Apostolical Succession,
45. «¦

Maimonides, on imputed righteous
ness, 118, n.
Mansfield, Lord, that ordination
was separation, 72.
Mather, Mr., 34; his ordination
ridiculed by Kilham, 52 ; endea
vours to succeed Wesley, 53.
Maxfield, ordained by Bishop of
Derry, 15, 43, 157.
Methodism in Wales, 172.
Methodist Preachers assail the
clergy, 206 ; their degrees, and
the title of 'Rev.,' 36, 150, 174;
not to be called ' ministers,' 148,
174; Laymen, 70, 176.
Minutes, ' Large,' I ; quoted, 27-8,
35. 93. '°9, 175-
Mixed Chalice, 127.
Montaigne on Calvin and the title
' Minister,' 37.
Moravians, and their influence on
Wesley, 16, 66, 113, 126.
 dangerous Antinomians, 156.
Murray, Grace, 10 ; jilts Wesley,
S6.
Nelson, John, mobbed by Papists,
19-
Orders, Wesleyan, from Jabez
Bunting, 68, 153.
 Presbyterian, 65, 77.
'Ordination' adopted by Confer
ence in 1836, 67, 68, 153.
Original Sin not believed in, 86.
Osborn, Dr., and the Baptismal
Controversy in 1882, 87 ; on
Wesley's Hymns, 96 ; on the
present state of the Church of
England, 130.
Otterbine and Asbury, 61, n,
Owston Ferry case, 36, 175.
Oxford Methodists, the, 157.

Index.

215

Pawson destroys Wesley's papers,
12 ; his ordination and recall, 12 ;
his schismatic behaviour, 13, 34,
35, 66; on Wesley, 27, 47, 176.
Penance done in Cornwall in 1777,
i6S.
Penrose, Rev. Mr., 169.
Perceval, William, Wesley's letter
to, 32.
Perfection, 90, n.
Perronets, the, 45, 52, 158.
Persecution of Wesley and Wesley
ans, 13, 18.
Peters, Rev. Charles, 168.
Pews, 127.
Pitt, Mr., Wesley's letter to, 148.
Poetical Works of the Wesleys, 96.
Polwhele, 161, 169-70.
Popery alleged against the Wesleys,
21-3.
Popularity of Wesley, 14, 24.
Potter, Archbishop, prays God to
bless the Wesleys, 14; his good
advice to Wesley, 15.
Prayer Book, rules scrupulously
observed by Wesley, 127.
 reverenced by Dr. Adam
Clarke, 129.
 disparaged by recent Wesley
ans, 130.
Prayers for the Departed, 104.
Preachers, to be itinerant, 54; to
attend church, 27, 148, 208;
decide upon administering the
Lord's Supper, 66; assume title
of ' Rev.,' 79.
Preaching forbidden in church
hours, 27.
Preaching-houses, 148, 151.
Primitive Physic, Wesley's, 63.
Psalter, the, Wesley's treatment of,
179.

Punshon, Dr. Morley, on the
Methodist Ministry, 44.
Questions in 'band' meetings,
101.
Real Presence in the Eucharist, 89.
Reasons against Separation, 73, 159,
198.
Relics, 152.
Religious character of Cornish folk,
162, 167.
Reservation ofthe Eucharist, 127.
Results of Methodism, 154.
Reverend, title of, 79, 150, 151, 174.
Revivals, 137, 141, 143 ; bad in
fluence of, 171.
 in America, 17.
Ridley, Bishop, on Eucharistic
adoration, 98, n.
Rigg, Dr., 6-14, 24, 25, 47, n., 74,
78, n., 83, n., 86, 95, 98, 131,
132, 136, 145, n.
Ritual, 125, 127.
Romaine on the Societies, 158.
Romanists and Wesley, 19.
Ross, Bishop, entertains Wesley, 24.
Rule, Rev. W. H, 107, 150, 151.
Ryan, Sarah, 58.
Saints' Days, 122, 165.
Schism, the, inexcusable, 135.
Schismatic action of Conference in
1793. 36.
Sclater's refutation of Lord King,
61.
Seabury, Bishop, 180.
 Dr. Coke's letter to, 187.
Seceders from Wesley, 156-9.
Seeker, Archbishop, 14. "°.
Sect, Wesley abhors a leader of a,
29.

2l6

Index.

Sects, Methodist number of, 155.
Separation from the Church,
Wesley's protests against, 25-33.
 twelve reasons against — Ap
pendix H, p. 198.
Sidney, Rev. Ed., on class meet
ings, 138.
Smith, Dr., defence of Wesleyan
Orders, 69, n., quoted 42.
' Smith, John ' (Archbishop Seeker),
no.
Smuggling in Cornwall, 148.
' Social Equality ' with the Clergy
coveted, 131.
Societies for the reformation of
manners, 165.
Societies — Wesley's not to be called
'a church,' 148-9.
Solifidianism, 107-9.
Sortes Biblicce, 66, n.
Southey, on Dr. Coke's action in
America, 60 ; on Wesley's cre
dulity, 62; quoted, 3, 25, 57,
115, 144; assailed by Mr. Watson
and Dr. Rigg, 145.
Spiritual Quixote, The, 154.
Spurgeon, Mr., on Nonconformity
and Unitarianism, 87, n.
Stevens, Dr. A., on suppres
sions, 9, n., 119; quoted, 153,
159-
Stillingfleet, his lrenicum, 63 ; his
garbled quotation, 64 ; his re
tractation, 64.
Suppression of passages in Wesley's
works, 7, 10, n, 47, 74-6, 89,
114, 119, 148; of a sermon, 7,
33. 44 5 of hymns, 96, 97.
Taylor and Wills, ' ordain ' in
1783, 50.
Taylor, Isaac, 16, 142.

Taylor, Bishop Jeremy, and Thomas
& Kempis, Wesley's conversion
due to, 116.
Telford, Mr., Life of Wesley, 6,
145, n.
Temporal Prosperity and Spiritual
Decline, 152, 167.
Thirty-nine Articles reduced to
twenty-five in Wesley's Service
Book, 178.
Thomas a Kempis, 91, 116.
Told for a Memorial, 173.
Toplady on Wesley, 23, 43.
Trelawny, Bishop, on Cornish
Clergy, 163.
Trent, Council of, 65, 91, 114, n.
Unitarianism, modern tendency
towards, 87.
Untrustworthiness of certain Wes
leyan writers, 78, 83, 86, 98,
107.
Vasey and Whatcoat ' ordained '
by Wesley, 49, 182.
Vazeille, Mrs., marriage with
Wesley, 57.
Vincentius Lirinensis, St., 119.
Vowler, Rev. Mr., 167.
Waddy, Mr., Q.C., on Lay and
Local Preachers, 69, 71, 78.
Walker, John, of Dublin, on class
meetings, 139.
Walker, Rev. S., on class meet
ings, 138, 139 ; his work at
Truro, 166.
Walker, Rev. J., of Exeter, on
Evening Communions, 67.
Watson, R., assails Southey, 145.
 Wesley never called his
Societies 'a Church,' 149.

Index.

217

Wedgwood, Miss, on the failure of
Wesley's mental powers, 53 ;
on Wesley's so-called 'conver
sion,' 116.
Welsh Methodists separate, 48.
Wesley, Charles, stoned at Notting
ham, 20 ; on Calvinism, 22 ; in
Yorkshire, 23 ; on J. Wesley's
assumption of Episcopal autho
rity, 25, 47, 50, 72, 73 ; on
Separation, 36, 135, 136, 159,
180, 209; on Mr. Jones's 'ordina
tion,' 42 ; on Fenwick's preach
ing, 54 ; silences Mrs.- J. Wesley,
57 ; on his brother's defects, 63 ;
on the sin of Jeroboam, 71 ; on
Methodism, 154 ; on Cornwall,
166.
Wesley, John, his disregard of
Church order, 18, 25, 42; charged
with Popery, 23, 135 ; his pro
hibitions disregarded, 37, 74 ;
and Bp. Erasmus, 42 ; his alleged
request to be consecrated a
Bishop, 42,; controversy with a
Romanist, 45 ; his breach of
covenant with Charles, 48 ; once
leaned towards Calvinism and
Lutheranism, 107-n ; misquotes
Article XIX., 51 ; his Sunday
Service of Methodists in America,
51, 76, 176 ; ' worried ' into act
ing against his better judgment,
51 ; ' sets apart ' three Preachers
for Scotland, 51 ; Mather and
Moore without sending them out
of England, 52 ; his rules for
Preachers, 54, 148 ; love of
Autocracy, 55; self-opinionated,
55 ; little influence with educated
people, 56 ; love affairs, 56, 57 ;
marriage, 57 ; correspondence

with Sarah Ryan, 58; appoints
her to offices, 58 ; ' ordains ' Dr.
Coke, 58, 74; his haste in
forming opinions, 61 ; his cre
dulity, 62, 66 ; book of Primitive
Physic, 63 ; convinced by Still-
ingfleet's lrenicum, 63 ; by Lord
King, 47, 58, 61 ; hated secrecy,
74 ; on Presbyterian Orders, 76 ;
his epitaph by Whitehead tam
pered with, 77 ; his profession
of loyalty to Church teaching,
103, 127 ; his ' conversion,' 116 ;
his writings more studied now by
non- Wesleyans, 132 ; regrets
that he ever left Oxford, 144 ;
laments with tears his ordina
tions, 48.
Wesley, John, his opinions on —
Absolution, 103.
Antinomianism, no.
Apostolic Succession, 39, 40,
45. 47. 75-
Assurance, 112 et seq.
Athanasian Creed, 119.
Attendance at church, 29.
Baptismal Regeneration, 81
et seq.
Calvinism, 22.
Charles Wesley, 51.
Choral celebrations, 126.
Church of England, 24.
Coke's action in America, 60.
Confirmation, 88.
'Conversion,' 10, 81, 112.
Cornish clergy, 167.
Episcopal powers, his, 43, 151.
Eucharist, 90-7.
Fasting, 123.
Fathers, the, 119.
Fruits of Methodism, 145.
Good works, in.

2l8

Index.

' Gospel sermons,' 123.
Himself, 10, 48.
His 'Society,' 149.
Hours of Service, 27, 28, 31,
206.
Hysteria in his meetings, 135.
Imputation of Christ'srighteous-
ness, 117.
Intermediate State, 104.
Justification, 108.
Liberty of Preaching, 17.
Mixed Chalice, 127.
Montanism, 61.
Moravians, 156.
Obedience to Rubrics, 29.
Perfection, 90.
Pews, 127.
Position of Methodists, 26.
Prayer Book, 7, 123, 177.
Prayers for the Faithful
Departed, 104.
Preachers, his, 36, 41, 48, 131,
157-
Preaching and the Sacraments,
32. 33-
Preaching-houses, 151.
Presbyterian Ordination, 76.
Priesthood, 40, 41, 44, 54.
Primitive Christianity, 122.
Private Confession, 101.
Reservation of the Sacrament,
127.
Revivals, 137.
Ritual, 125.
Separation from the Church,
14, 15, 24-29, 30-33, 48,
133, 150, 158, 173; reasons
against, App. H, p. 198 et
seq. ; from his Society, 149.
Separation of Sexes, 127.

Wesley, John, in Cornwall, 14,
18, 20, 165 ; Staffordshire,
18; Ireland, 15; Scotland, 48;
Dublin, 28 ; Normanby, 29 ;
Deptford, 30 ; Cork, 33 ; Bath,
40 ; at the Charter House, 55 ;
in Georgia, 112; Bertholdsdorf,
125.
Wesleyan Preachers' hostility to the
Church, 129, 130; not shared by
the people, 129,
Wesleyans, present position of, 128 ;
returning to the Church individu
ally, 132.
Methodist Sects, number of, 155.
Wesleyan ' Orders,' 35, 48, 67,
68, 70, 76, 79-
Wesleyans repudiate Wesley's ' last
advice,' 34.
Wesleyan Takings, 79.
White, Bp., and Dr. Coke, 60, 183,
187, 200.
Whitehead, Dr., opinion of Coke's
' ordination,' 58 ; quoted, 19,
25. 33. 50. 52, 5\ 66, 75, 108,
119, 145 ; his epitaph on Wesley
falsified, 77.
Whitfield, Rev. Mr., 16; opposes
Wesley, 21 ; at St. Paul's, 22 ;
opinions on Church of England,
22 ; his remains, 152.
Wilberforce and Dr. Coke, 61.
Wills, Rev. T., 165, 169.
Wills and Taylor ' ordain,' 50.
Woodward Societies, 165.
Working of Methodism, 137.
Worthington, Mr., on Wesleyans
and Unitarianism, 87, n.

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Liddon's Elements of Religion.
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Contents.
Volume I. — Introduction and Memoir of the Author— Lord Strafford— Arch
bishop Laud — Carlyle's Cromwell — Luther.
Volume II. — Dr. Arnold — Blanco White— Dr. Pusey's Sermon— The Book of
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Mozley on Miracles.
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The Prayer Book in Latin.
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The Annotated Book of Common Prayer : being an Historical,
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i. A thoroughly trustworthy text of the whole Prayer Book, such as has
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z. A much enlarged Introduction, embracing in a compact form all that is
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Luckock on the Prayer Book.
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Studies in the History of the Book of Common Prayer.
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The Treasury of Devotion.
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Body's Life of Temptation.
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Knox Little's Manchester Sermons.
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Sermons Preached for the most part in Manchester.
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The Soul instructed by God— The Claim of God upon the Soul—The Super
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Knox Little's Christian Life.
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Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life. Ten
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Contents.
Christian Work — Christian Advance — Christian Watching — Christian Battle —
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Williams's Devotional Commentary.
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A Devotional Commentary on the Gospel Narrative.
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THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF THE HOLY GOSPELS.
A HARMONY OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.
OUR LORD'S NATIVITY.
OUR LORD'S MINISTRY (Second Year).
OUR LORD'S MINISTRY (Third Year).
THE HOLY WEEK.
OUR LORD'S PASSION.
OUR LORD'S RESURRECTION.

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Voices of Comfort.
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It is so divided as to afford readings for a month. The keynote of each day is
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The Comforter, Day 22. The Light of Hope Day 25. The Coming of Chris t,
T>av 28 ' Each day begins with passages of Holy Scripture. These are fol
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After these are poems or passages of poetry, and then very brief extracts in
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The Star of Childhood.
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The Star of Childhood : a First Book of Prayers and Instruction
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The Guide to Heaven.
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H. L. Sidney Lear's For Days and Years.
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For Days and Years. A Book containing a Text, Short Reading
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Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear.
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Williams on the Epistles and Gospels.
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Moberly's Parochial Sermons.
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Parochial Sermons, chiefly preached at Brighstone, Isle of Wight.
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Contents.
The Night is far spent, the Day is at hand— Elijah, the Warner of the
Second Advent of the Lord— Christmas— Epiphany — The Rich Man and
Lazarus— The Seventh Day Rest — I will arise and go to my Father— Con
firmation, a Revival — Korah — The Law of Liberty — Buried with Him in
Baptism— The Waiting Church of the Hundred and Twenty— Whitsun Day.
I will not leave you comfortless— Whitsun Day. Walking after the Spirit
— The Barren Fig Tree — Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, O Lord-
Feeding the Four Thousand— We are debtors— He that thinketh he standeth
—The Strength of Working Prayer— Elijah's Sacrifice — If thou hadst known,
even thou — Harvest Thanksgiving — Jonadab, the Son of Rechab— The Trans
figuration ; Death and Glory— Welcome to Everlasting Habitations— The
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Moberly's Plain Sermons.
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Plain Sermons, Preached at Brighstone.
By George Moberly, D.C.L.,
Late Bishop of Salisbury.
(Contents.
Except a man be born again — The Lord with the Doctors — The Draw-Net — I
will lay me down in peace — Ye have not so learned Christ — Trinity Sunday —
My Flesh is Meat indeed — The Com of Wheat dying and multiplied — The Seed
Corn springing to new life — I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life — The Ruler
of the Sea — Stewards of the Mysteries of God — Ephphatha — The Widow of
Nain — Josiah's discovery of the Law — The Invisible World : Angels — Prayers,
especially Daily Prayers — They all with one consent began to make excuse —
Ascension Day — The Comforter — The Tokens of the Spirit — Elijah's Warning,
Fathers and Children — Thou shalt see them no more for ever — Baskets full of
fragments — Harvest — The Marriage Supper ofthe Lamb — The Last Judgment.

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Footprints of the Son of Man as traced by Saint Mark :
being Eighty Portions for Private Study, Family Reading, and
Instructions in Church.
By Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D.,
Canon of Ely ; Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Ely ;
and Principal ofthe Theological College.
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Goulburn's Thoughts on Personal Religion.
New Edition. Small Zvo. 6s. 6d.
Thoughts on Personal Religion : being a Treatise on the
Christian Life in its two Chief Elements — Devotion and Practice.
By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., D.C.L.,
Dean of Norwich.
Also a Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d.
Presentation Edition, elegantly printed on Toned Paper.
Two Vols. Small Zvo. 10s. 6d.
Goulburn's Pursuit of Holiness.
Seventh Edition. Small Zvo. $s.
The Pursuit of Holiness: a Sequel to 'Thoughts on Personal
Religion, ' intended to carry the Reader somewhat farther onward
in the Spiritual Life.
By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., D.C.L.,
Dealt of Norwich.
Also a Cheap Edition. 3s. 6d.

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Goulburn on the Lord's Supper.
Sixth Edition. Small Zvo. 6s.
A Commentary, Expository and Devotional, on the Order of the
Administration of the Lord's Supper, according to the Use of the
Church of England ; to which is added an Appendix on Fasting
Communion, Non-communicating Attendance, Auricular Confes
sion, the Doctrine of Sacrifice, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., D.C.L.,
Dean of Norwich.
Also a Cheap Edition^ unifortn with ' Thoughts on Personal Religion?
and 'The Pursuit of Holiness? 3s. 6d.

Goulburn's Holy Catholic Church.
Second Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s, 6d.
The Holy Catholic Church : its Divine Ideal, Ministry, and
Institutions. A short Treatise. With a Catechism on each
Chapter, forming a Course of Methodical Instruction on the
subject. By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., D.C.L.,
Dean of Norwich.
€an tents.
What the Church is, and when and how it was founded— Duty of the Church
towards those who hold to the Apostles' Doctrine, in separation from the Apostles'
fellowship — The Unity ofthe Church and its Disruption — The Survey of Zion's
towers, bulwarks, and palaces — The Institution ofthe Ministry, and its relation
to the Church — The Holy Eucharist at its successive Stages — On the Powers of
the Church in Council— The Church presenting, exhibiting, and defending the
Truth — The Church guiding into and illustrating the Truth — On the Prayer
Book as a Commentary on the Bible — Index.

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Goulburn's Collects of the Day.
Third Edition. Two Vols. CrownSvo. Ss. each. Sold separately.
The Collects, of the Day : an Exposition, Critical and Devotional,
of the Collects appointed at the Communion. With Preliminary
Essays on their Structure, Sources, and General Character, and
Appendices containing Expositions of the Discarded Collects of
the First Prayer Book of 1549, and of the Collects of Morning
and Evening Prayer.
By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., D.C.L.,
Dean of Norwich.
Contents.
Volume I. Book I. Introductory. — Oh the Excellencies of the Collects— On
the Origin ofthe word Collect — On the Structure of a Collect, as illustrated by
the Collect in the Burial Service — Ofthe Sources ofthe Collects : Ofthe Sacra-
mentary of Leo, of the Sacramentary of Gelasius, of Gregory the Great and his
Sacramentary, of the Use of Sarum, and of S. Osmund its Compiler — On the
Collects of Archbishop Cranmer — Of the Restoration Collects, and of John
Cosin, Prince-Bishop of Durham — Of the Collects, as representing the Genius of
the English Church. Book II. Part I.— The Constant Collect. Part II.— Col
lects varying with the Ecclesiastical Season — Advent to Whitsunday.
Volume II. Book II. contd. — Trinity Sunday to All Saints' Day. Book III.
— On the Collects after the Offertory. Appendix A. — Collects in the First
Reformed Prayer Book of 1549 which were suppressed in 1552 — The Collect
for the First Communion on Christmas Day — The Collect for S. Mary Mag
dalene's Day (July 22). Appendix B. — Exposition of the Collects of Morning
and Evening Prayer — The Second at Morning Prayer, for Peace — The Third
at Morning Prayer, for Grace — The Second at Evening Prayer, for Peace —
The Third at Evening Prayer, for Aid against all Perils.

Knox Little's Good Friday Addresses.
New Edition. Small Zvo. is. ; or in Paper Cover, is.
The Three Hours' Agony of Our Blessed Redeemer : being
Addresses ¦ in the form of Meditations delivered in S. Alban's
Church, Manchester, on Good Friday 1877.
By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A.,
Canon Residentiary of Worcester, and Vicar of Hoar Cross.
SUsterloo place, Hotrtoit.

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Luckock' s After Death.
Sixth Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s.
After Death. An Examination of the Testimony of Primitive
Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their rela
tionship to the Living.
By Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D.,
Canon of Ely, etc.
Contents.
Part I.— The Test of Catholicity— The Value of the Testimony ofthe Primi
tive Fathers — The Intermediate State — Change in the Intermediate State —
Prayers for the Dead : Reasons for Our Lord s Silence on the Subject — The
Testimony of Holy Scripture — The Testimony of the Catacombs— The Testi
mony of the Early Fathers — The Testimony of the Primitive Liturgies —
Prayers for the Pardon of Sins of Infirmity, and the Effacement of Sinful
Stains — The Inefficacy of Prayer for those who died in wilful unrepented Sin.
Part II. — Primitive Testimony to the Intercession of the Saints — Primitive
Testimony to the Invocation of the Saints — The Trustworthiness of the Patristic
Evidence for Invocation tested — The Primitive Liturgies and the Roman Cata
combs — Patristic Opinions on the Extent of the Knowledge possessed by the
Saints — The Testimony of Holy Scripture upon the same Subject — The Beatific
Vision not yet attained by any of the Saints — Conclusions drawn from the fore
going Testimony.
Supplementary Chapters. — (a.) Is a fuller Recognition of the Practice of
Praying for the Dead desirable or not?— (b.) Is it lawful or desirable to practise
Invocation of Saints in any form or not? — Table of Fathers, Councils, etc. —
Passages of Scripture explained or quoted — General Index.

S. Bonaventure's Life of Christ.
Crown Zvo. js. 6d.
The Life of Christ.
By S. Bonaventure.
Translated and Edited by the Bev. W. H. Hutcnings,
Rector of Kirkby Misperton, Yorkshire.
The whole volume is full of gems and seek food for their daily meditations, we can
rich veins of thought, and whether as a com- scarcely imagine a more acceptable book.'
panion to the preacher or to those who — Literary Churchman.

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Newman's Selection from Sermons.
Third Edition. Crown Zvo.
Selection, adapted to the Seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year, from
the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons ' of John Henry Newman,
B.D., sometime Vicar of S. Mary's, Oxford.
Edited by the Bev. W. J. Copeland, B.D.,
Late Rector of Fartiham, Essex.
aCantmts.
Advent:— Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness— Divine Calls— The
Ventures of Faith— Watching. Christmas Day .-—Religious Joy. New Year's
Sunday : — The Lapse of Time. Epiphany: — Remembrance of Past Mercies-
Equanimity— The Immortality of the Soul— Christian Manhood— Sincerity and
Hypocrisy— Christian Sympathy. Sepluagesima:— Present Blessings. Sexa-
gesima .'—Endurance, the Christian's Portion. Quinquagesima : — Love, the One
Thing Needful. Lent:— The Individuality of the Soul— Life the Season of
Repentance — Bodily Suffering — Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus-
Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians— The Cross of Christ the Measure
of the World. Good Friday .-—The Crucifixion. Easter Day .-—Keeping Fast
and Festival. Easter-Tide : — Witnesses of the Resurrection — A Particular
Providence as Revealed in the Gospel — Christ Manifested in Remembrance —
The Invisible World — Waiting for Christ. Ascension: — Warfare the Condition
of Victory. Sunday after Ascension: — Rising with Christ. Whitsunday: —
The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday: — The Mysteriousness of our Pre
sent Being. Sundays after Trinity: — Holiness Necessary for Future Blessed
ness — The Religious Use of Excited Feelings — The Self-wise Inquirer — Scrip
ture a Record of Human Sorrow — The Danger of Riches — Obedience without
Love as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single
Sins— The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life— Moral Effects of Com
munion with God— The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The Power of
the Will — The Gospel Palaces — Religion a Weariness to the Natural Man — The
World our Enemy — The Praise of Men — Religion Pleasant to the Religious —
Mental Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy for Un
belief—Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — The Shepherd of our Souls
— Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the World.
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Jennings' Ecclesia Anglicana.
Crown Zvo. ys. 6d.
Ecclesia Anglicana. A History of the Church of Christ in
England, from the Earliest to the Present Times.
By the Rev. Arthur Charles Jennings, M.A.,
yesus College, Cambridge, sometime Tyrwhitt Scholar, Crosse Scholar, Hebrew
University Prizeman, Fry Scholar of S. John's College, Cams and
Scholefeld Prizeman, and Rector of King's Stanley,

Bickersteth's The Lord's Table.
Second Edition. z6rno. is. ; or Cloth extra} 2s.
The Lord's Table ; or, Meditations on the Holy Communion Office
in the Book of Common Prayer.
By E. H. Bickersteth, D.D.,
Bishop of Exeter.
' We must draw our review to an end, and sincere thanks to Mr. Bickersteth for
without using any more of our own words, this goodly and profitable "Companion to
except one parting expression of cordial the Communion Service.'" — Record.
Manuals of Religious Instruction.
New and Revised Editions. S-mallZvo. 3s. 6d. each. Sold separately.
Manuals of Religious Instruction.
Edited by John Pilkington Norris, D.D.,
Archdeacon of Bristol and Canon Residentiary of Bristol Cathedral.
I. The Catechism and Prayer Book.
II. The Old Testament.
III. The New Testament.

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Aids to the Inner Life.
Five Vols, yimo, Cloth limp, 6d. each ; or Cloth extra, is. each.
Sold separately.
These Five Volumes, Cloth extra, may be had in a Box, price 7s.
Also an Edition with Red Borders, is. each.
Aids to the Inner Life.
Edited by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings, M. A.,
Rector ofKirkby Misperton, Yorkshire.
These books form a series of works provided for the use of members of the
English Church. The process of adaptation is not left to the reader, but has
been undertaken with the view of bringing every expression, as far as possible,
into harmony with the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican Divinity.
OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. In Four Books. By Thomas A
Kempis.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy
Days throughout the Year.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE. From the French of S.
Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva.
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL. From the French of Jean Nicolas
Grou.
THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT. Together with the Supplement and the Path
of Paradise. By Laurence Scupoli.
*We heartily wish success to this im- venient for common use. The price at
portant series, and trust it may command an which the volumes are produced is marvel-
extensive sale. We are much struck, not lously low. It may be hoped that a large
only by the excellent manner in which the circulation will secure from loss those who
design has been carried out in the Transla- have undertaken this scheme for diffusing
tions themselves, but also by the way in far and1 wide such valuable means of
which Messrs. Kivington have done their advancing and deepening, after so high a
part. The type and size of the volumes are standard, the spirituaF life.' — Literary
precisely what will be found most con- ChurcJtman.
Blunt's Theological Dictionary.
Second Edition. Imperial Zvo. 41s. ; or in half-morocco, sis. 6d.
Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology.
By Various Writers.
Edited by the Eev. John Henry Blunt, D.D.,
Editor ofthe ' Annotated Book of Common Prayer,' etc., etc.

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OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS. 39
N orris's Rudiments of Theology.
Second Edition, revised. Crown Zvo. js. 6d,
Rudiments of Theology. A First Book for Students.
By John Pilkington Norrls, D.D.,
Archdeacon of Bristol, and Canoji Residentiary of Bristol Cathedral.
Contents.
Part I. — Fundamental Doctrines :— The Doctrine of God's Existence — The
Doctrine ofthe Second Person of the Trinity— The Doctrine of the Atonement
— The Doctrine of the Third Person of the Trinity — The Doctrine of The Church
— The Doctrine of the Sacraments.
Part II. — The Soteriology of the Bidle: — The Teaching of the Old
Testament — The Teaching of the Four Gospels — The Teaching of S. Paul —
The Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of S. Peter and S. John — Soterio
logy of the Bible (concluded).
Appendix — Illustrations of Part I. from the Early Fathers: — On the
Evidence of God's Existence — On the Divinity of Christ — On the Doctrine of
the Atonement — On the Procession of the Holy Spirit — On The Church — On the
Doctrine of the Eucharist — Greek and Latin Fathers quoted or referred to in
this volume, in their chronological order — Glossarial Index.

Medd's Bampton Lectures.

The One Mediator. The Operation of the Son of God in Nature
and in Grace. Eight Lectures delivered before the University of
Oxford in the year 1882, on the Foundation of the late Rev. John
Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury.
By Peter Goldsmith Medd, M.A.,
Rector of North Cerney ; Hon. Canon ofS. Aldan's, and Examining
Chaplain to the Bishop ; late Rector of Barnes ; Formerly
Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford.

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H. L. Sidney Lear's Christian Biographies.
Eight Vols. Crown Zvo. 3s. 6d. each. Sold separately.
Christian Biographies.
By H. L. Sidney Lear.
MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE, Daughter of Louis XV., known also
as the Mother Terese de S. Augustin.
A DOMINICAN ARTIST: a Sketch ofthe Life of the Rev. Pere Besson, of
the Order of S. Dominic.
HENRI PERREYVE. By A. Geatey. Translated by special permission.
With Portrait.
S. FRANCIS DE SALES, Bishop and Prince of Geneva.
THE REVIVAL OF PRIESTLY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY IN FRANCE. Charles de Condren— S. Philip Neri and
Cardinal de Berulle — S. Vincent de Paul — Saint Sulpice and Jean Jacques
Olier.
A CHRISTIAN PAINTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY:
being the Life of Hippolyte Flandrin.
BOSSUET AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
FENELON, ARCHBISHOP OF CAMBRAI.
H. L. Sidney Lear's Five Minutes.
Third Edition. i6mo. 3s. 6d.
Five Minutes. Daily Readings of Poetry.
Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear.
Pusey's Private Prayers.
Second Edition. Royal 3imo. is. 6d.
Private Prayers.
By the Rev. B. B. Pusey, D.D.
Edited, with a Preface, by H. P. Liddon, D.D., D.C.L.
Chancellor and Canon of St. Pauls.

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Half-a-Crown Editions of Devotional
Works.
New and Uniform Editions.
Seven Vols. i6mo. is. dd. each. Sold separately.
Half-a-Crown Editions of Devotional Works.
Edited by H. L. Sidney Lear.
SPIRITUAL LETTERS TO MEN. By Archbishop Fenelon.
SPIRITUAL LETTERS TO WOMEN. By Archbishop Fenelon.
A SELECTION FROM THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS OF S. FRANCIS
DE SALES, BISHOP AND PRINCE OF GENEVA.
THE SPIRIT OF S. FRANCIS DE SALES, BISHOP AND PRINCE
OF GENEVA.
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL.
THE LIGHT OF THE CONSCIENCE. With an Introduction by the
Rev. T. T. Cartee, M.A.
SELF-RENUNCIATION. From the French. With an Introduction by the
Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A.
H. L. Sidney Lear's Weariness.
Large Type. Fourth Edition. Small Zvo. $s.
Weariness. A* Book for the Languid and Lonely.
By H. L. Sidney Lear,
Author of ' For Days and Years,' ' Christian Biographies,' etc., etc.
Maxims from Pusey.
Third Edition. Crown i6mo. is.
Maxims and Gleanings from the Writings of Edward Bouverie
Pusey, D.D.
Selected and arranged for Daily Use, by C. M.~ S.,
Compiler of 'Daily Gleanings of the Saintly Life,' ' Under the Cross,' etc.
With an Introduction by the Rev. M. F. Sadler,
Prebendary of Wells, and Rector of Honiton.

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Body's Life of Justification.
Sixth Edition. Crown Zvo. 4s. 6d.
The Life of Justification. A Series of Lectures, delivered in
substance at All Saints', Margaret Street.
By the Bev. George Body, D.D.,
Canon of Durham.
("Contents.
Justification the Want of Humanity-prChrist our Justification — Union with
Christ the Condition of Justification — Conversion and Justification — The Life of
Justification — The Progress and End of Justification.

Keys to Christian Knowledge.
Seven Volumes. Small Zvo. is. 6d. each. Sold separately.
The 2s. 6d. Edition may still be had. 1
Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, D.D.,
Editor of the ' Annotated Bible,' ' Annotated Book of Common Prayer,' etc., etc.
THE HOLY BIBLE.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
CHURCH HISTORY (Ancient).
CHURCH HISTORY (Modern).
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE (founded
on the Church Catechism).
Edited by John Pilkington Norrie, D.D.,
Archdeacon of Bristol, and Canon Residentiary of Bristol Cathedral.
Editor ofthe ' New Testament with Notes,' etc.
THE FOUR GOSPELS.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

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