John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity
The Life of the
Rev. John WesleyPart 1
THE ancestors of Mr. Wesley were Nonconformists. His father, the Rev. Samuel Wesley, however, embraced early in life High Church principles. Having written in defense of the Revolution of 1688, after he had refused flattering offers made by the adherents of James II. to support the measures of the court, he was presented with the rectory of Epworth in Lincolnshire; and to this living was added, in a few years afterwards, that of Wroote in the same county. Mrs. Susanna Wesley, the mother of Mr. John Wesley, was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, and was, as might be expected from the eminent character of her father, educated with great care. Like her husband she also early renounced Nonconformity, and became a member of the Established Church. The serious habits impressed upon both by their education did not forsake them; — they feared God and worked righteousness: But there was an obscurity on several great points of evangelical religion which hung over their minds till towards the close of life. This probably resulted from the early change in their religious connections, and from the study of a class of Divines of the Church of
England whose writings exhibited either very imperfect or erroneous views of the doctrine of justification by faith, and of the offices of the Holy Spirit.
Mrs. Wesley instructed her own children in their early years. She appears to have felt a peculiar interest in John, from the circumstance of his providential escape when the parsonage-house was destroyed by fire, regarding that event as imposing on her in obligation "to be more particularly careful of the soul of a child whom God had so mercifully provided for." The effect of this special care on the part of the mother, under the divine blessing, appeared in his becoming early serious. In 1714, when he was eleven years of age, he was placed at the Charter-House, "where he was noticed for his diligence and progress in learning."
At the age of seventeen, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, where he pursued his studies with distinguished success. At college he appears to have fallen into a state of religious carelessness, from which he was aroused when about to take Deacon’s orders. The advice of his excellent mother in her correspondence with him, at this important period of his life, had a salutary effect on his mind. He was ordained Deacon in September, 1725; in the spring of 1726, he was elected Fellow of Lincoln College; and such was the high opinion which was entertained of his talents and literary acquirements, that on the 7th of November in the same year he was chosen Greeks Lecturer and Moderator of the Classes, although he was then little more than twenty-three years of age. In February, 1727, he took the degree of Master of Arts, and in the following year obtained Priest’s orders. In the month of August, 1727, he had become his father’s Curate; but the Rector of his college requiring his residence, he settled again at Oxford in November, 1729.
From this time the religious character of Mr. Wesley became prominent.
During his absence from Oxford, as his father’s Curate, his younger brother Charles had become serious, and persuading two or three students to accompany him, they attended the weekly sacrament, and observed the method of study prescribed by the University: This obtained for Charles the name of "Methodist." To the little society thus formed by his brother.
Mr. John Wesley joined himself on his return to Oxford, and by the force of his character soon became the head of it. He has recorded the following account of its original members: — "In November, 1729, four young gentlemen of Oxford, — Mr. John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College; Mr. Charles Wesley, Student of Christ Church; Mr. Morgan, Commoner of Christ Church; and Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College — began to spend some evenings in a week together, in reading chiefly the Greek Testament.
The next year, two or three of Mr. John Wesley’s pupils desired the liberty of meeting with them, and afterwards one of Mr. Charles Wesley’s pupils. It was in 1732 that Mr. Ingham, of Queen’s College, and Mr. Broughton, of Exeter, were added to their number. To these in April was joined Mr. Clayton, of Brazen-Nose, with two or three of his pupils about the same time Mr. James Hervey was permitted to meet with them, and in 1735 Mr. Whitefield." The life of Mr. Wesley was now eminently strict and devout. "He communicated every week; he watched against all sins and began to aim at, and pray for, inward holiness." And he and his companions were anxious to promote also the welfare of others. They visited the prisoners in Oxford gaol, and spent two or three hours a week in visiting the poor and sick, generally, where the parish Ministers did not object to it. In this novel course they were exhorted to persevere by his father, whom Mr. Wesley consulted on the subject; and even his eldest brother Samuel, notwithstanding his High Church principles, gave them similar advice. At this time, however, it is evident, Mr. Wesley was seeking justification before God by endeavoring after a perfect obedience to his law. Bishop Taylor and Mr. Law were his religious guides; who, however beautiful and exact might be the picture of practical piety which they drew, exhibited very imperfect views of the method by which a sinner is to obtain reconciliation with his offended God.
In April, 1735, the father of Mr. Wesley died. He had been for some time evidently ripening for the change; clearer views of faith had been obtained by him in his illness, and his last hours were cheered by the abundant consolations of religion. The decline of his father’s health had proved the occasion of painful exercise to Mr. Wesley. The venerable Rector, anxious to provide for the spiritual wants of his parishioners, and solicitous to promote the future welfare of the family, for whom no competent provision appears to have been made, urged his son to make interest for the next presentation to the living. The other members of the family joined in entreating him; but so strong was his conviction that he should be better enabled to cultivate personal piety, and should have greater opportunities of usefulness, by remaining at Oxford, that he sacrificed his feelings, and declined his fathers request. In a few months after his father’s death, however, an occurrence took place which produced a change in his purpose of remaining at Oxford. The Trustees of the new colony of Georgia, who wished to send out Clergymen to administer to the spiritual wants of the colonists, and also to attempt the conversion of the Indians, directed their attention to Mr. Wesley and some of his associates at Oxford. After due deliberation, and consulting his friends, Mr. Wesley accepted the offer of the Trustees; and in thus concluding to quit Oxford, he acted with as perfect sincerity as in his previous determination to remain there. He was persuaded that in Georgia he should have a yet wider field of usefulness, and that there he should be called to endure greater privations and hardships, which, according to his then defective views of religion, he regarded as necessary to his perfection. His brother Charles determined to accompany him and received holy orders; and Mr. Ingham and Mr. Delamotte also embarked in the same undertaking. The most important circumstance of the voyage was Mr. Wesley’s obtaining the acquaintance of several members of the Moravian Church who went out in the same ship, as settlers in the new province. On commencing the voyage Mr. Wesley began the study of German, in order that he might be able to converse with them; and in their deep humility, their calmness in danger, and their deliverance from the fear of death, he obtained such a view of the power of religion as his own experience had never yet afforded.
They reached Georgia in February, 1736. Mr. Charles Wesley took charge of Frederica, and Mr. John of Savannah, where, the house not being ready, he resided with the Germans, with whose spirit and conduct he became still more favorably impressed. Mr. Charles Wesley, after having suffered great persecution at Frederica, was sent in July, the same year, to England, with dispatches from the Governor, Mr. Oglethorpe, to the Trustees and Board of Trade. Mr. John Wesley in his visits to Frederica met with much opposition and abuse; but in Savannah he was rapidly gaining influence, when a circumstance occurred which led to his departure from Georgia. He had formed an attachment to an accomplished young lady, niece to the wife of Mr. Causton, chief Magistrate of Savannah; but in consequence of the remonstrances of Mr. Delamotte, who suspected Miss Hopkey’s professions of piety, he consulted the elders of the Moravian Church. By them he was dissuaded from making offers of marriage to her but it appears, that, in yielding to his sense of duty, he had a considerable struggle with his own feelings. The lady was soon after married to a Mr. Williamson; her friends, however, cherished a hostile feeling towards Mr. Wesley, which they shortly found opportunity to manifest. Mr. Wesley rigidly adhered to the rubric of the Church of England, and refused to admit those to the Lord’s supper whom he judged unworthy, without respect of persons; and some time after the marriage of Mrs. Williamson, perceiving some things in her conduct of which he disapproved, he, after ineffectually endeavoring to produce amendment in her, repelled her from the communion. Immediately the storm broke forth. A prosecution was commenced against him by Mr. Williamson, for defamation of his wife’s character; and such a combination was formed among those in power to oppress him, that he was led eventually to ask the advice of his friends as to what he should do. They gave it as their opinion that he was not called by Providence to remain longer in the colony: In this opinion he coincided, and sailed shortly after for England.
On his voyage home, Mr. Wesley solemnly reviewed his religious state and experience; and the record which he made in his Journal on that occasion affords an interesting view of a sincere mind earnestly engaged in the search of truth. He was early warned, he says, "against laying too much stress on outward works as the Papists do." Afterwards he read some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, who seemed to him, on the other hand, too much to magnify faith. Then he resorted to such English writers as Beveridge, Taylor, and Nelson, whose views he thought more consonant with Scripture. His attention was next turned to the Fathers.
From them he went to the Mystic writers; but here be found not what he sought. He soon saw the dangerous tendency of their system, and renounced them as guides. "And now," he adds, "it is upwards of two years since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity; but what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why, (what I least of all suspected,) that I, who went to America to convert others, was never converted myself." Such was his conclusion respecting his state. At Oxford he was convinced that he did not fully come up to the scriptural standard of a Christian; but in Georgia, although the Germans had not been made instrumental in fully enlightening him as to the nature of faith, he had learned, however, that he had to go down again to the very foundation, — that he yet needed conversion. 1
Mr. Wesley arrived in London, February 3, 1738; and in four days after, he met with Peter Bohler, a Minister of the Moravian Church. Under divine Providence, the 7th of February, 1738, proved an important epoch in Mr. Wesley’s life; for his conversation with Bohler that day was the means of bringing his mind to correct views of the nature of faith. It is evident from his own account of himself that he had formerly regarded faith, generally, as a principle of belief in the Gospel, which, by quickening his efforts to self-mortification and entire obedience, would raise him, through a renewed state of heart, into acceptance and peace with God. By this and subsequent conversations with Bohler, he was led to see his error, and was fully "convinced that his faith had been too much separated from an evangelical view of the promises of a free justification, or pardon of sin through the atonement and mediation of Christ alone, which was the reason why he had been held in continual bondage and fear." An appeal to Scripture silenced his principal objections to Böhler’s statements respecting instantaneous conversion. "I had," he remarks, "but one retreat left on this subject: Thus I grant God wrought in the first ages of Christianity; but the times are changed; what reason have I to believe he works in the same manner now?" From this retreat, however, he was speedily driven; for on Sunday, April 23rd, he heard the testimony of several living witnesses that God saves now as in the ancient times. "Here ended," says he, "my disputing. I could now only cry out, Lord, help thou my unbelief!" 2
Immediately Mr. Wesley began to preach that doctrine of faith which he had thus been taught; and he and a few others formed themselves into a religious society, which met in Fetter-lane. The rules of this society were printed under the title of "Orders of a religious society, meeting in Fetter-lane, in obedience to the command of God by St. James, and by the advice of Peter Bohler. 1738." But although Mr. Wesley and his friends thus assembled with the Moravians, they remained members of the Church of England.
Mr. Wesley dates his conversion from May 24, 1738. His mind had been particularly impressed during that day with certain passages of Scripture which had occurred to him; and "in the evening," he says, "I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." Mr. Charles Wesley also was made partaker of the same grace.
Peter Bohler had visited him in his sickness at Oxford but it was the reading of Halyburton’s Life, some time afterwards, which convinced him of the want of that faith which brings "peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
Luther on the Galatians deepened his convictions, and increased his earnestness in seeking salvation till at length, on Whitsunday, May: 21st, three days before his brother John found peace, he was enabled, while reading some encouraging portions of Scripture, to view Christ as set forth to be a propitiation for his sins, through faith in his blood; and he received that peace and rest in God which he had so ardently sought.3
When Mr. Wesley was in Georgia he formed the design of visiting Germany on his return to Europe; and immediately after his conversion he determined to carry this purpose into effect, with a view to the confirmation of his faith. "I hoped," he says, "the conversing with those holy men who were themselves living witnesses of the full power of faith, and yet able to bear with those that are weak, would be a means, under God, of so establishing my soul, that I night go on from faith to faith, and ‘from strength to strength.’" On this journey he formed an acquaintance with many pious Ministers in Holland and Germany. At Marienhorn he was much profited by the conversation of Count Zinzendorf, and others of the brethren of the Moravian establishment. He spent a fortnight at Hernhuth, conversing with the elders, and observing the economy of that church; part of which, with modifications, he afterwards introduces among his own societies. Having accomplished the object of his visit, he returned to England. He reached London on Saturday night, September 16, 1738; and the following day, Sunday, he says, "I began to declare again in my own country the glad tidings of salvation, preaching three times, and afterwards expounding the holy Scriptures to a large company in the Minories. On Monday I rejoiced to meet with our little society, which now consisted of thirty-two persons. The next day I went to the condemned felons in Newgate, and offered them free salvation. In the evenings I went to a society 4 in Bear-yard, and perplexed repentance and remission of sins. The next evening I spoke the truth in love at a society in Aldersgate-street." 5
Mr. Wesley’s career of distinguished usefulness now fully commenced. Filled with sympathy for his fellow-men, who wandered in the darkness and wretchedness of sin, he preached to them the way of salvation which he himself had found. And there existed an awful need for the utmost efforts of himself and the little band with which he was associated. The religious and moral state of the nation at that time exhibited the most appalling aspect. The civil war, had exerted a baneful effort on the cause of religion; but the rapid decay of religious light and influence, from the restoration of the Stuarts to the time of the Wesley’s, is perhaps without a parallel in the history of any Christian country. In the Established Church, the doctrines generally preached verged towards Pelagianism; in a great number of instances the Clergy were ignorant and immoral, and the mass of the people were sunk; in profligacy. And the state of things among the dissenters was deplorable enough. The Presbyterians were urging their downward course through Arianism to Socinianism; and the doctrines of Calvin had, among those who still held to them, degenerated in too many instances into Antinomianism. Such was the state of religion and morals when Mr. Wesley began his course.
At this period Mr. Wesley had evidently formed no specific plan to guide his future proceedings; but embraced such opportunities for usefulness as were providentially afforded him. Wherever he was invited, he preached the obsolete doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. In London great crowds followed him; but the Clergy generally objected to his statement of the doctrine, and it was not long before most of the churches in London were shut against him. Great multitudes, however, had heard the word, and the results of his ministry were seen in the numbers who were brought under religious concern. In writing to the Church at Hernhuth under the date of October 13th, 1738, Mr. Wesley states, that they had then eight bands of men, consisting of fifty-six persons, all of whom were seeking salvation only through the blood of Christ; that in addition to these there were two small bands of women, amounting to eight persons; and that there were many others who were waiting for instruction.
In December, the same year, Mr. Whitefield returned from America, and he and Mr. Wesley again "took sweet counsel together." In the spring of the next year Mr. Wesley went to Bristol. He first expounded to a small society in Nicholas-street, and the next day, overcoming his scruples, he followed Mr. Whitefield’s example, and preached in the open air, on an eminence near the city, to about three thousand persons. On this practice, which had been in the first instance so revolting to his sense of decency and order, he observes in his Journal, "I have since seen abundant reason to adore the wise providence of God herein, making a way for myriads of people who never troubled any church, or were likely to do so, to hear that word which they soon found to be the power of God unto salvation."
About this time some disputes took place in the Fetter-lane society as to lay preaching; and Mr. Charles Wesley, in the absence of his brother, declared warmly against it. While his brother was still at Bristol, he had also a painful interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who objected to the irregularity of his course, and hinted at proceeding to excommunication. This conversation was to him the occasion of great perplexity of mind, which being observed by Mr. Whitefield, he urged him to preach in the fields the following Sunday, and thus commit himself almost beyond the possibility of retreat. He followed this advice, and preached, on June 24th, to nearly a thousand persons in Moorfields. At Oxford, the Dean dealt severely with him in regard of field-preaching; but on his return to London, he resumed the practice in Moorfields, and on Kennington common; and many were aroused to a serious inquiry after religion. On one occasion it was calculated that ten thousand persons were assembled to hear him.
Mr. John Wesley visited London in the summer of 1739, but shortly returned to Bristol. The labors of the two brothers and of Mr. Whitefield proved eminently successful in the neighborhood of Kingswood. The colliers had been proverbial for wickedness; but many of them became truly exemplary for their piety. So considerable was the number of those who were brought under the saving influence of the Gospel, that the Bristol Clergy refused to admit them to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, being unwilling to have so much additional labor imposed upon them. The beneficial effect of the ministry of Mr. Wesley and his fellow laborers among the colliers of that neighborhood was very apparent the following year, when a riot took place. The great body of the colliers had risen on account of the dearness of bread, and marched to Bristol. They compelled many of the Methodist colliers to go with them; and such was the influence which these exerted over the rest, that they were restrained from violence, and all returned to their habitations without committing any outrage.
At this time Mr. Wesley visited Bath; and was interrupted in his preaching there by the celebrated Beau Nash. He then returned to London, and preached to very great multitudes in Moorfields, on Kennington-Common, and at other places; and many were awakened to a sense of sin. In the month of October he accepted an invitation to visit Wales; where, although the churches were shut against him, he preached in private houses, and in the open air, often during sharp frosts, and was gladly received by the people, who were generally, as Mr. Wesley himself represented them, "indeed ripe for the Gospel."
About this period Mr. Wesley stated his doctrinal views in perhaps as clear a manner as at any subsequent period. To a pious Clergyman, who wished to know in what points he differed from the Church of England, he answered, that, to the best of his knowledge, he differed in none; the doctrines of the Church of England being the doctrines which he preached.
He then explained his views on some of the principal doctrines; and showed that those of the Clergy who disagreed with him on those points, differed from the Church of England also.
Disputes having arisen between the Methodists and Moravians, who still formed one society in Fetter-lane, Mr. Wesley returned to London. Over this society he professed to have no authority; and various new doctrines of a mystical kind, which he thought dangerous, having been introduced by several of the teachers, he at length, after several unsuccessful attempts to adjust matters, determined to withdraw. In July, 1740, after having read a paper explanatory of his views, he separated from the society. Those who continued to adhere to him then met at the Foundry, near Moorfields, which he had previously taken; and the whole number amounted to about twenty-two. Towards the Moravian Church at large, Mr. Wesley continued to feel an unabated affection; but as he was never a member of that Church, and maintained only a kind of co-fraternity with those of them who were in London, his declining further intercourse with them was a step of prudence and of peace. The errors which had crept in among the Moravians in London at that time, were a refined species of Antinomianism, and mystic notions of ceasing from ordinances and waiting for faith in stillness; and these errors were afterwards carried by them into many of the, Methodist societies in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and other places.
The Methodist Society, as that name distinguishes the people who to this day acknowledge Mr. Wesley as their Founder under God, was, properly speaking, formed in the year 1739, in the chapel at Moorfields, where he regularly preached, and where, by the blessing of God upon his and Mr. Charles Wesley’s labors, the society rapidly increased. For this, and the societies in Bristol, Kingswood, and other parts, he, in 1743, drew up a set of rules, which continue in force to the present time, and the observance of which was then, and continues to be, the condition of membership.
Of these rules it may be sufficient to remark, that they relate entirely to moral conduct, to charitable offices, and to the observance of the ordinances of God; and evangelical Churchmen or Dissenters, walking by these Rules, might be members of the society, provided they held their doctrinal views and disciplinary prepossessions in peace and charity. The sole object of the union was to assist the members; "to make their calling and election sure," by cultivating the religion of the heart, and a holy conformity to the laws of Christ. These Rules bear the signature of John and Charles Wesley.
The mother of Mr. Wesley now began to attend his ministry. She had been somewhat prejudiced against her sons by reports of their "errors" and "extravagancies;" but was convinced, upon hearing them, that they spoke "according to the oracles of God." The extraordinary manner in which some persons were frequently affected under. Mr. Wesley’s preaching, as well as that of his coadjutors, now created much discussion, and to many gave great offense. Some were seized with trembling, under a painful conviction of sin; others sunk down and uttered loud and piercing cries; and others fell into a kind of agony. In some instances, while prayer was offered for them, they rose up with a sudden change of feeling, and testified that they had "redemption through the blood of Christ, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Mr. Samuel Wesley, who denied the possibility of attaining to a knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, treated these things, in a correspondence with his brother, alternately with sarcasm and serious severity, and particularly attacked the doctrine of assurance. In this controversy, Mr. John Wesley attaches no weight whatever to these outward agitations; but contends that he is bound to believe the profession of an inward change made by many, who had been so affected, because that had been confirmed by their subsequent conduct and spirit. On the subject of assurance, both the disputants put forth their logical acuteness; but the result appears to have been, upon the whole, instructive to the elder brother, whose letters soften considerably towards the close of the correspondence. Mr. Samuel Wesley died in the following November.
About this time a disagreement of opinion took place between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield. Mr. Wesley, being impressed with the strong tendency of the Calvinistic doctrines to produce Antinomianism, published a sermon against Absolute Predestination, at which Mr. Whitefield who had some time previously embraced that notion, took offense. A controversy between them, embracing some other points, ensued, which issued in a temporary estrangement, and they labored from this time independently of each other; their societies in London, Kingswood, and other places, being, kept quite separate. A reconciliation, however, took place between Mr. Wesley and Mr. Whitefield some years afterwards, so that they preached in each other’s chapels; and Mr. Wesley preached the funeral sermon on Mr. Whitefield’s death, at the chapel in Tottenham-court-road, and also at the Tabernacle in Moorfields.
Several Preachers, not episcopally ordained, were now employed by Mr. Wesley to assist in the growing work, which already had swelled beyond even his and his brothers active powers suitably to supply with the ministration of the word of God. Mr. Charles Wesley had discouraged this from the beginning, and even he himself hesitated; but with John, the promotion of religion was the first concern, and church-order the second, although inferior in consideration to that only. With Charles these views were often reversed. Mr. Wesley, in the year 1741, had to caution his brother against joining the Moravians, after the example of Mr. Gamhold, to which he was at that time inclined; and adds, "I am not clear, that brother Maxfield should not expound at Grayhound-lane; nor can I as yet do without him. Our Clergymen have increased full as much as the Preachers." Mr. Maxfield’s preaching had the strong sanction of the Countess of Huntingdon; but so little of design, with reference to the forming of a sect, had Mr. Wesley, in the employment of Mr. Maxfield, that, in his own absence from London he had only authorized him to pray with the society, and to advise them as might be needful; and upon his beginning to preach, he hastened back to silence him. On this his mother addressed him: "John, you know what my sentiments have been. You cannot suspect me of favoring readily anything of this kind. But take care what you do with respect to that young man; for he is as surely called of God to preach, as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him also yourself." He took advice, and could not venture to forbid him.
His defense of himself on this point may be pronounced irrefutable, and turns upon the disappointment of the hope which he had ever cherished that the parochial Clergy would take the charge of those who in different places had been turned to God by his ministry, and that of his fellow laborers.
"It pleased God," says Mr. Wesley, "by two or three Ministers of the Church of England, to call many sinners to repentance, who, in several parts, were undeniably turned from a course of sin to a course of holiness.
"The Ministers of the places where this was done ought to have received those Ministers with open arms; and to have taken those persons who had just begun to serve God into their particular care; watching over them in tender love, lest they should fall back into the snare of the devil.
"Instead of this, the greater part spoke of those Ministers, as if the devil, not God, had sent them. Some repelled them from the Lord’s table; others stirred up the people against them, representing them, even in their public discourses, as fellows not fit to live; Papists, heretics, traitors; conspirators against their King and country.
"And how did they watch over the sinners lately reformed? Even as a leopard watcheth over his prey. They drove some of them from the Lord’s table; to which, till now, they had no desire to approach. They preached all manner of evil concerning them, openly cursing them in the name of the Lord. They turned many out of their work, persuaded others to do so too, and harassed them in all manner of ways.
"The event was, that some were wearied out, and so turned back to the vomit again; and then these good Pastors gloried over them, and endeavored to shake others by their example.
"When the Ministers, by whom God had helped them before, came again to those places, great part of their work was to begin again, if it could be begun again; but the relapsers were often so hardened in sin, that no impression could be made upon them.
"What could they do in a case of so extreme necessity, where so many souls lay at stake?
"No Clergyman would assist at all. The expedient that remained was, to find some one among themselves who was upright of heart, and of sound judgment in the things of God; and to desire him to meet the rest as often as he could, in order to confirm them, as he was able, in the ways of God, either by reading to them, or by prayer, or by exhortation."
This statement may indeed be considered as affording the key to all that, with respect to church-order, may be called irregularity in Mr. Wesley’s future proceedings. God had given him large fruits of his ministry in various places; when he was absent from them, the people were "as sheep having no shepherd," or were rather persecuted by their natural Pastors, the Clergy; he was reduced, therefore, to the necessity of leaving them without religious care, or of providing it for them. He wisely chose the latter; but, true to his own principles, and even prejudices, he carried this no farther than the necessity of the case: The hours of service were in no instance to interfere with those of the Establishment, and at the parish church the members were exhorted to communicate. Thus a religious society was raised up within the national Church, and with this anomaly, that as to all its interior arrangements, as a society, it was independent of its ecclesiastical authority. The irregularity was, in principle, as great when the first step was taken as at any future time. It was a form of practical
and partial separation, though not of theoretical dissent; but it arose out of a moral necessity, and existed for some years in such a state, that, had the Clergy been disposed to co-operate in this evident revival and spread of true religion, and had the heads of the Church been willing to sanction itinerant labors among its Ministers, and private religious meetings among the serious part of the people for mutual edification, the great body of Methodists might have been retained in strict communion with the Church of England.