Robert Southey

Methodists.—Wesley and Whitfield.—Different Methods of attacking the Establishment.—Tithes.—Methodism approaches Popery, and paves the Way for it.—William Huntingdon, S. S.

In the year 1729 a great rent was made in the ragged robe of heresy. Wesley and Whitfield were the Luther and Calvin of this schism, which will probably, at no very remote time, end in the overthrow of the Established Heretical Church.

They began when young men at Oxford by collecting together a few persons who were of serious dispositions like themselves, meeting together in prayer, visiting the prisoners, and communicating whenever the sacrament was administered. Both took orders in the Establishment, and for awhile differed only from their brethren by preaching with more zeal. But they soon outwent them in heresy also, and began to preach of the inefficacy and worthlessness of good works, and of the necessity of being born again, a doctrine which they perverted into the wildest enthusiasm. The new birth they affirmed was to take place instantaneously, and to be accompanied with an assurance of salvation; but throes and agonies worse than death were to precede it. The effect which they produced by such a doctrine, being both men of burning fanaticism, and of that kind of eloquence which suited their hearers, is wonderful. They had no sooner convinced their believers of the necessity of this new birth, than instances enough took place. The people were seized with demoniacal convulsions; shrieks and yells were set up by frantic women; men fell as if shot through the heart; and after hours of such sufferings and contortions as required the immediate aid either of the exorcist or the beadle, they became assured that they were born again, and fully certain that their redemption was now sealed.

There may have been some trick in these exhibitions, but that in the main there was no wilful deception is beyond a doubt. DuÆ res, says StAugustine, faciunt in homine omnia peccata, timor scilicet et cupiditas: timor facit fugere omnia quÆ sunt carni molesta; cupiditas facit habere omnia quÆ sunt carni suavia. These powerful passions were excited in the most powerful degree. They terrified their hearers as children are terrified by tales of apparitions, and the difference of effect was according to the difference of the dose, just as the drunkenness produced by brandy is more furious than that which is produced by wine. All those affections which are half-mental, half-bodily, are contagious;—yawning, for instance, is always, and laughter frequently so. When one person was thus violently affected, it was like jarring a string in a room full of musical instruments. The history of all opinions evinces that there are epidemics of the mind.

Such scenes could not be tolerated in the churches. They then took to the streets and fields, to the utter astonishment of the English clergy, who in their ignorance cried out against this as a novelty. Had these men, happily for themselves, been born in a catholic country, it is most probable that they might indeed have been burning and shining lights. Their zeal, their talents, and their intrepid and indefatigable ardour, might have made them saints instead of heresiarchs, had they submitted themselves to the unerring rule of faith, instead of blindly trusting to their own perverted judgments. It was of such men, and of such errors, that StLeo the Great said: In hanc insipientiam cadunt, qui cum ad cognoscendam veritatem aliquo impediuntur obscuro, non ad Propheticas voces, non ad Apostolicas literas, nec ad Evangelicas auctoritates, sed ad semetipsos recurrunt; sed ideo magistri erroris existunt, quia veritatis discipuli non fuere.

Thousands and tens of thousands flocked to hear them; and the more they were opposed the more rapidly their converts increased. Riots were raised against them in many places, which were frequently abetted by the magistrates. There is a good anecdote recorded of the mayor of Tiverton, who was advised to follow Gamaliel's advice, and leave the Methodists (as they are called) and their religion to themselves. "What, sir!" said he: "Why, what reason can there be for any new religion in Tiverton? another way of going to Heaven when there are so many already? Why, sir, there's the Old Church and the New Church, that's one religion; there's Parson Kiddell's at the Pitt Meeting, that's two; Parson Westcott's in Peter Street, that's three; and old Parson Terry's in Newport Street, is four.—Four ways of going to Heaven already!—and if they won't go to Heaven by one or other of these ways, by —— they sha'n't go to Heaven at all from Tiverton, while I am mayor of the town."—The outrages of the mob became at length so violent that the sufferers appealed to the laws for protection, and from that time they have remained unmolested.

The two leaders did not long agree. Wesley had deliberately asserted, that no good works can be done before justification, none which have not in them the nature of sin,—the abominable doctrine which the Bonzes of Japan preach in honour of their deity Amida! Whitfield added to this the predestinarian heresy, at once the most absurd and most blasphemous that ever human presumption has devised. The Methodists divided under these leaders into the two parties of Arminians and Calvinists. Both parties protested against separating from the Church, though they were excluded from the churches. Wesley however, who was the more ambitious of the two, succeeded in establishing a new church government, of which he was the heretical pope. There was no difficulty in obtaining assistants; he admitted lay preachers, and latterly administered ordination himself. The oeconomy of his church is well constructed. He had felt how greatly the people are influenced by novelty, and thus experimentally discovered one of the causes why the Established clergy produced so little effect. His preachers, therefore, are never to remain long in one place. A double purpose is answered by this; a perpetual succession of preachers keeps up that stimulus without which the people would relapse into conformity, and the preachers themselves are prevented from obtaining in any place that settled and rooted influence which would enable them to declare themselves independent of Wesley's Connection (as the sect is called), and open shop for themselves. An hundred of these itinerants compose the Conference, which is an annual assembly, the cortes or council of these heretics, or, like our national councils, both in one; wherein the state of their numbers and funds is reported and examined, stations appointed for the preachers, and all the affairs of the society regulated. The authority of the preachers is strengthened by the system of confession,—confession without absolution, and so perverted as to be truly mischievous. Every parish is divided into small classes, in which the sexes are separated, and also the married and the single. The members of each class are mutually to confess to and question each other, and all are to confess to the priest, to whom also the leader of each class is to report the state of each individual's conscience. The leader also receives the contributions, which he delivers to the stewards. The whole kingdom is divided into districts, to each of which there is an assistant or bishop appointed, who oversees all the congregations within his limits; and thus the conference, which is composed of these assistants and preachers, possesses a more intimate knowledge of all persons under their influence than ever was yet effected by any system of police, how rigorous soever.

While Wesley lived his authority was unlimited. He resolutely asserted it, and the right was acknowledged. It was supposed that his death would lead to the dissolution of the body, or at least a schism; but it produced no change. The absolute empire which he had exercised passed at once into a republic, or rather oligarchy of preachers, without struggle or difficulty, and their numbers have continued to increase with yearly accelerating rapidity. He lived to the great age of eighty-eight, for more than fifty years of which he had risen at four o'clock, preached twice and sometimes thrice a day, and travelled between four and five thousand miles every year, being seldom or never a week in the same place; and yet he found leisure to be one of the most voluminous writers in the language. The body lay in state for several days,—in his gown and band in the coffin, where it was visited by forty or fifty thousand persons, constables attending to maintain order. It was buried before break of day, to prevent the accidents which undoubtedly would else have taken place. For many weeks afterward a curious scene was exhibited at his different chapels, where the books of the society are always sold. One was crying "The true and genuine life of Mr Wesley!" another bawling against him, "This is the real life!" and a third vociferating to the people to beware of spurious accounts, and buy the authentic one from him.

Wesley had no wish to separate from the Establishment, and for many years he and his preachers opened their meeting-houses only at hours when there was no service in the churches. This is no longer the case, and the two parties are now at open war. The Methodists gain ground; their preachers are indefatigable in making converts: but there is no instance of any person's becoming a convert to the Establishment;—waifs and strays from other communities fall into it, such as rich Presbyterians, who are tempted by municipal honours, and young Quakers who forsake their sect because they choose to dress in the fashion and frequent the theatre; but no persons join it from conviction. The meeting-houses fill by draining the churches, of which the Methodists will have no scruple to take possession when they shall become the majority, because they profess to hold the same tenets, and to have no objection to the discipline.

The Whitfield party go a surer way to work. They assert that they hold the articles of the Church of England, which the clergy themselves do not; and therefore they cry out against the clergy as apostates and interlopers. The truth is, that the articles of this Church are Calvinistic, and that, heretical as the clergy are, they are not so heretical as they would be if they adhered to them. The Whitfield Methodists, therefore, aim, step by step, at supplanting the Church. They have funds for educating hopeful subjects and purchasing church-livings for them, simony being practised with little or no disguise in this country, where every thing has its price. Thus have they introduced a clamorous and active party into the Church, who, under the self-assumed title of Evangelical or Gospel Preachers, cry out for reform—for the letter of the articles—and are preparing to eject their supiner colleagues. In parishes where these conforming Calvinists have not got possession of the church, they have their meetings, and they have also their county rovers, who itinerate like their Wesley-brethren. The Calvinistic dissenters are gradually incorporating with them, and will in a few generations disappear.

The rapidity with which both these bodies continue to increase may well alarm the regular clergy; but they having been panic-struck by the French Revolution and Dr Priestley, think of nothing but Atheists and Socinians, and are insensible of the danger arising from this domestic enemy. The Methodists have this also in their favour, that while the end at which they are aiming is not seen, the immediate reformation which they produce is manifest. They do, what the Clergy are equally pledged to do, but neglect doing;—they keep a watchful eye over the morals of their adherents, and introduce habits of sobriety, order, and honesty. The present good, which is very great, is felt by those who do not perceive that these people lay claim to infallibility, and that intolerance is inseparable from that awful attribute which they have usurped.

The Establishment is in danger from another cause. For many years past the farmers have murmured at the payment of tithes;—a sin of old times, which has been greatly aggravated by the consequences of the national schism: since the gentry have turned farmers these murmurs have become louder, and associations have been formed for procuring the abolishment of tithes, on the ground that they impede agricultural improvements. Government has lent ear to these representations, and it is by no means improbable that it will one day avail itself of this pretext, to sell the tithes, as the land-tax has already been sold, and fund the money;—that is, make use of it for its own exigencies, and give the clergy salaries,—thus reducing them to be pensioners of the state. The right of assembling in a house of their own they have suffered to lapse; and they have suffered also without a struggle, a law to be passed declaring them incapable of sitting in the House of Commons;—which law was enacted merely for the sake of excluding an obnoxious individual. There will, therefore, be none but the bishops to defend their rights,—but the bishops look up to the crown for promotion. If such a measure be once proposed, the Dissenters will petition in its favour, and the farmers will all rejoice in it, forgetting that if the tenth is not paid to the priest it must to the landholder, whom they know by experience to be the more rigid collector of the two. When the constitutional foundations of the church are thus shaken, the Methodists, who have already a party in the legislature, will come forward, and offer a national church at a cheaper rate, which they will say is the true Church of England, because it adheres to the letter of the canons. I know not what is to save the heretical establishment, unless government should remember that when the catholic religion was pulled down, it brought down the throne in its fall.

It is not the nature of man to be irreligious; he listens eagerly to those who promise to lead him to salvation, and welcomes those who come in the name of the Lord with a warmth of faith, which makes it the more lamentable that he should so often be deluded. How then is it that the English clergy have so little hold upon the affections of the people? Partly it must be their own fault, partly the effect of that false system upon which they are established. Religion here has been divested both of its spirit and its substance—what is left is neither soul nor body, but the spectral form of what once had both, such as old chemists pretended to raise from the ashes of a flower, or the church-yard apparitions, which Gaffarel explains by this experiment. There is nothing here for the senses, nothing for the imagination,—no visible object of adoration, at which piety shall drink, as at a fountain of living waters. The church service here is not a propitiatory sacrifice, and it is regarded with less reverence for being in the vulgar tongue, being thereby deprived of all that mysteriousness which is always connected with whatever is unknown. When the resident priest is a man of zeal and beneficence, his personal qualities counteract the deadening tendency of the system; these qualities are not often found united; it is true that sometimes they are found, and that then it is scarcely possible to conceive a man more respected or more useful than an English clergyman—(saving always his unhappy heresy)—but it is also true that the clergy are more frequently inactive; that they think more of receiving their dues than of discharging their duty; that the rector is employed in secular business and secular amusements instead of looking into the spiritual concerns of his flock, and that his deputy the curate is too much upon a level with the poor to be respected by them. The consequence is, that they are yielding to the Methodists without a struggle, and that the Methodists are preparing the way for the restoration of the true church. Beelzebub is casting out Beelzebub. They are doing this in many ways: they have taught the people the necessity of being certain of their own salvation, but there is no certainty upon which the mind can rest except it be upon the absolving power of an infallible church; they have reconciled them to a belief that the age of miracles is not past,—no saint has recorded so many of himself as Wesley; and they have broken them in to the yoke of confession, which is what formerly so intolerably galled their rebellious necks. Whatever, in fact, in methodism is different from the established church, is to be found in the practices of the true church; its pretensions to novelty are fallacious; it has only revived what here, unhappily, had become obsolete, and has worsened whatever it has altered. Hence it is that they make converts among every people except the Catholics; which makes them say, in their blindness, that atheism is better than popery, for of an atheist there is hope, but a papist is irreclaimable:—that is, they can overthrow the sandy foundations of human error, but not the rock of truth. Our priests have not found them so invincible; a nephew of Wesley himself, the son of his brother and colleague, was, in his own life-time, reclaimed, and brought within the fold of the Church.

Wesley was often accused of being a Jesuit;—would to Heaven the imputation had been true! but his abominable opinions respecting good works made a gulf between him and the church as wide as that between Dives and Lazarus. Perhaps, if it had not been for this accusation, he would have approached still nearer to it, and enjoined celibacy to his preachers, instead of only recommending it.

The paroxysms and epilepsies of enthusiasm are now no longer heard of among these people,—good proof that they were real in the beginning of the sect. Occasionally an instance happens, and when it begins the disease runs through the particular congregation; this is called a great revival of religion in that place, but there it ends. Such instances are rare, and groaning and sobbing supply the place of fits and convulsions. I know a lady who was one day questioning a beggar woman concerning her way of life, and the woman told her she had been one of my lady's groaners, which she explained by saying that she was hired at so much a week to attend at Lady Huntingdon's chapel, and groan during the sermon. The countess of Huntingdon was the great patroness of Whitfield, and his preachers were usually called by her name,—which they have now dropt for the better title of Evangelicals.

Notwithstanding the precautions which the Methodists have taken to keep their preachers dependent upon the general body, the standard of revolt is sometimes erected; and a successful rebel establishes a little kingdom of his own. One of these independent chieftains has published an account of himself, which he calls God the Guardian of the Poor and the Bank of Faith. His name is William Huntington, and he styles himself S. S. which signifies Sinner Saved. The tale which this man tells is truly curious. He was originally a coal-heaver, one of those men whose occupation and singular appearance I have noticed in a former letter; but finding praying and preaching a more promising trade, he ventured upon the experiment of living by faith alone, and the experiment has answered. The man had talents, and soon obtained hearers. It was easy to let them know, without asking for either, that he relied upon them for food and clothing. At first supplies came in slowly,—a pound of tea and a pound of sugar at a time, and sometimes an old suit of clothes. As he got more hearers they found out that it was for their credit he should make a better appearance in the world. If at any time things did not come when they were wanted, he prayed for them, knowing well where his prayers would be heard. As a specimen, take a story which I shall annex in his own words, that the original may prove the truth of the translation, which might else not unreasonably be suspected.

"Having now had my horse for some time, and riding a great deal every week, I soon wore my breeches out, as they were not fit to ride in. I hope the reader will excuse my mentioning the word breeches, which I should have avoided, had not this passage of scripture obtruded into my mind, just as I had resolved in my own thoughts not to mention this kind providence of God. 'And thou shalt make linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs shall they reach,' &c. Exod. xxviii. 42, 43. By which and three others, (namely, Ezek. xliv. 18; Lev. vi. 10; and Lev. xvi. 4.) I saw that it was no crime to mention the word breeches, nor the way in which God sent them to me; Aaron and his sons being clothed entirely by Providence; and as God himself condescended to give orders what they should be made of, and how they should be cut, and I believe the same God ordered mine, as I trust it will appear in the following history.

"The scripture tells us to call no man master, for one is our master, even Christ. I therefore told my most bountiful and ever-adored master what I wanted; and he, who stripped Adam and Eve of their fig-leaved aprons, and made coats of skins and clothed them; and who clothes the grass of the field, which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven; must clothe us, or we shall soon go naked; and so Israel found it when God took away his wool, and his flax, which they prepared for Baal: for which iniquity was their skirts discovered, and their heels made bare. Jer. xiii. 22.

"I often made very free in my prayers with my valuable Master for this favour, but he still kept me so amazingly poor that I could not get them at any rate. At last I was determined to go to a friend of mine at Kingston, who is of that branch of business, to bespeak a pair; and to get him to trust me until my Master sent me money to pay him. I was that day going to London, fully determined to bespeak them as I rode through the town. However, when I passed the shop I forgot it; but when I came to London I called on Mr Croucher, a shoemaker in Shepherd's Market, who told me a parcel was left there for me, but what it was he knew not. I opened it, and behold there was a pair of leather breeches with a note in them! the substance of which was, to the best of my remembrance, as follows:

"'I have sent you a pair of breeches, and hope they will fit. I beg your acceptance of them; and, if they want any alteration, leave in a note what the alteration is, and I will call in a few days and alter them.

"'I tried them on, and they fitted as well as if I had been measured for them: at which I was amazed, having never been measured by any leather-breeches maker in London. I wrote an answer to the note to this effect:

"'I received your present, and thank you for it. I was going to order a pair of leather breeches to be made, because I did not know till now that my Master had bespoke them of you. They fit very well; which fully convinces me that the same God, who moved thy heart to give, guided thy hand to cut; because he perfectly knows my size, having clothed me in a miraculous manner for near five years. When you are in trouble, sir, I hope you will tell my Master of this, and what you have done for me, and he will repay you with honour.'

"This is as nearly as I am able to relate it; and I added:

"'I cannot make out I. S. unless I put I. for Israelite indeed, and S. for Sincerity; because you did not 'sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.'

"About that time twelvemonth I got another pair of breeches in the same extraordinary manner, without my ever being measured for them."

Step by step, by drawing on his Master, as he calls him, and persuading the congregation to accept his draft, this Sinner Saved has got two chapels of his own, a house in the country, and a coach to carry him backwards and forwards.

My curiosity was greatly excited to see the author of this book, which is not only curious for the matter which it contains, but is also written with much unaffected originality. I went accordingly to Providence Chapel. It has three galleries, built one above another like a theatre; for, when he wanted to enlarge it, an exorbitant ground-rent was demanded: "So," says the doctor, as he calls himself, "the heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath he given to the children of men. —Finding nothing could be done with the earth-holders, I turned my eyes another way, and determined to build my stories in the heaven (Amos ix. 6.), where I should find more room, and less rent." The place, however, notwithstanding its great height, was so crowded, that I could with difficulty find standing room in the door-way. The doctor was throned on high in the middle of the chapel,—in a higher pulpit than I have ever seen elsewhere: he is a fat, little-eyed man, with a dew-lap at his chin, and a velvet voice; who, instead of straining himself by speaking loud, enforces what he says more easily by a significant nod of the head. StJerome has almost prophetically described him,—ante nudo eras pede, modo non solum calceato, sed et ornato: tunc pex tunicÂ, et nigr subucul vestiebaris sordidatus, et pallidus, et callosam opere gestitans manum, nunc lineis et sericis vestibus, et Atrabatum et LaodiceÆ indumentis ornatus incedis; rubent buccÆ, nitet cutis, comÆ in occipitium frontemque tornantur, protensus est aqualiculus, insurgunt humeri, turget guttur, et de obesis faucibus vix suffocata verba promuntur. His congregation looked as if they were already so near the fire and brimstone, that the fumes had coloured their complexions. They had as distinct a physiognomy as the Jews, with a dismal expression of spiritual pride in it, as if they firmly believed in the reprobation of every body except themselves.

It would be rash, and probably unjust, to call this man a rogue. He may fancy himself to be really divinely favoured, because, like Elijah, he is fed by ravens,—not remembering that his ravens are tame ones, whom he has trained to bring him food. The success of his own pretensions may make him believe them. Thus it is: the poor solitary madman who calls himself Ambassador from the Man in the Moon, is confined as a madman, because he can persuade nobody to believe him;—but he who calls himself Ambassador from the Lord is credited, and suffered to go at large; the moment that madness becomes contagious it is safe!

Huntington's success has occasioned imitators, one of whom, who had formerly been a drover of cattle, insisted upon having a carriage also; he obtained it, and in imitation of the S. S. placed upon it A. J. C. for Ambassador of Jesus Christ! Then he called upon his congregation for horses, and now threatens to leave them because they are so unreasonable as to demur at finding corn for them. The proof, he says, of their being true Christians is their readiness to support the preachers of the Gospel. Another of these fellows told his congregation one day after service, that he wanted 300l. for the work of the Lord, and must have it directly. They subscribed what money they had about them, and some would then have gone home for more;—he said No, that would not do; he wanted it immediately, and they must go into the vestry and give checks upon their hankers—which they obediently did.—And the English call us a priest-ridden people!

Morality, says one of these faith-preachers—is the great Antichrist. There are two roads to the devil, which are equally sure; the one is by profaneness, the other by good works; and the devil likes the latter way best, because people expect to be saved by it, and so are taken in.—You will smile at all this, and say

but you will also groan in spirit over this poor deluded country, once so fruitful in saints and martyrs.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.