At this time (about 1742) Wesley and his disciples attained that degree of importance, which qualified them to become objects of persecution. It was among the lower classes that they had thrown the torch of fanaticism, and it was from the same that the outrages which now assailed them proceeded. On two or three occasions the person of the master himself was in some danger from popular fury; and it may perhaps have been preserved by his singular presence of mind, and the awe which he knew how to inspire into his fellow creatures. But these violent eruptions of indignation, as they were founded on no semblance of reason, and opposed by the civil authorities, were partial and of short duration; and as the rumours of them were much exaggerated at the time, their influence, as far as they had any, was probably favorable to the progress of methodism. Some calumnies that were raised against Wesley from more respectable quarters, touching his tendency to papacy and his disaffection to the reigning dynasty, arising from entire misunderstanding or pure malevolence, were immediately repelled, and speedily silenced and forgotten.
In the year 1744 Wesley invited his brother Charles, four other clergymen who co-operated with him, and four of his lay-preachers to a Conference: this was the origin of the assembly or council, which was afterwards held annually, and became the governing body, for the regulation of the general affairs of the society. Four years subsequently, a school was opened at Kingswood, for the education chiefly of the sons of the preachers. In the extreme severity of some of the rules which he imposed on this establishment, Wesley seems to have been guided by an ambitious design to set apart his own people from the rest of the community, rather than by the common principles of education, or the common feelings of nature. And so jealous was he of any other influence being exerted on his children, that they were not allowed to be absent from the school, not even for a day, from their first admission till their final removal from it. Notwithstanding however the peculiarity and, as he thought, the purity of his system, he met with many difficulties and reverses, in his first attempts to place it on a permanent foundation.
We may pass over the circumstances of his unfortunate marriage, which ended, after a few months of discord and vexation, in a hasty but final separation. His wife, after proving herself his foulest slanderer and bitterest enemy, presently deserted him. “Non eam reliqui (says Wesley)—non dimisi—non revocabo.” “I have not left her—I have not put her away—I will not recall her.” The same calmness of temper and perfect self-possession, which so remarkably distinguished him in his public proceedings, seem not to have abandoned him even in the more pressing severity of his domestic trials.
Neither have we space to notice the controversies which he carried on with two of the most eminent divines of his time, bishops Lavington and Warburton; since Wesley, though engaged in dispute with the prelates of the Church, and very frequent and bitter in the reproaches which he cast against its ministers, still adhered to its communion, and had yet committed no act declaratory of absolute independence. But later in life he advanced farther towards schism. First of all, as he did not assume for his lay-preachers the power of administering the sacrament, he caused several to be ordained by one Erasmus, a Greek Bishop of Arcadia—thus evading the spiritual authority, which he could not contest, and which he did not yet venture to dispense with. But this was a feeble resource, unworthy of his courage, and unavailing to his purposes. A stronger measure followed. His disciples were very numerous in America, and it was desirable to send out to them a head, invested with the highest spiritual authority. Dr. Coke, an “evangelical” clergyman, was selected for that office, and Wesley took upon himself to invest him with the requisite dignity. These letters of ordination are dated September 2, 1784, and announce in substance, that Wesley thought himself providentially called, at that time, to set apart some persons for the work of the ministry in America; and therefore, under the protection of Almighty God, and with a single eye to his glory, had that day set apart, as a superintendent, by the imposition of his hands and prayer, Thomas Coke, a doctor of civil law, and a presbyter of the Church of England.
In this affair, it was weak in Wesley to plead (as he did) a seasonable conviction, that in the true primitive Church the order of bishop and presbyter were one and the same—for if Wesley exercised as presbyter episcopal authority, so, under the same plea, might Dr. Coke have exercised it, without any imposition of Wesley’s hands. This was a shallow pretence, which could scarcely have deceived himself. The fact was, that Wesley, now acting as the sole head of a separate religious party, assumed the prerogatives of the highest ecclesiastical dignity; and resolved that all the privileges of his ministers should emanate from himself. This is properly considered as a second important epoch in the history of methodism.
Wesley was then eighty-one years old, and he lived for seven years longer, in the perfect enjoyment of his health and exercise of his faculties, almost to the very end. He died March 2, 1791: leaving no property, except the copyright and current editions of his works, which he bequeathed for the use of the connexion. The whole number of his followers, at the time of his decease, is stated at about 135,000, of whom more than 57,600 were Americans. In the United Kingdoms, his principal success had been in some of the large towns in England and in Ireland. But he complains of the coldness with which his preaching was, for the most part, received by the agricultural classes generally, and by the entire Scotch nation—facts which may however be accounted for, without supposing any religious obduracy either in the one or the other.
Thus did Wesley live to fix and consolidate, by the calmer deliberation of his later years, the effects, which might otherwise have been transient, of his early enthusiasm. It required many talents, as well as many virtues, to accomplish this—and Wesley was abundantly endowed with both. The natural ardour and eagerness of his character was moderated by great sagacity and calm judgment, a conciliating and forgiving temper. If he loved power, he did not covet money; but bestowed all that he had upon the poor. Doubtless his original object was simply to awaken the dormant spirit of vital Christianity; and if spiritual ambition, fomented by the general discouragement which he received from the clergy, seduced him too readily—though reluctantly and in opposition to his own professions, and even to his own intentions—into what did in fact amount to schism; yet the breach is not even now irreparable, if only his better spirit shall preside in the councils of his disciples, and be met with a kindred feeling of religious moderation by the directors of the Established Church.
[Monument to Wesley in the Chapel in the City Road.]
