CHAPTER IV
CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH—TAKING TO THE FIELDS.
It was field-preaching, preaching in the open air, which first gave national distinctiveness to the Revival, and constituted it a movement. Assuredly any occasions of excitement we have known, give no idea whatever of the immense agitations which speedily rolled over the country, from one end to the other, when these great revivalists began their work in the fields. And the excitement continued, rolling on through London, and through the counties of England, from the west to the north, not for days, weeks, or months merely, but through long years, until the religious life of the land was entirely rekindled, and its morals and manners re-moulded; and all this, especially in its origination, without money, no large sums being subscribed or guaranteed to sustain the work. The work was done, not only without might or power, but assuredly in the very teeth of the malevolence of might and of power; nor is it too much to say that it probably would not have been done, could not have been done, had the churches, chapels, and great cathedrals been thrown open to the preachers.
It seems a singular thing to say, but we should speak of Whitefield as the Luther of this Great Revival, and of Wesley as its Calvin. Both in the quality of their work and in their relation in point of time, this analogy is not so unnatural as it perhaps seems at first. The impetuosity and passion, the vehemence and sleepless vigilance of Whitefield first broke open the way; the calm, cautious, frequently even nervously timid intelligence of Wesley organised the work.
How could a writer, in a recent number of the Edinburgh Review, say: “It is a great mistake to complain, as so many do, that the Church cast out the Wesleys. We have seen at the beginning how kindly, and even cordially, they were treated by the leading members of the episcopate.” Surely any history of Methodism contradicts this statement. Bishop Benson, indeed, ordained Whitefield, but he bitterly lamented to the Countess of Huntingdon that he had done so, attributing to him what seemed to the Bishop the mischief of the evangelical movement. “My lord,” said the Countess, “mark my words: when you are on your dying bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with complaisance.”
The words were, in a remarkable degree, prophetic; when the Bishop was on his death-bed he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a token of his “regard, veneration, and affection,” and begged the great field-preacher to remember him in prayer. If the bishops were kind and cordial to the first Methodists, they certainly took a singular way of dissembling their love. For instance, Bishop Lavington, of Exeter, whose well-known two volumes on Methodism are really a curiosity of episcopal scurrility, was in a passion with everything that looked like Whitefieldism in his diocese. Mr. Thomson, the Vicar of St. Gennys, was a dissipated clergyman, a character of known immorality; he was a rich man, and not dependent upon his vicarage. In the midst of his sinful life conscience was arrested; he became converted; he countenanced and threw open his pulpit to Mr. Whitefield; he became now as remarkable for his devout life and fervent gospel preaching as he had been before for his ungodliness. What made it all the worse was, that he was a man of real genius. Now all his brethren in the ministry disowned him, and closed their pulpits against him; and presently Bishop Lavington summoned him to appear before him to answer the charges made against him by his brethren for his Methodistical practices. “Sir,” said the Bishop, in the course of conversation, “if you pursue these practices, and countenance Whitefield, I will strip your gown from off you.” Mr. Thomson had on his gown at the time—more frequently worn by ministers of the Church then than now. To the amazement of the Bishop, Mr. Thomson exclaimed, “I will save your lordship the trouble!” He took off his gown, dropped it at the Bishop’s feet, saying, “My lord, I can preach without a gown!” and before the Bishop could recover from his astonishment he was gone. This was an instance, however, in which the Bishop was so decidedly in the wrong that he sent for the vicar again, apologised to him; and the circumstance, indeed, led to the entertainment by the Bishop of views which were somewhat milder with reference to Methodism than those which still give notoriety to his name.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD.
Southey[[5]], in his certainly not impartial volumes, admits that, for the most part, the condition of the clergy was dreadful; it is not wonderful that they closed their churches against the innovators. There was, for instance, the Vicar of Colne, the Rev. George White; when the preachers came into his neighbourhood, it was his usual practice to call his parishioners together by the beat of a drum, to issue a proclamation at the market-cross, and enlist a mob for the defence of the Church against the Methodists. Here is a copy of the proclamation, a curiosity in its way: “Notice is hereby given that if any man be mindful to enlist in His Majesty’s service, under the command of the Rev. Mr. George White, Commander-in-Chief, and John Bannister, Lieutenant-General of His Majesty’s forces for the defence of the Church of England, and the support of the manufactory in and about Colne, both which are now in danger, let him repair to the drumhead at the Cross, where each man shall receive a pint of ale in advance, and all other proper encouragements.” Such are some of the instances, which might be multiplied to any extent, showing the reception given to the revivalists by the clergy of the time. But let no reader suppose that, in reciting these things, we are willingly dwelling upon facts not creditable to the Church, or that we forget how many of her most admirable members have made an abundant amende honorable by their eulogies since; nor are we forgetting that Nonconformist chapels, whose cold respectability of service and theology were sadly outraged by the new teachers, were not more readily opened than the churches were to men with whom the Word of the Lord was as a fire, or as a hammer to break the rock in pieces.[[6]] Whitefield soon felt his power. Immediately after his ordination, he in some way became for a time an occasional supply at the chapel in the Tower; he found a straggling congregation of twenty or thirty hearers; after a service or two the place was overflowing, and remained so. During his short residence in that neighbourhood the youth continued throughout the whole week preaching to the soldiers, preaching to prisoners, holding services on Sunday mornings for young men before the ordinary service. He was still ostensibly at Oxford; a profitable living was offered to him in London, and instantly declined. He went to Gloucester, to Bristol, to Kingswood. Of course it is impossible to follow Whitefield step by step through his career; we can only rapidly bring out a crayon sketch of the chief features of his work. He made voyages to Georgia; voyaging was no pastime in those days, and he spent a great amount of time in transit to and fro on the seas; our business with him is chiefly as the first field-preacher; and Kingswood, near Bristol, appears to have been the first place where this great work was to be tried. It was then, what it is still, a region of rough collieries, the Black Country of the West; the people themselves were of the roughest order. Whitefield spoke at Bristol, to some friends, of his probable speedy embarkation to preach the Gospel among the Indians of America; and they said to him, “What need of going abroad to do this? Have we not Indians enough at home? If you have a mind to convert Indians, there are colliers enough in Kingswood!” A savage race! As to taking to the fields in this instance, it was simply a necessity; there were no churches from whence the preacher could be ejected. Try to realize it: the heathen society, indoctrinated only in brutal sports; the rough, black labour only typical of the rough, black minds, the rough, black souls. Surely he must have been a very brave man; nor was he one at all of that order of apostles whose native roughness is well fitted, it seems, to challenge roughness to civility.