However this be, your principal design is obvious, “As a caution to all Protestants, to draw a comparison between the wild and pernicious Enthusiasms of some of the most eminent Saints in the Popish communion, and those of the Methodists in our own country:” And who those eminent saints are you specify, page 9, section 2. “the most wild, and extravagant, the most ridiculous strolling, fanatical, delirious, and mischievous of all the saints in the Romish communion.” For otherwise, you say, “the parallel would not hold, but come off defective; the whole conduct of the Methodists (not any one branch, it seems, to be excepted) being but a counter-part of the most wild fanaticism of the most abominable communion,” in its most corrupt ages. Vid. Pref. This is avowedly your principal design (which though I think somewhat too restrained to answer exactly to your title page) must be acknowledged to be a very expedient one; if, besides cautioning protestants, you intended, at the same time, to expose the Methodists, and to have them looked upon and treated as Papists.
How you have succeeded in this attempt, will appear when we come to examine the parallel you have drawn between them. To this I shall confine myself, and consequently, on purpose, omit making any direct reply to the account you give of the Montanists; it being not only quite foreign to the title page and principal design of your tract (as you say, “they arose in the second century, before popery had a being,”) but at the best very precarious, being not founded upon writings of their own, which, as you inform us, are long since lost.
To come then to your more direct comparison between popish and methodistical enthusiasts: “From a commiseration or horror, arising from the grievous corruptions of the world, perhaps from a real motive of sincere piety, they both set out with warm pretences to reformation:” page 10. section 2. And is not this commendable, whether in Methodists or in Papists? Or ought any one, think you, to take upon him holy orders, and witness that good confession before many witnesses, “That he is inwardly moved thereto by the Holy Ghost,” without having a real motive of sincere piety, and a warm intention at least (if that be what you mean by a pretence) to promote, as much as in him lies, a real reformation? If by pretence, you would have us understand a mere hypocritical pretence, you are then guilty of a self-contradiction: for how can pretence and reality be reconciled? Which of the two was the case of the Methodists at their first setting out, if you please, we will leave to the great day, to be determined by Him who is appointed to be judge of quick and dead; to whom alone all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid. Actions are cognizable by us, and not intentions. Let us see how your parallel holds good in respect to these.
“For the better advancement of their purposes, both, commonly (you say, page 11. section 4.) begin their adventures with field preaching. In which particular, though the practice of the Methodists be notorious, it may not be amiss to produce some of their own words, were it only for the sake of the comparison.” But, good Sir, ought any one, merely for the sake of making a comparison, (though ever so just) to exceed the bounds of truth, which you have here confessedly done? For what words have you produced, or indeed can you produce, to prove that the Methodists began their adventures with field-preaching? If we may believe your own words, is not the quite contrary notorious? For, section 5. page 15. you tell us, “That after the Methodists had traduced the clergy, as long as they were permitted to do it, in their own churches and pulpits, they set about this pious work of defamation more heartily in the fields.”
Here then your parallel fails at first setting out, you yourself being judge. And here I would dismiss this article, being founded on a mistake, was it not proper to take notice of a cursory remark or two, which you have thought proper to make upon it. You ask, page 14. “How comes Mr. Whitefield to say, there was never any such thing as field-preaching before? Was it from the mere vanity of being thought the founder of it? Or was he ignorant of the practice several years ago, and even in our own nation?” I thank you, Sir, for informing me better, and am glad to find that field-preaching was practised in our nation several years ago. Why then such a noise about it now?
From what degrees of vanity my expressing myself in that manner might proceed, I cannot now remember: but if, as you insinuate, page 33. “It is easy to foresee there is to be some future calendar or legend of the saints,” (I presume you mean Methodist saints) I care not if the following article [♦]be inserted concerning me. “Such a day the Reverend George Whitefield, having had an university education, and been regularly ordained deacon and priest of the Church of England, and invited to preach in most churches of the cities of Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster, and London, in the last of which places he collected near a thousand pounds for the charity children, being causelesly denied the further use of the churches, because he preached up the necessity of the new birth, and justification in the sight of God by faith alone in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, began to preach the same doctrines in the fields.”
[♦] removed duplicate word “be”
This is the real truth: and whether I was the founder or reviver of such field-preaching in this nation, need I be ashamed, merely because St. Peter of Verona, St. Nicholas of Nolasco, St. Anthony of Padua, and St. Ignatius were field-preachers before me? Can you recollect no earlier, or more unexceptionable field-preachers than these? What do you think of Jesus Christ and his Apostles? Were they not field-preachers? Was not the best sermon that was ever delivered, delivered from a Mount? Was not another very excellent one preached from a place called Mars-Hill? And did not Peter and John preach above seventeen hundred years ago in Solomon’s Porch, and elsewhere, though the clergy of that generation commanded them to speak no more in the name of Jesus? These were the persons that I had in view, when I begun my adventures of field-preaching. Animated by their example, when causelesly thrust out, I took the field; and if this be my shame, I glory in it: for, (to make use of the words of the late great Colonel Gardiner, when he once looked upon the spot where this adventure was carried on; and O that I may speak it with a becoming humility,) “I am persuaded it will be said at the great day of this and that man, that they were brought to God there.”
Another of your cursory remarks on field-preaching, is this; “Have not the Methodist preachers, as well as St. Anthony, been attended with a sturdy set of followers, as their guards, armed with clubs under their cloaths, menacing and terrifying such as should dare to speak lightly of their apostle?” You add, “I have heard it often affirmed.” And so might the heathens have said, that they heard it often affirmed, “that when the primitive christians received the blessed sacrament, they killed a young child, and then sucked its blood.” But was that any reason why they should believe it? It is true indeed, some of the Methodist preachers have more than once been attended with a sturdy set of followers armed with clubs and other weapons, not as their guards, but opposers, and persecutors; and who have not only menaced and terrified, but actually abused and beat many of those, who came to hear him, whom you, I suppose, would call their apostle. Both Methodist preachers and Methodist hearers too, for want of better arguments, have often felt the weight of such irresistible power, which, literally speaking, hath struck many of them dumb; and I verily believe, had it not been for some superior invisible guard, must have struck them dead. These are all the sturdy set of armed followers, that the Methodists know of. Other guards, besides those common to all christians, they desire none. And whatever you may unkindly insinuate, about my being aware of a turbulent spirit, a fighting enthusiasm amongst them, because I said, “I dread nothing more than the false zeal of my friends in a suffering hour;” I think many years experience may convince the world, that the weapons of their warfare, like those of their blessed Redeemer and his apostles, have not been carnal: but thanks be to God, however you may ridicule his irresistible power, they have, through him, been mighty to the pulling down of Satan’s strong-holds, in many a sturdy sinner’s heart.
But to return to the church, where in reality the Methodist adventures were begun. Section 5th, page 15, you tell the world, “that after they had traduced the clergy, as long as they were permitted to do it, in their own churches and pulpits, in order to seduce their flocks, and collect a staring rabble, (pretty language this, Sir,) they set about this pious work of defamation mere heartily in the fields.” I was reading further, expecting to find your parallel. But I see it is wanting. Are the Methodists then originals in this particular? Or could you, among all the histories of your eminent saints, find no instances of St. Anthony’s, St. Francis’s, and St. Ignatius’s carrying on this pious work of defamation in their days? Will you suffer me to supply the deficiency, by laying before you some examples, which, though of an earlier date, may, by unprejudiced persons, be esteemed as suitable, as any of a popish extraction? In the New Testament, (a book you seem to have laid aside, or at least little adverted to, when writing your pamphlet) we are informed, That when John Baptist, “saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” The same book tells us, that St. Stephen being full of the Holy Ghost, and within a few moments of his death, said to the whole Jewish sanhedrim, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.” And our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the master of both these, in one chapter denounces no less than thirteen woes against the scribes and pharisees, whose chief power of doing good, and promoting the common salvation, he well knew, depended upon their character, as much as any clergy in any age of the church whatsoever. Not that I would be understood by this to insinuate, that all which the Methodist preachers have spoken against the clergy, was spoken in the same Spirit, or with the like divine authority, as our Lord, his harbinger, and his protomartyr, spoke. That would be carrying the parallel too far indeed. There is generally much, too much severity in our first zeal. At least there was in mine. All I would therefore infer is this, that what some (not to say you, Sir,) may term “Gall of bitterness and black art of calumny,” may be nothing but an honest testimony against the corruptions of a degenerate church, and may, without any degree of wickedness, be supposed to come from the “Spirit and power given from God.” If we deny this, not only Isaiah, Jeremiah, and almost all the prophets, but likewise Jesus Christ and his Apostles, must be looked upon by us, (as I suppose they were by the men in whose day they lived) as great slanderers, and dealing much in this black art of calumny and defamation.