If then, Reverend Sir, for this and such like things we are accounted irregular and disorderly, we are truly sorry for it: sorry, but not upon our own accounts, having the testimony of a good conscience that we act with a single eye, and in direct conformity to the authority of the word of God: but we are sorry, barely on account of our impeachers and condemners, especially for those, who being set apart for the ministerial office, and loaded with ecclesiastical preferments, preach very seldom, or not at all; or, if they do preach now and then, preach only as though they were barely reading wall-lectures, and seldom or ever so much as mention or quote the homilies of our church, though they have subscribed to an article which says, that “they contain godly and wholesome doctrine, and which judges them to be read in churches by the ministers diligently and distinctly, that they may be understood of the people.” It is to be feared, that it is owing to such irregularity and disorder as this, that when our people hear of our articles or homilies quoted by some few in the pulpit, that they are ready to cry out, “What new doctrine is this? Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears:” At least if it is not so at home, I am sure it is abroad. Hence it was that about three years ago, after I had been preaching to a very large auditory in one of the most polite places on the continent of America, and in preaching, as is my usual custom, had strongly been recommending the book of homilies, numbers were stirred up to go to the stores to purchase them: but upon enquiring after the book of homilies, the storekeeper, surprized at the novelty of the word homilies, begged leave to know what muslins they meant, and whether they were not hummims.
What a pity therefore is it, Reverend Sir, that the book of homilies, which ought to be in every hand, and as common as our common prayer books, should never yet have found a place in the large catalogue of books given away by the truly laudable society for promoting christian knowledge, though founded soon after the glorious revolution. If this be not remedied some way or another, we shall very soon become disorderly indeed: our pulpits will still continue to contradict our reading-desks, and we shall never have the honour of being stiled regular and orderly, till, regardless of subscriptions, oaths, rubrics, and ordination-offices themselves, our practices give the lie to our professions, and we seek the fleece not the flock, and “preach ourselves, and not Christ Jesus the Lord.”
Dead formalists, and proud self-righteous bigots, may loudly exclaim and cry out, “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we!” They may not only cry out, but also cast out; and thinking they thereby do God service, though most notoriously deficient in their own moral conduct, may plead conscience, and say, “Let the Lord be glorified.” But to such as these our Lord once said, “Ye are they that justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts.” Like the chief priests, and the scribes and pharisees of old, they may plead their law; for the breach of which, these irregulars, as they imagine, ought to be condemned and suffer; nay, a time may come when they may be permitted to enforce their clamorous accusations, by urging, as their godly predecessors once did against our Master, that “we found these fellows perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute unto Cæsar: but Pilate knew that for envy they delivered Him.” And though they could plead their loyalty, and say, “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend, we have no king but Cæsar;” yet both our Lord and his Apostles rendered themselves, and strictly taught all that heard them, to “render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Fain would the Methodists copy after such gloriously divine examples: and blessed be God, after a trial of near forty years, upon the most severe scrutiny, their loyalty cannot be justly so much as once called in question: for, as they fear God, so they dearly love and honour their King, their rightful sovereign King George; and have been, and continue to be, steady, invariable friends to the protestant succession in the illustrious house of Hanover. And if so, supposing these Methodists should be convicted of acting somewhat irregular, since it is only the irregularity of preaching and recommending unfeigned love to God, and, for his great name sake, undissembled, disinterested loyalty to their King; is it not the interest as well as duty of civil government, if not to encourage, yet not to oppose them? For it is certainly a most incontestable truth, that every additional proselyte to true Methodism, is an additional loyal subject to King George the Third, whom, with his royal most amiable consort, our gracious Queen Charlotte, the Methodists with one united voice earnestly pray, God long to continue to be a nursing father and nursing mother to our church, and people of every denomination whatsoever.
Every body is loudly complaining of the badness of our times, and the degeneracy of our morals. Sinners now proclaim their sin like Sodom, and the nation hath suffered more than a second deluge by an innundation of every sin, and every kind of corruption that was ever committed or practised under heaven: “The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint; from the crown of the head to the sole of our feet, we are full of wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores.” Shall there no man be found then to stand in the gap? None dare to attempt at least to stem the impetuous torrent? None venture to go out with their lives in their hand, and cry to a profane, careless, busy world, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Can any considerate, much more can any real good man be so cruel, as even to wish that the gospel should be confined either to church or meeting, when there are so many thousands and tens of thousands, who as to spiritual things, know not their right hand from their left, and who never go either to church or meeting at all? If some are called to be settled ministers (and may the great Head of the church fill all our parish-churches and meeting-houses with true evangelical pastors!) may not others be called out to be itinerants? Have there not been presbyters at large, even from the earliest times of christianity? And if some of a more inferior rank and order should be qualified, and thrust forth by the great Lord of the harvest, when the harvest is so great, and the labourers so few, who shall dare to say to Him, “What dost thou?” Shall our eye be evil because he is good? If Isaiah was a courtier, was not the Prophet Amos a herdsman? In the days of Moses, when the Israelites were under a more immediate divine theocracy, news was brought him, and that too even by a Joshua, that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp, without his licence or his ordination; what doth this meek man of God say? “Enviest thou for my sake? Would to God all the Lord’s people were prophets.” And in the days of our Lord himself, his beloved disciple John, before his heart was more enlarged by divine love, said unto him; “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not with us, and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.” But what said Jesus, that good Shepherd and Bishop of souls? “Forbid him not.”
Such instances, such striking instances as these, methinks, should make good men careful not to give way to a narrow, selfish, bigotted spirit; and caution them against joining with the world in smiting their fellow-servants, by crying down or speaking slightingly and reproachfully of a method of preaching and acting, which, maugre all opposition, for these thirty years last past hath been blessed and owned of God to the converting of thousands; not to a bare name, sect, or party, or merely to head or notional knowledge; but “from darkness unto light, from the power of Satan unto God;” from holding the mere form, to the true abiding possession and practice of true scriptural godliness, in heart, lip, and life. But if good or bad men now dislike, and therefore oppose such an irregular way of acting, they may be told to their comfort, that their uneasiness on this account, in all probability, will not be of long continuance; for few will choose to bid, or offer themselves candidates for such airy pluralities: to go thus without the camp, bearing all manner of reproach; to become in this manner; “Spectacles to God, to angels, and to men;” to sacrifice not only our natural, but spiritual affections and connections, and to part from those who are as dear to them as their own souls, in order to pass the Atlantic, and bear the colds and heats of foreign climes; these are such uninviting things to corrupt nature, that if we will have but a little patience till a few old weary heads are laid in the silent grave, these uncommon gospel-meteors, these field-phenomenas, that seldom appear in the latitude of England, scarce above once in a century, without the help of any coercive means, will of themselves soon disappear. They begin to be pretty well in disrepute already: yet a little while, and in all human probability they will quite vanish away. But though I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, I am greatly mistaken, if in the Redeemer’s own good time and way, some spiritual phœnix will not hereafter arise, some blessed gospel-instrument be raised, that shall make the devil and his three-fold army, “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,” to fly before the sound of the gospel trumpet.
I have dwelt the longer upon this particular, Reverend Sir, because the present learned Bishop of Gloucester, in his late volume, intitled, “The Doctrine of Grace,” is pleased to observe more than once, that he finds fault not so much with the matter, as the manner of the Methodists preaching. But if by the manner, his Lordship would have us to understand, not their manner of preaching in the field, but the manner of their delivery, whether in the church or field, I would humbly ask his Lordship, if he ever heard any of them preach? If not, doth our law condemn any man, or any set of men, unheard? And I would humbly enquire further of his Lordship, and all others whom it may concern, how they would have them or any others to preach?
I remember the great Doctor Delany, when I had the honour of being with him, many years ago, at the Right Reverend Dr. Boulter’s, then Lord Primate of Ireland, among other hints proper for a young preacher, gave me to understand, that whenever he went up into a pulpit, he desired to look upon it as the last time he should ever preach, or the last time that the people should ever hear him. O that all preachers, whether within or without doors, however dignified or distinguished, went always up into their respective pulpits thus impressed! They would then preach, as Apelles once said he painted, for Eternity. They would then act the part of true gospel christian orators, and not only calmly and [♦]coolly inform the understanding, but by persuasive pathetic address, endeavour to move the affections, and warm the heart. To act otherwise, bespeaks a sad ignorance of human nature, and such an inexcuseable indolence and indifference in the preacher, as must constrain the hearers, whether they will or not, to suspect, that the preacher, let him be who he will, only deals in the false commerce of unfelt truths.
[♦] “cooly” replaced with “coolly”
Were our lawyers, our counsellors, or our players to act thus, both the bar and the stage would soon be deserted; and therefore the answer of Mr. Betterton, to a worthy prelate, when he asked him, “How it came to pass that the clergy, who spoke of things real, affected the people so little, and the players, who spoke of things barely imaginary, affected them so much,” is worthy of lasting regard. “My Lord, says Mr. Betterton, I can assign but one reason, which is, we players speak of things imaginary as though they were real, and too many of the clergy speak of things real as though they were imaginary.” Thus it was in his, and all know it is too much the case in our time: hence it is, that even on our most important occasions, the worthy gentlemen concerned in our public charities, generally find themselves more obliged to the musicians than the preachers, for the largeness of their collections: and hence, no doubt it is, that upon our most solemn anniversaries, after long previous notice hath been given, when some even of our Lords Spiritual do preach, perhaps not two Lords temporal come to hear them.
Sorry am I, Reverend Sir, to find so true, what a celebrated orator, in one of his lectures delivered, (if I am not mistaken, in the University of Oxford) takes the liberty of saying, “That it is to be feared this is too much the state of the pulpit-elocution in general, in the Church of England: on which account, there never was perhaps a religious sect upon earth, whose hearts were so little engaged in the act of public worship, as the members of that church. To be pleased, we must feel, and we are pleased with feeling. The Presbyterians are moved; the Methodists are moved; they go to their meetings and tabernacles with delight; the very Quakers are moved; fantastical and extravagant as the language of their emotions is, yet still they are moved by it, and they love their form of worship for that reason: whilst much the greater part of the members of the Church of England, are either banished from it through disgust, or reluctantly attend the service as a disagreeable duty.” Thus far Mr. Sheridan.