Such was the man who attacked Whitefield and Methodism in 1760. For ninety years, the execrable comedies, acted in English theatres, had been the bane and the reproach of the English nation. Comic poets had been the unwearied ministers of vice, and had done its work so thoroughly, that there was hardly a single virtue which had not been sacrificed at its polluted shrine. Innocence had been the sport of abandoned villainy, and religion made the jest of the licentious. In 1760, Samuel Foote crowned the whole, by “The Minor; a Comedy acted in the Haymarket theatre:” 8vo, 91 pages. Its professed object was to expose the absurdity, and to detect the hypocrisy, of Methodism; the author holding the idea, that ridicule was the only way of redressing an evil which was beyond the reach of law, and which reason was not able to correct. On the principle, that a man cannot touch pitch without defiling his fingers, we refrain from giving even the barest outline of Foote’s disgraceful comedy. Thousands applauded the inimitable actor, and laughed at Mrs. Cole and Dr. Squintum; all of them forgetting, that religion is too sacred to become the butt of theatrical buffoonery and of public mockery. The indignation of religious people was aroused; letters were written to newspapers; articles were published in magazines; and a whole swarm of pamphlets were given to the excited public; the most able of which were two by “A Minister of the Church of Christ,” one of them being entitled—“Christian and Critical Remarks on ‘The Minor’; in which the blasphemy, falsehood, and scurrility of that piece, are properly considered, answered, and exposed:” 8vo, 41 pages. Foote himself replied to this, in his own bantering and obscene style, telling the author that, from the title he assumes, “it is impossible to determine whether he is an authorised pastor, or a peruke maker; a real clergyman, or a corncutter.” He also published, but durst not act, another comedy, entitled “The Methodist; being a continuation and completion of the plan of ‘The Minor.’” The buffoon tells his readers, that Whitefield’s “countenance is not only inexpressive, but ludicrous; his dialect is not only provincial, but barbarous; his deportment not only awkward, but savage.” His mother, during her pregnancy, “dreamt that she was brought to bed of a tinder box, which, from a collision of the flint and steel, made by the midwife, conveyed sparks to Gloucester cathedral, and soon reduced it to ashes.” Whitefield himself, in his boyhood, “was dull, stupid, and heavy, totally incapable of attending to the business of his mother’s public house, though he had the credit of inventing the practice of soaping the tops of the pewter pots to diminish the quantity of liquor, and to increase and sustain the froth.”
This is too mild to be given as a fair specimen of Foote’s disgusting ribaldry; but it is almost fouler than we like to print. Suffice it to remark further, that, though “The Minor” was performed before crowded London audiences for several months, such was the outcry raised against its profanity, that in November, 1760, Foote himself introduced several alterations, which he thought were less objectionable than the original terms and sentences.
But enough of the profligate Samuel Foote, who (according to the testimony of a person who knew the particulars of the case) was seized at Dover, with his mortal illness, while mimicking religious characters in general, and the Methodists in particular,[388] and almost immediately expired.
Other attacks were made upon Methodism, in 1760, though none so vulgar as Foote’s. One of these was “A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all serious and well disposed Methodists; in which their principal Errors concerning the doctrine of the new birth, their election, and the security of their salvation, and their notion of the community of Christian men’s goods, are largely displayed and represented. By Alexander Jephson, A.B., rector of the parish of Craike, in the county of Durham.” 8vo, 80 pages. Mr. Jephson tells the Methodists, that they have “fallen into fatal and dangerous errors, which may be of pernicious consequence to them both in this life and the next.” He affirms that, “when any persons are duly baptized into the Church, there is no doubt but that all their sins are immediately forgiven, and a new principle of piety and virtue is directly instilled into their minds by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit.” He exhorts the Methodists not to forsake the pastors of the Church of England, by giving up themselves “to the direction of guides who have nothing to recommend them, but vain and idle pretences to inspiration, and intimate conversations with God, and such immediate and powerful effects of their preaching as have caused, in some of their hearers, the most dreadful shriekings and groanings, convulsions and agitations.” Methodist itinerants are described as “an enthusiastical set of preachers, who are wandering up and down, through the whole nation, to destroy and unsettle all the reasonable notions of religion, and to throw men into the utmost distraction and confusion.” These are fair cullings from Mr. Jephson’s “friendly and compassionate address.” Wesley says concerning it: “the tract is more considerable for its bulk, than for its matter, being little more than a dull repetition of what was published some years ago in ‘The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared.’”[389]
Another hostile publication was, “A Genuine Letter from a Methodist Preacher, in the country, to Laurence Sterne, M.A., prebendary of York. 1760.” 8vo, 22 pages. The letter pretends to rebuke Sterne for writing “Tristram Shandy,” and says the prebend has “studied plays more than the word of God, and takes his text generally from the writings of Shakspeare” rather than from the writings of the apostles. Altogether, it was a meaningless and profane performance, whose only object seems to have been to create a laugh.
Another publication, belonging to the same year, was, “A Vindication of the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England, from the Aspersions cast on it in a Sermon lately published by Mr. John Wesley. By John Oulton.” 8vo, 55 pages. This was intended to be a refutation of Wesley’s sermon on free grace, preached from Romans viii. 32, and deserves no further notice.
Another was entitled, “The Principles and Practices of the Methodists considered, in some Letters to the Leaders of that Sect.” 8vo, 78 pages. The writer, who signed himself “Academicus,” was a man of mark, the Rev. John Green, D.D.,[390] born at Beverley about 1706; a sizar in St. John’s college, Cambridge; then an usher in a school at Lichfield; then domestic chaplain of the Duke of Somerset; then rector of Borough Green; then regius professor of divinity, and one of his majesty’s chaplains; then, in 1756, dean of Lincoln; and, in 1764, bishop of Lincoln; a liberal prelate,—the only one who voted for the bill for the relief of protestant Dissenters; and who died suddenly, at Bath, in 1779. The pamphlet of Dr. Green is addressed to Mr. Berridge, of Everton. The author speaks of Berridge’s “graceless fraternity”; and warns him against being “led away by the vain presumption of extraordinary illuminations,” and against “contracting one of the most dangerous and deceitful of all religious maladies, the tumour of spiritual pride.” He tells him, that “he makes lofty pretensions, and assumes confident airs to amuse the vulgar.” He speaks of “the mysteries of Methodism, its conceits and inadvertencies, its foibles and failings, being cruelly exposed to the laughter of the incredulous, and the scoff of the profane.” He says, “elocution from a stool, or vociferation from a hillock, will act with much more effect, upon the multitude, than any kind of sober instruction given from that old fashioned eminence, the pulpit”; and describes, as the result of “Methodistical oratory, a number of groaners, sighers, tumblers, and convulsionists, breaking out into a dreadful concert of screams, howlings, and lamentations.” In succession, Whitefield, Wesley, Hervey, Zinzendorf, and others come under the writer’s lash. The “fraternity” are charged with “dealing in all the little tricks of calumny and misrepresentation”; with endeavouring “to raise their own reputation by attempts to undermine that of others”; with “playing the droll, and enlivening their popular harangues with occasional diversions, and strokes of humour”; and with having “recourse to obscure and mystical language, which none but the elect can understand.”
Dr. Green was not content with this priestly onslaught. Immediately after, he published a second pamphlet of seventy-four pages, with the same title, but addressed, in this instance, to Whitefield, who is, not too politely, reminded of his “blue apron and snuffers at the Bell inn, in Gloucester”; and is told, that his “pretensions are weakly supported, though set off with so much pomp of expression,—like some aqueous plants, which spread a broad and stately leaf on the surface of the water, while the fibre, on which they depend for their support, is slenderer than a thread.” His Journal is called, “that curious repository of religious anecdotes,—that profound repertory of private reflections, exhibiting a medley of seeming pride and affected lowliness, of immoderate conceit and excessive humility.” These must serve as samples. Dr. Green, bishop of Lincoln, was an able man, and a vigorous writer; but he might have employed his learning and his talents to better purpose than in bantering the poor Methodists. On receiving his pamphlet, Wesley wrote: “in many things, I wholly agree with him; but there is a bitterness in him, which I should not have expected in a gentleman and a scholar.”[391]
Another unfriendly pamphlet, issued in 1760, was entitled, “A Fragment of the true Religion. Being the substance of two Letters from a Methodist Preacher in Cambridgeshire, to a Clergyman in Nottinghamshire.” 8vo, 25 pages. The “Methodist Preacher” was Berridge of Everton, and the first letter was one in which Berridge gave an account of his conversion and subsequent course of action; and was intended, by its writer, to be strictly private and confidential. The clergyman, however, to whom it was addressed, dishonourably allowed copies to be taken and circulated; and, moreover, commenced railing against the man who had written to him as a friend. Upon this, Berridge wrote to him a second letter, remonstrating with him on account of his treacherous behaviour; and, this also being copied and circulated, both the letters were surreptitiously published, with a scurrilous introduction, dated, “Grantham, February 2, 1760,” and signed “Faith Workless.”
In his second letter, Berridge, with righteous indignation, remarks: