What induced the Methodists and the Methodist preachers to take such a step as this? Was it because the persecuting spirit of magistrates and others began to put in force, at Rolvenden and other places, the old “conventicle act,” and the “five mile act,” passed in the reign of Charles II.? Or, was it because the Methodists and their preachers began to be impatient of their present anomalous position, and wished to avow themselves to be what they really were,—Dissenters from the Church of England? Or rather, was not the step they took, and which so alarmed Charles Wesley and his clerical friend Grimshaw, induced by both the reasons just mentioned? We think it was; indeed, there can be little doubt of it.
No wonder that Charles Wesley thought the crisis had arrived! From the beginning, the Methodists, if members of the Church of England at all, had been irregulars. Many of them, for various reasons, had long refused to go to church and sacrament; and now, by availing themselves of an act of parliament, they openly, in courts of law, avowed themselves to be Dissenters.
Charles, the high churchman, was wroth to the uttermost; John, the zealous evangelist, was calmly pursuing his great mission in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire. The one was preaching, the other plotting: both equally sincere, and well intentioned; but one acting much more wisely than the other.
Charles Wesley’s private correspondence with the preachers was scarcely fair to his absent brother, and cannot be commended as honourable. John was the real, almost the only, leader of the Methodists; and to tamper with his preachers, by offering them episcopal ordination and family support, was not brotherly behaviour; neither was the offer one which was likely to be realised. True, he wrote as if he was authorised to say, that those itinerants who wished might certainly obtain orders in the Church of England. He was a friend of Lady Huntingdon’s; and, perhaps, her ladyship’s encouragement was his assumed authority; but who believes that Charles Wesley could have obtained, for any considerable number of the Methodist itinerants, ordination by bishops? His scheme was visionary, and ended in nothing. Joseph Cownley wrote to him as follows.
“There are several of my brethren, who have no thoughts of fleeing to the gown or cloak for succour, unless they could do it, and be Methodist preachers still. I can easily believe, that many, if not most, of those who shall survive you, will separate from the Church, except, as my friend Hopper says, you get them fastened where they are by prevailing on one or more of the bishops to ordain them. But then what bishop, either in England or Ireland, will ever do this? will ordain a Methodist preacher, to be a Methodist preacher? For my part, as poor and worthless a wretch as I am, I could not submit to it on the terms on which most of my brethren have hitherto got it.”
Cownley then adds a significant paragraph, showing that Charles Wesley’s influence among the Methodists was waning. “Give me leave now to press you to do what I think is your bounden duty: I mean, to visit the north this summer. We have excused you to the poor people, till we can do it no longer. If you refuse to come now, we can say neither more nor less about it, than, that you cannot, because you will not. If you could not preach at all, it would do them good only to see your face.”[416]
An extract from another letter, by Charles Wesley to his wife, may be added.
“Spitalfields Chapel, April 13, 1760.
“Poor Mr. I’anson is in great trouble for our people. A persecuting justice has oppressed and spoiled them by the conventicle act. We have appealed. I am fully persuaded God has suffered this evil, to reprove our hypocrisy, and our mistrust of His protection.
“I met all the leaders, and read them my brother’s and Mr. Grimshaw’s letters. The latter put them in a flame. All cried out against the licensed preachers; many demanded, that they should be silenced immediately; many, that they should give up their licences; some protested against ever hearing them again. Silas Told and Isaac Waldron, as often as they opened their mouths, were put to silence by the people’s just complaints and unanswerable arguments. The lay preachers pleaded my brother’s authority. I took occasion from thence to moderate the others, to defend the preachers, and desired the leaders to have patience till we had had our conference; promising them to let them know all that should pass at it. They could trust me. I added, that I would not betray the cause of the Church, or deceive them; that I was resolved no one of them all should be ensnared into a meeting-house. If they chose to turn Dissenters, they should do it with their eyes open. My chief concern upon earth, I said, was the prosperity of the Church of England; my next, that of the Methodists; my third, that of the preachers: that, if their interests should ever come in competition, I would give up the preachers for the good of the Methodists, and the Methodists for the good of the whole body of the Church of England; that nothing could ever force me to leave the Methodists, but their leaving the Church. You cannot conceive what a spirit rose in all that heard me. They all cried out, that they would answer for ninety-nine out of a hundred in London, that they would live and die in the Church. My business was to pacify and keep them within bounds. I appointed another meeting on this day fortnight, and Friday seven-night as a fast for the Church.”[417]