This is a mournful picture, especially of people making such high professions. The result was, the London society was thrown into great confusion. Wesley writes: “1762, November 8—I began visiting the classes; in many of which we had hot spirits to deal with. Some were vehement for, some against, the meetings for prayer, which were in several parts of the town. I said little, being afraid of taking any step which I might afterwards repent of.”
The delay in the exercise of discipline was too long. For twelve months, Wesley had seen it necessary to deal with these enthusiasts. At the beginning of 1762, he wrote to his brother: “If Thomas Maxfield continue as he is, it is impossible he should long continue with us. But I live in hope of better things. This week, I have begun to speak my mind concerning five or six honest enthusiasts. But I move only a hair’s breadth at a time. No sharpness will profit. There is need of a lady’s hand, as well as a lion’s heart.”
We incline to think Wesley used the lady’s hand too long, and that the lion’s paw would have been far more useful. At length, however, he began to preach on the subject. On December 5, 1762, he endeavoured to show in what sense sanctification is gradual, and in what sense it is instantaneous. A fortnight later, he preached on Christian simplicity, showing that it is not ignorance or folly, nor enthusiasm or credulity; but faith, humility, willingness to be taught, and freedom from evil reasonings. Despite all this, Bell waxed worse and worse; and, on December 26, Wesley desired him to take no further part in the services at West Street, or at the Foundery. “The reproach of Christ,” he writes, “I am willing to bear; but not the reproach of enthusiasm, if I can help it.” In a manuscript letter, dated “London, January 28, 1763,” Sarah Crosby writes:
“There has been much confusion here. The simple brethren keep meeting at various places, brother Bell being their chief speaker. The substance of what they say is, ‘Believe, and be simple. Believe all that is in the word of God, and all that is not there,—that is, if anything is revealed to you.’ They say they have a great gift in discerning spirits; but others dispute it. Nevertheless, I think they are good folk, and there has been a great outpouring of the Spirit in London these two or three years past.”
About the same time, Fletcher of Madeley wrote to Charles Wesley—
“I have a particular regard for Mr. Maxfield and Mr. Bell; both of them are my correspondents. I am strongly prejudiced in favour of the witnesses, and do not willingly receive what is said against them; but allowing that what is reported is one half mere exaggeration, the tenth part of the rest shows that spiritual pride, presumption, arrogance, stubbornness, party spirit, uncharitableness, prophetic mistakes,—in short, every sinew of enthusiasm, is now at work among them. I do not credit any one’s bare word; but I ground my sentiments on Bell’s own letters.”[478]
Bell consummated his fanaticism, by prophesying that the world would be brought to an end on February 28, 1763; and, strange to say, not a few believed him. The evil spread. Wesley preached sermons on the sin of division, and on judging; but what he said was “turned into poison” by those who needed his admonitions; and one of the friends of Bell remarked: “If the devil had been in the pulpit, he would not have preached such a sermon.” Meanwhile, Maxfield was privately promoting disunion, telling the people that Wesley was not capable of teaching them, and insinuating that no one was except himself. Mrs. Coventry came to Wesley, and threw down the tickets of herself, her husband, her daughters, and her servants, declaring that “they would hear two doctrines no longer, and that Mr. Maxfield preached perfection, but Mr. Wesley pulled it down.” About a dozen others, including Bell, copied Mrs. Coventry’s example. Maxfield, in a huff, removed his meeting of the sanctified from the Foundery, because Wesley instructed his preachers to be present at it, whenever he was not able to be there himself. One of the seceders told Wesley to his face, that he was a hypocrite, and, for that reason, they had resolved to have no further fellowship with him. About thirty, who thought themselves sanctified, had left the society; but there were above four hundred others, who witnessed the same confession, and seemed more united than ever.
Meanwhile, the 28th of February, 1763—George Bell’s day of judgment—drew nigh. Wesley denounced the mad corporal’s prognostication, in private, in the society meetings, in the pulpit, and, at length, in the public papers. He says that Maxfield was silent on the subject, and that he had reason to think he was a believer in Bell’s prophecy; though Maxfield himself afterwards denied that this was true.[479] Be that as it might, a number of Maxfield’s followers spent the night at the house of his most intimate friend, Mr. Biggs, every moment in full expectation of hearing the blast of the archangel’s trumpet.
On the day previous to the predicted final catastrophe, Bell and his believers ascended a mound near the site of St. Luke’s hospital, to have a last look at the city before its conflagration;[480] but, unfortunately for the mad prophet, two constables, with a warrant, arrested him, and carried him first before a magistrate in Long Acre, and then before another in Southwark, as it was there, “in an unlicensed meeting-house, that he had often vented his blasphemies.” The Borough magistrate committed him to the new prison, there to await the fulfilment of his prediction.[481] “I am sorry,” writes Whitefield, “to find that Mr. Bell is taken up. To take no notice would be the best method. A prison or outward punishment is but a poor cure for enthusiasm, or a disordered understanding. It may increase but not extinguish such an ignis fatuus.”[482]
On the evening of what was to be the world’s last day, Wesley preached at Spitalfields, on “Prepare to meet thy God”; and largely showed the utter absurdity of the supposition, that the world was to end as Bell predicted; but, notwithstanding all that he could say, many were afraid to go to bed, and some wandered in the fields, being persuaded that, if the world at large did not become a wreck, at all events an earthquake would engulf London.