This work was begun in 1749, and completed in 1755. A prodigious number of books were read. Folios and quartos had to be reduced to 12mo volumes. Some were abridged on horseback, and others at wayside inns and houses where Wesley tarried for a night. During the six years spent in finishing his task, he suffered a long and serious illness; had to provide his school at Kingswood with necessary books; wrote his “Explanatory Notes on the New Testament”; and was laboriously engaged in preaching Christ, and governing his societies. The work was Herculean. Such an enterprise had never before been attempted. It was a noble effort to make the masses—his own societies in particular—acquainted with a galaxy of the noblest men the Christian church has ever had. His design was to leave out whatever might be deemed objectionable or unimportant in sentiment, and superfluous in language; to divest practical theology from logical technicalities and unnecessary digressions; and to separate the rich ore of evangelical truth from the base alloy of Pelagian and Calvinian error. In some instances he failed in doing this. He writes:—“I was obliged to prepare most of these tracts for the press just as I could snatch time for it; not transcribing them; none expected it of me; but only marking the lines with my pen, and altering or adding a few words here or there, as I had mentioned in the preface. Besides, as it was not in my power to attend the press, that care necessarily devolved on others; through whose inattention a hundred passages were left in, which I had scratched out. It is probable too, I myself might overlook some sentences which were not suitable with my own principles. It is certain, the correctors of the press did this in not a few instances.”[81] This was written in 1772, as a reply to the charge, that, in his writings, he had contradicted himself. “If,” says he, “there are a hundred passages in the ‘Christian Library’ which contradict any or all of my doctrines, these are no proofs that I contradict myself. Be it observed once for all, citations from the ‘Christian Library’ prove nothing but the carelessness of the correctors.”[82]
This is an important fact to be borne in mind by those who are possessors of the first edition only. After the attack just mentioned, Wesley read the whole of the ‘Christian Library’ with careful attention, and marked with his pen the passages which he deemed objectionable in sentiment; and, from this corrected copy, the new edition, in thirty vols., octavo, issued in 1819-26, was printed.[83]
Wesley wrote not for pecuniary gain, but for the profit of his people. Three years before the work was finished, he had already been a loser to the amount of £200, no inconsiderable sum for a man like him. Still the publication went on, and, in due time, one of the grandest projects of his life was finished.
The first volume was published in 1749. Two years elapsed before the second was given to the public. In the preface, he affirms his belief, “that there is not in the world a more complete body of divinity, than is now extant in the English tongue, in the writings of the last and present century; and that, were a man to spend fourscore years, with the most indefatigable application, he could go but a little way, toward reading what had been published within the last hundred and fifty years.” His endeavour was “to extract such a collection of divinity as was all true; all agreeable to the oracles of God; all practical, unmixed with controversy; and all intelligible to plain men.”
The opening volume contains—1. The Epistles of the apostolical fathers, Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, whom he believed to be “endued with the extraordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit,” and whose writings, “though not of equal authority with the holy Scriptures,” he considered to be “worthy of a much greater respect than any composures that have been made since.” 2. The Martyrdoms of Ignatius and Polycarp. 3. An Extract from the Homilies of Macarius, born about the year 301. 4. An Extract of John Arndt’s “True Christianity”; Arndt was an eminent protestant divine, who died in 1621.
1750
1750
Age 47
WHITEFIELD was now an evangelist at large,—the minister of no church in particular, but a preacher labouring for all. Early in January, he wrote: “I have offered Mr. Wesley to assist occasionally at his chapel. Oh that I may be a freedman, and ready to help all that preach and love the Lord Jesus in sincerity! I am a debtor to the greek and to the barbarian, to the wise and to the unwise; and think it my highest privilege to preach Christ and Him crucified to all.”[84] Accordingly, on Friday, January 19, Wesley read prayers at West Street chapel, and Whitefield delivered “a plain, affectionate discourse.” On the Sunday following, the order was reversed; Whitefield read the prayers, and Wesley preached; after which, they unitedly administered the sacrament to about twelve hundred people.[85] On Sunday, the 28th, the liturgy was read by Wesley, and Whitefield preached the sermon. The two friends were now visibly as well as really united. Wesley remarks: “By the blessing of God, one more stumbling block is removed. How wise is God in giving different talents to different preachers! Even Mr. Whitefield’s little improprieties, both of language and manner, were a means of profiting many, who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more calm and regular manner of speaking.”
The fraternization was not confined to Whitefield. In the same week, Howel Harris preached in the old Foundery, Wesley observing concerning him—“a powerful orator, both by nature and grace; but owing nothing to art or education.” “Thanks be to God,” writes the Countess of Huntingdon, “for the unanimity and love which have been displayed on this happy occasion. May the God of peace and harmony unite us all in a bond of affection! In forbearance toward each other, and mutual kindness, may we imitate His blessed disciples, so that all those who take knowledge of us may say, ‘See how these Christians love one another!’”[86]
We purposely refrain from following Whitefield in his wondrous wanderings; but it may be interjected here, that, during the year, when at Rotherham, the town crier was employed to give notice of a bear baiting, it being understood that Whitefield was the bear; and, accordingly, when he began to preach a mob surrounded him, and a row ensued. In Cumberland, his enemies injured his chaise, and cut off the tail of one of his horses. At Ulverstone, a clergyman, looking more like a butcher than a minister, charged a constable to arrest him. But none of these things checked his triumphal march. People, by thousands, flocked to hear him. At a single sacramental service, Grimshaw’s church, at Haworth, was thrice filled with communicants. From his leaving London to his reaching Edinburgh, he preached ninety times, to about a hundred and forty thousand people. At Lady Huntingdon’s, he seemed to think himself at the gates of paradise. He writes: “October 11.—For a day or two, her ladyship has had five clergymen under her roof. Her house is indeed a Bethel. To us in the ministry, it looks like a college. We have the sacrament every morning, heavenly conversation all day, and preach at night. This is to live at court, indeed.”[87]